TAKING DESTINY INTO

THEIR OWN HANDS:

AUTOGESTIN AND COOPERATION IN
ARGENTINAS WORKER-RECUPERATED
ENTERPRISES

MARCELO ALEJANDRO VIETA

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE

STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT

YORK UNIVERSITY
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA

JUNE 2012

Marcelo Alejandro Vieta

Abstract
Since the crisis of Argentinas neoliberal model in the years spanning the turn of the millennium, almost
9,400 workers have occupied and now self-manage over 200 once-proprietary firms in distress, converting
them overwhelmingly into worker cooperatives. As a result, Argentinas empresas recuperadas por sus
trabajadores (worker-recuperated enterprises, or ERTs) can now be found throughout its economy,
inspiring the imaginaries of workers the world over. In reappropriating firms that once employed them via
projects of autogestin (self-management), ERT workers transform businesses into democratic and
socialized productive entities, directly address Argentinas chronic under- and unemployment, and return
control to workers.
Grounded in critical theoretical approaches, this dissertation explores ERTs prefigurative possibilities for
alternative economic arrangements, as well as the tensions interlacing them from having to exist within
competitive markets. To better understand this dual reality of ERTs, the dissertation deploys an
interdisciplinary, two-pronged grid of inquirya macro-level political economy of the working class axis
of research, and micro-level key informant interviews with ethnographic case studies of three exemplar
ERTs. This approach allows the study to delve into ERTs historical conjunctures, workers self-activity
within the labour process under capitalism, and the transformations of protagonists from managed
employees to self-managed workers.
Ultimately, the dissertation arrives at three major findings. Most broadly, it shows how ERT workers
projects of autogestin and cooperation are consolidated and strengthened through their collective
overcoming of crises within a moral economy of work. Second, it lays out ERTs social innovations,
which include the democratic values and horizontalized production processes that re-contour their
organizational structures, and the bonds of solidarity created between workers, ERTs, and surrounding
communities. And third, it unravels six recuperative moments interweaving ERTs social innovations: the
recuperation of workers labour-power, surpluses, capacities to associate and cooperate, the social
production of social wealth, the labour process, and the division of labour. Practically, these findings point
to viable paths beyond socioeconomic crises, exploitation, and alienation, for and by workers. Theoretically,
they contribute to advancing sociologies and critical theories of work and labour; theories of alternative
economics; and to our understanding of the formation and dynamics of worker cooperatives and labourmanaged firms.

Table of Contents
Abstract
Dedications
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations and Acrony ms
Glossary of Spanis h Terms and Phras es
Argentinas Empresas Recuperadas por sus Trabajadores: An Introduction
PART 1 W AYS OF UNDERSTANDIN G A RGENTINA S EMPRESAS RECUPERADAS: RESEARCHING , THEORIZING ,
AND H ISTORICIZING AUTOGESTIN
Chapter 1 Understanding and Res earching Argentinas Empresas Recuperadas por sus Trabajadores:
Reviewi ng the Literature and Mapping the Method
Chapter 2 Makers of Their Own History: Workers Self-Determination and Autogestin
Chapter 3 Conjunctures of Workers Self-Activity: Historically Situating Argentinas ERTs
PART 2 THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF AUTOGESTIN IN A RGENTINA S EMPRESAS RECUPERADAS
Chapter 4 Desti ny in Our Own Hands: Three Stories of Worker-Recuperations
Chapter 5 Occupy, Resist, Produce: Commo nalities in the Lived Experiences of Recuperating
Workplaces i n Argenti na
Chapter 6 The Chal l enges of Autogestin in Argentina
Chapter 7 Recuperati ng the Labour Process, Transforming Subjectivities: From Empleados to
Trabajadores Autogestionados and Compaeros
PART 3 RECUPERATING AUTOGESTIN
Chapter 8 Recuperati ng Autogestin, Prefiguring Alternatives: So me Possible Co nclusions
Appendix A Interview Protocol
Appendix B Learni ng Indicators
Appendix C Interviews Conducted and Meetings Attended
Bibliography