Dialectics and modernity, autonomy and solidarity

This article connects the contemporary crisis of modernity to the crisis of the Welfare State in the West and to its so far incomplete establishment in 'Latin'-America, with special reference to Brazil. The reflexivisation of modernity is thus linked to a discussion of citizenship and social police which harks back to the definition of the principles of social policy, focusing on the possible alternative of 'generative politics' as a means of creating new forms of collective solidarity. The crisis of dialectical thought and the problem of social change are thereby tackled and a different way of understanding them is put forward, in accordance with new sorts of contemporary sociability.