Super-exploitation: precarity and the proletarian condition through the perspective of Marxist theory of dependency

In this article we analyse the issue of increasing precarity in the world of work in light of the Brazilian Ruy Mauro Marini’s theses and the concept of super-exploitation. Forged in the domain of a Marxist theory of dependency, the concept was originally formulated to designate specific regimes within Latin American social formations. In this respect, first we review certain global trends in the world of work and transformation processes in dependent countries’ regimes of super-exploitation, going on then to examine the issue’s contemporary emergence as a phenomenon in central capitalist countries. Finally, we discuss the category’s validity, as well as its implications for understanding new morphologies of the working class both in Latin America and across the world.