After tracing the path taken by the Partido dos Trabalhadores to the Presidency of Brazil, Francisco de Oliveira describes how the first years of the PT adminstration, which continued on the same footing as the previous government, relate to a broader context characterized by the consequences of the ascendancy of finance capital: the impossibility of hegemony due to the increasing chasm between rich and poor; the decomposition of class bases, including that of the bourgeoisie due to the antagonism between financial (...) and industrial capital; emergent populism; and finally the incorporation of parties and politics into the State, even as the economy and daily life are increasingly privatized. (shrink)