Within his structural model, Fernandes introduces a psychosocial dimension, something that decades later would be incorporated into what is conceptualized as «subjectivity» and «capacity for action (or agency)» of subaltern subjects. Social action is not only driven by dark forces beyond human action (ie "structural"). On the contrary, Fernandes focuses his gaze on the (limited) options open to blacks and how their ways of acting –learned in the slave-owning past, what Zygmunt Bauman calls «class memory»– influence their process of integration into class society13.

Black is seen as a person who acts on stage and in social settings. Faced with the conditions posed by free labor and the presence of European mobile phone number list immigrants, black ex-slaves face difficulties of various kinds. Fernandes' attention focuses on the structural situation of the ex-slaves, whom he considers to be subjects and against whom he raises the "moral condition of the person". He sees ex-slaves as rational people, facing an opportunity structure and strategizing to deal with it.

Also as people with moral principles. Thus, the new condition of the labor market, «for the black or the mulatto (...) was secondary. What was essential was the moral condition of the person and his freedom to decide how, when and where to work »14. Thus, blacks and mulattoes are presented as subjects who have to face their freedom in an economic and social context for which their previous experience has not prepared them.