The Social Innovations of Autogestión in Argentina’s Worker-Recuperated Enterprises

Abstract

Argentina’s worker-recuperated enterprises (empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores [ERTs]) have shown to be promising grassroots solutions by workers to the sociopolitical and socioeconomic crises that resulted from the country’s collapsing neoliberal model at the turn of the millennium. The author first explores the historical conjuncture in which ERTs emerged. Second, the author theoretically situates ERTs’ practices of autogestión (self-management) and workers’ cooperativism. Third, he sketches out their most common microeconomic and organizational challenges. Last, the author maps out four “social innovations” being spearheaded by ERTs, appraising the social and economic transformations that these innovations prefigure, especially during hard economic times.