Handbook of South American Governance by Riggirozzi Pia. Wylde Christopher. & Wylde Christopher

Author:Riggirozzi, Pia.,Wylde, Christopher. & Wylde, Christopher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Conclusion

The limitations and contradictions of the pink tide and attempts to resolve the lack of social and economic inclusion by leftist governments across the region have been the source of vociferous critique. While offering improvements in growth and social welfare provision, critics have shown that this has typically been at the cost of deepening exploitation, the suppression of social movements, and the consolidation of a neoliberal macroeconomic consensus. Moreover, with the collapse of many of these regimes, progressive attempts to address this dilemma of governance in the region appear to be further away than ever.

This chapter directly addresses this dilemma by engaging with what Marx and Lebowitz have termed the ‘political economy of the working class’ and by foregrounding the agency of the labouring classes in constructing their own resolutions. By focusing instead on the possibilities of Labour-Centred Development as emerging from the political economy of labour, the privileging of elite actors, such as the state, in improving the everyday lives of workers is challenged. Crucially, this chapter has shown how improvements have arisen not from elite-driven strategies, but instead from the self-activity at marginalized or obfuscated levels and agents of governance, the collective actions of the labouring classes.

These solutions have been apparent in countries throughout South America – from Venezuela in the north to Chile in the south. The two cases of LCD developed in depth in this chapter – the cordones industriales from 1970s Chile and the empresas recuperadas in Argentina today – provide a tantalizing glimpse into the transformational potential of these collective actions and what they can possibly achieve. In both cases, not only were new collective relations of production and exchange established, but workers demonstrated their ability to increase output and productivity, to raise employment and wages, to reduce inequality at work and in their wider communities, and to transform hierarchical forms of workplace organization through democratic participation.

Although emerging in distinct contexts – as a response to the victory of the socialist coalition of the UP in Chile in 1970 and as a response to stark economic crisis in Argentina after 2001 – both saw the mobilization of workers across a range of economic sectors, occupying their places of work and transforming their organization. In Chile, this led to the collective organization of large and small factories, nominally tied to the state-led nationalization of leading enterprises, into networks of production and exchange. In Argentina, this has led to an ongoing growth in the formal and informal establishment of worker self-management in a range of economic activities, with attempts to drive companies into bankruptcy met with worker occupation and the rejuvenation of manufacturing firms, hotels, and many more.

The progressive limitations of state-led strategies in South America mean that looking to these relatively short-lived, but transformative experiences is vital for those that seek to identify the dynamics from which alternative forms of development that secure the interests and wellbeing of workers and their communities can arise. Again, both examples emerged in contexts where a relatively supportive regime held power – Allende and the UP in Chile and Kirchner in Argentina.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.