Exhausted is the first word that comes to mind when describing my current state. Last night was a late night, and 24 hours later I am feeling its repercussions. Granted, I also made it through the entire day with no coffee! I think I’ll cede to my caffeine cravings tomorrow…
I promised to leave less time between blogs, so here’s another update. Right now, my seminar class is looking at the economic history of Argentina – pretty interesting, considering the country has tried (and failed at) almost every economic model imaginable. After the state-induced growth of the mid-30s through early 70s, the military dictatorship began to implement more market-friendly policies. With the nineties came mega privatizations and parity between the Argentine peso and US dollar. The parity, or convertability, of the currencies was intended to put an end to rampant hyperinflation, and in that it succeeded. Nonetheless, convertability is sustainable only in the short-term – as in 2 years max. Argentina maintained the parity for ten. It was a recipe for disaster.
In 2001, convertability had become a stranglehold on the Argentine economy. Why invest in or buy from a country with an extraordinarily overvalued currency? I’ll skip to the important part: when convertability came to an end and Argentina returned to a floating currency, the peso-dollar exchange rate jumped to 3:1 overnight. Savings were slashed to a third of what they had been during the convertability period, and Argentina’s middle class was up in arms. December 2001 saw five presidents in a period of 20 days, and no one knew what would come next.
Anyhow, against this backdrop was the worker’s movement. With all of the privatizations and arrivals of multinational corporations, many Argentines were left without work or without pay. Owners of factories, declaring bankruptcy, attempted to liquidate all assets and pocket the money despite the fact that they hadn’t paid their workers (or their taxes) for months (years?) – all of this right under the government’s nose! This is where it gets interesting: Refusing to let the owners get away with this, the workers banded together and occupied the factories. “Ocupar, resistir, producir” (occupy, resist, produce!) was their motto, and the right to work was their cause. In time, many of the factories worked with the state to have the factories expropriated and handed over to the workers themselves – hence the name fábricas recuperadas (recovered factories).
Yesterday (Tuesday) we visited a metallurgic factory (ex-La Baskonia) in the Buenos Aires Province and learned about how some 90 workers “took” the factory in 2003 and made an allegedly unprofitable enterprise profitable again. Today, we visited another factory, this time of the textile industry, and learned about how the workers at Brukman “took” the factory at the height of the crisis in 2001. Both factories now operate as cooperatives – it’s like communism from the bottom-up, not top-down like it’s always been implemented throughout history. Everyone earns the same pay, and there are no “bosses” or “owners.” Former blue-collar workers now assume all administrative and budgetary tasks, handle negotiations with other companies, etc. It’s really cool, but my early summer reading tells me this really isn’t super sustainable… (thanks, Ayn Rand).
The cooperative system seems to be working rather well right now, based on what I’ve read in class, as well as seen and heard in the actual factories. I just don’t see it as contributing much technologically, plus I cannot begin to imagine the liability issues (with regard to edifices, safety conditions, etc.) in an ownerless enterprise! Still, there is definitely something to be said about the right to meaningful work and what that can mean for an individual and his/her family. In both the recovered textile factory and the recovered metallurgy factory, machines were very labor-intensive – definitely not what you’d see in the super-modern and uber-efficient factories that have given a significant impetus to the neoliberal model. Oh, the trade-offs!
I don’t really know why I’m writing this entry. I’m not sure if people are actually interested in Argentina’s recovered factory movement, but I find it very interesting, especially coming from a state that’s been hit extremely hard by the closing of factories due to increasing mechanization of labor. “Ocupar, resistir, producir!” in the States? I don’t think that would go over too well. If they’re still debating private property vs. right to work in Argentina, I can only begin to imagine the hostility of a similar debate in the USA right now…
carpca7
