Workers and capitalists in Argentina - Essay Example

Workers and capitalists in Argentina Argentina represents unique economic and social environment caused by collapse in 2001. Many factories are occupied by workers who manage and control production activities without supervisors and professional managers. The main reason for factory occupation is to ensure stable employment and wages. "Despite challenges, Argentina's recuperated factory movement have created jobs, formed a broad network of mutual support among the worker-run workplaces and generated community projects" (Trigona, 2006).

Also, what workers call the economic structure, consisting of sets of relations in the sphere of the production and exchange of goods and services - social relations that are independent of and external to individuals' wills and that define 'empty' positions that they fill; the intersubjective or meaningful level of social consciousness; the level of action, both individual and collective, in various spheres of life. The slogan "Occupy, Resist, and Produce" is aimed to attract government attention to their problems and 'force' legislative bodies to incorporate laws for newly developed recuperated enterprises.

Also, under this slogan workers fight for government subsidies and financial support which are essential for technological development and innovations. Only in this case, factories will remain competitive on the market. The slogan vividly portrays the the established political-economic order where citizens 'occupy' factories, 'resist' government tension, and only then 'produce'. At each level the focus is confined: at the first, to relations of production (more specifically, ownership of the means of production); at the second, to the worlds of work and politics; and at the third, to industrial and political action.

The workers employ "self-management" system of control and supervision based on traditional management. All workers participate in the decisions concerning factory and production, employment and social production, "solidarity of class at the factory', etc. (Trigona, 2006). Also, the focus at each level is also much broader: at the structural level, it encompasses not only productive relations but also the sphere of 'circulation' and 'market positions'; and at the levels of consciousness and action, it encompasses ethnicity, religion, status, etc.

and the spheres of consumption and distribution as well as work and politics. Workers resist strongly eviction order from the state seeing them as the main threat to their liberty and employment. Strikes and civil disobedience movements are the main tools used by workers against bankruptcy laws. For instance, "in the aftermath of December 19 and 20, 2001 citizens and activists from piquetero groups, popular neighborhood assemblies and human rights organizations supported the recuperated enterprises with different measures" (Trigona, 2006).

Moreover, and in consequence, there is no overall story of a development through time from class structure through class consciousness to class action, nor any underlying theory of 'class interests' that could explain such a development: the historical possibilities are far more open and indeterminate. The slogan "our dreams do not fit our ballots" means that workers have no real power and rights legitimized by the government. From this perspective, familiar social institutions such as the state and the law can never be neutral between competing ways of life but must preserve the form of life in which individuals are ineluctibly embedded.

Also, it means that workers do not officially accepted by the state as a social force equal to other classes. The slogan underlines that worker will not right to take part in electoral politics and will have a great impact on legislative initiatives. In democratic society, it means that workers are excluded from traditional electoral politics and political decision-making. A government office, on the other hand, being publicly answerable for the uniform treatment of all citizens, has to be much more rule-governed and allow minimum 'freedom' to workers.

References1. Trigona, M. Recuperated Enterprises in Argentina: Reversing the Logic of Capitalism 2006. Available at: http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3158