A LAW OF THE COMMONS?: REFLECTIONS BETWEEN THE BEING AND THE BECOMING OF LAW

Abstract

The aim of this article is to share reflections on Law as an analytical category, originally produced as the theoretical underpinning of research aimed at investigating the way in which the legal formalization processes of popular self-managed work collectives occur. They resulted both from the bibliographical research that was part of the investigative effort (mobilizing, above all, critical theorists from Law and related areas – among whom the anthropologist Maurice Godelier stands out in particular, as well as the jurists Michel Mialle, Luis Alberto Warat and Evguiéni Pachukanis), and from the relationship between theory and reality provided by the observation of popular productive initiatives that took part in the investigation, carried out under the principles and techniques of participant research. The aim of the article was to reflect on the following questions: what part of human social life is revealed by the word Law? What specifically characterizes it under the hegemonic way of living and producing that is called capitalism? And finally, can the struggles to overcome capitalist relations also make use of the bet on the formation of another Law? Law is taken as an analytical category that goes beyond the limits of capitalist relations and remains central to those who believe in the need to transform the way in which human beings reproduce their existence. Based on the category of the Common, considerations are also made about the possibilities of Law as a useful space for building other forms of sociability, taking popular self-management work collectives as privileged spaces for re-signifying the legal phenomenon.