Abstract

The article claims that policies aimed to reduce social inequality during the post-War economic growth were coterminous with the development of waged labor, and arose from a strategy of negociation about social mobility. Though the imperative was to redistribute the benefits of the economic growth - through income policies, social protection and access to rights - this often only confirmed the hierarchy of inequalities existing in the wage system. Today inequality is increasing within a very different frame of labor relations; namely, social mobility seems a less crucial worry than the fear of social dumping. Although the image of a dual society going toward further polarization is becoming quite popular, the crucial challenge for social theory rather consists in conceptualizing what happens between the extreme positions (through processes of destabilization and vulnerabilization), where most of the current erosion of the social occurs.