Notes for a Sociology of Economies Based on Self-Management, Solidarity and Work in Latin America
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A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Goméz Ñuñez, Nicolás Article Notes for a sociology of economies based on self- management, solidarity and work in Latin America economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter Provided in Cooperation with: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), Cologne Suggested Citation: Goméz Ñuñez, Nicolás (2019) : Notes for a sociology of economies based on self-management, solidarity and work in Latin America, economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter, ISSN 1871-3351, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), Cologne, Vol. 20, Iss. 3, pp. 6-11 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/200969 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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This position recognizes economies that there are several biases when studying economic phenomena: for instance, the belief that there are “ex- perts” who can anticipate the performance of econom- based on self- ic organizations without resorting to the variables that constitute their framework of action; or the lack of management, consanguineous relations that forge the communitari- an social capital of the families that create monopolies. The social economy perspective shows that mar- solidarity and ket economies are not based exclusively on the “for-profit” business model, but rather on a variety of property and organizational modalities. work in Latin In Latin America, the term solidarity economy was coined to name the strategies that women and men created to solve the problems derived from America changes in labor markets, lack of housing, poverty, and the deterioration of the environment that results from the depletion of biodiversity and the privatiza- Nicolás Gómez Núñez tion of common goods. Undoubtedly, the history of these collective experiences of economic organization and the investigations that address them are related to the development of various dictatorships, such as that he construction of economies invites us to re- of General Stroessner (1954–1989) in Paraguay; the flect on the way people experience being own- “bureaucratic and developmentalists” in Argentina ers and workers of their organizations, and how (1966–1970) and Brazil (1964–1985); the “nationalists Tthese communities make decisions and implement and reformers” such as General Torres in Bolivia modes of production and distribution to satisfy their (1970–1971) and Velazco Alvarado in Peru (1968– needs. Economic sociology deals with these matters. 1975); and the “terrorists and neoliberals” in Argenti- This approach incorporates the strength of evi- na (1976–1983), Bolivia (1971–1978), Chile (1973– dence, thanks to which it avoids the biases that other 1988), and Uruguay (1973–1988) (Paredes 2004). inquiries have already anticipated. In the practical field of economics, howev- Nicolás Gómez Núñez is a sociologists and researcher at the Faculty of Education and er, the narrative of orthodox economic Social Sciences of the Central University of Chile. His main lines of research are social discipline produces a rhetoric whose economy, epistemology and research methodology in social sciences, and economic sociology. His latest publications include “Technology and Reciprocity in Urban performative capacity becomes a pro- Popular Economy” (Tecnología y reciprocidad en la economía popular urbana) and duction force (Latour and Lépinay “The economies of the invisible: views and experiences of social and solidarity 2009). In the exercise of demarcations, economy” (Las economías de lo invisible: miradas y experiencias de economía social y economic sociology has included the di- solidaria), Santiago, RIL. [email protected] versity of empirical referents, conceptu- al repertories, and epistemic-methodological scaf- Researchers at that time wanted to describe the folding to prevent scientific experience from being way marginalized, excluded and subordinated indi- tied exclusively to the study of a market that has the viduals developed solidarity within different types of capacity to transform values into prices. organizations. To this end, they focused in their work Here lie the inquiries into alternative econo- on four areas: the social management of production, mies. Concepts such as solidarity, social or popular socio-environmental rationality, cooperative work, economy reflect an interest in understanding how and the practices of reciprocity. women and men cope with exclusion from labor mar- Researchers use different labels to make sense of kets, which prevents them from pursuing life projects this reality. Social economy, solidarity economy, pop- or meeting their needs. ular economy, and “good living” all seek to describe economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter Volume 20 · Number 3 · July 2019 Notes for a sociology of economies based on self-management, solidarity and work in Latin America by Nicolás Gómez Núñez 7 historical modes of consumption, production, or dis- modifies the labor culture of the owner of the factory tribution with unique qualities that are reproduced in and leads towards de-proletarization; a similar situa- coexistence economies. Despite the variety of labels, tion occurs with people who have been socialized in however, one can list at least six emerging topics with- trade, as they experience contradictions between buy- in this flourishing scientific community. ing at a low price to sell at a high price, or participating 1. We have learned that the organizations of the in short chains based on fair treatment. popular economy blur the separation between an in- In reviewing the various cases that are being re- formal and formal economic sector (Lomnitz 2003, ported by colleagues in the field of solidarity economy, Weller 2000). We also know that these organizations I have no doubt that the most relevant inflection is are work-intensive (Nyssens 1998, Ferreira 2006, that experienced by socialized individuals from an Gaiger 2006), and that they produce unconventional early age to sell their capacity for work and to be de- resources that allow them to depend on community fined in the salaried workplace. Regrettably, the model participation. These resources include commensality, of “import substitution” that protects this process in reciprocity, solidarity, accumulation of values, social Latin America felt the consequences of the dependen- awareness, organizational culture, management skills, cy on international capital and of the alliances of the and popular creativity (Razeto 1984, Max-Neef, Eliz- privileged sectors with the capitalist transactional alde and Hopenhayn 1993). groups. Hence, in the last thirty years, joint ventures Documentation of these new productive factors and state-owned companies have been under privat- required a different denomination: Factor C. This cat- ization and others have had to compete with merchan- egory was first used by Razeto (1987), who sought to dise produced on the basis of dumping, the prices of organize the dimensions of the productive processes which are obtained when the labor force is in a situa- of popular economic organizations that did not fit the tion of slavery or people cannot defend their rights. classic productive factors: capital, land, and labor. Fac- In this context, the closure of national and work- tor C rather brought together variables as different as ers’ factories (fábricas populares) became the norm, companionship, commensality, sharing, communion, inviting us to carry out systematic studies on the com- community, charisma, or communication, thanks to panies recovered by their workers. The various aspects which a novel area could be recognized to guide re- addressed in this field include inquiry into the impor- flection on the economy. At the same time, however, tance attached to self-management (Ruggeri 2012), the concept of Factor C did not help with understand- decision-making in the assemblies (Rebón 2017), and ing the phenomena that derived from these interac- descriptions of the tensions that appear in speeches tions, such as the collective