The Privilege of Servitude: The New Service Proletariat in the Digital Age

by Ricardo Antunes

Overview

The Privilege of Servitude presents a detailed and up-to-date portrait of today's working class. Antunes examines the main trends in new labour relations, where precariousness, outsourcing, and deregulation have become the rule rather than the exception. He offers an in-depth analysis of the rise of the new service proletariat and contemporary forms of digital labour, while also exploring changes in labour relations globally—with a particular focus on Brazil’s recent history, from the period of redemocratisation to the Bolsonaro years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789004733756
Publisher:	Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	10/30/2025
Series:	Historical Materialism Book , #358
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Ricardo Antunes is a Full Professor of Sociology at the University of Campinas and the author of The Meanings of Work (Brill, 2013) and Farewell to Work? (Brill, 2021), among other books. He has been a Visiting Professor at Ca’ Foscari University and a Visiting Researcher at the University of Sussex.