Economic Redemption in La Forja, Argentina

Argentina, which was soon to become the economic powerhouse, quickly descends into a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass unemployment. President Carlos Menem transformed Argentina by selling out every public asset he could find; he privatized factories, and created many corporate handouts. The nation approved of Menem’s changes, and Washington said “This is the best thing ever” (The Take) What the citizens didn’t realize is that by transforming the nation this way, Menem was creating a capitalist wild west. This caused more than half the people to live under the poverty line, and they were at the point where being offered food for pay was the citizen’s only option.

The Forja auto plant lies dormant after Menem’s crucial choices. The employees take action and form a new movement of workers who are occupying their own bankrupt businesses, which create jobs for the recently unemployed. Freddy Espinoza the president of La Forja joined with co-workers in hopes of bringing their factory back to life without a boss making all the decisions. The worker’s plan was to have a democratic organization where everyone votes on all decisions, not just one person making the choices. Their biggest inspiration on the movement was the Zanon Ceramics factory. The factory has been worker controlled for just over two years at this time, and succeeded in everything they had strived for. Just like Zanon becoming a successful cooperative business, some Canadian cooperative businesses have become very successful and well known. Agropur, a dairy company providing their products to name-bran yogurts and ice cream companies, is a very successful cooperative business. Even though Canada is mostly a neoliberalism country, abiding by the rules of having...

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...t taking “no” as an answer. If there is one thing that the Forja workers taught people is that nothing in life will come easy. If Canada had this attitude we would be a lot further in our economic life. Social justice is not necessarily the key to everything, but it is a start.

Works Cited

Falconer, D. (2013, September 20). 'Theme 1: Social Protest Against Globalization/Neoliberalism.’ Lecture conducted in 'Introduction to Social Justice, 38-101' from the University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario.

Falconer, D. (2013, September 24). 'Theme 1: Social Protest Against Globalization/Neoliberalism.’ Lecture conducted in 'Introduction to Social Justice, 38-101' from the University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario.

Falconer, D. (2013, November 5). 'Theme 5: Work’ Lecture conducted in 'Introduction to Social Justice, 38-101' from the University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario.