Gênese e estrutura do Fio da Meada: Um panorama da obra de Paulo Arantes

We present an overview of the work of Brazilian philosopher Paulo Arantes, analyzing the points of contact between seven of his main works: Ressentimento da Dialética, Sentimento da Dialética, O Fio da Meada, Zero à Esquerda, Extinção, O Novo Tempo do Mundo and Um Departamento Francês de Ultramar. Reconstructing Arantes’ arguments, we suggest fundamental concerns behind the thematic diversity of those works: the limits of capitalist modernization, the relationship between those limits and modern rationality, and the bizarre form of extended life consequently in vogue. This triple problem is repeated several times in Arantes' work, as the author's attention oscillates between its manifestation in the world periphery and in capitalist metropolises.