Silva 2012

Silva, Eduardo. 2012. "Exchange Rising? Karl Polanyi and Contentious Politics in Contemporary Latin America". Latin American Politics and Society. 54 (3): 1-32.

• Introduction
• organized workers and their capacity for mobilization were a key nonparty political societal source of advocacy and defense of protections [from capitalism in the 20th century]" (1)
• But deindustrialization, privatizaion, deregulation, and business-friendly labor codes debilitated the workplace as the locus from which to organize effective societal countermovement [against neoliberalism]"
• so what now? who will stand up against capitalism?
• Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador suggest that Polanyi's theory may still be useful (2)
• that is, that the circuits of exchange in capitalism, the commodification of labor, land, and money, can be sources of mobilization and resistance
• this article seeks to anchor Polanyi in real events
• thsi article also needs an explanation for how social movements reocgnized the common threat of recommodification and then formed horizontal linkages to fight it (3)
• goes for contentious politics literature, using threat, framing, and brokerage
• this article combines this idea with Poanyi's circuits of exchaage
• NOTE: defnesive reactiosn to recommodification were also mized with identity, organization, and disruptive action, NOR DID LABOR DISAPPEAR FROM THE SCENE
• labor was important before neoliberalism, and likely led the charge against reforms initially, but in many places there is a new "head" organization in current contentious politics, and it tends to not be labor (4)
• Two Sources of Societal Countermovement to Free-Market Captialism: Production and Exchange
• Marx focused on point of production (4-5)
• concentration of workers created shared identities (5)
• large-scale industrial owrkplace provided place for uniosn to organize
• power depended on ability of unions to disrupt production
• Polanyi had a different persepective
• what's important are the attempts to subordinate market economics to SOCIAL RELATIONS
• people demadn some stability and reciprocity, but te market is to volatile to give it to them (6)
• ressistance to free-market (in Polanyi's view) can come from more places than just the industrial proleriat
• Polanyi predicts blacklash against the free-market, McAdam explains the nuts and bolts of how the movements are created (7)
• Market Reforms, National Populism, and Organized Labor
• "National populism was Latin America's version of the social democratic compromise that evolved in Europe during the long 20th century (8)
• a coalition of urban labor, middle classes, and domestic market oriented bourgeoisie, mediated by the state, supported ISI
• labor in Latin America was not as powerful as labor in Europe, which is why they had to rely on a coalition with the middle class and labor-friendly parties (9)
• labor led the popular sectors, most of the others got a decent deal, but not as good as labor (8-9)
• first and second stage structural (neoliberal) reforms intensified the commodification of labor , land, and money
• first stage was liberalizing the economy, shrinking the economic reach of hte state (10)
• second stage extended market logic to education, healthcare, other government services
• labor protested, but was too weakened by reforms to stop them
• Exchange, threat, and Contentious Politics
• new social movements arose from territories, social categories, identity politics because the point of production was no longer a relevant reference (11)
• but they operated alongside class-based groups, ie unions
• Many of the grievances sought by these groups were based around the commodificiation of land, labor, or money (12)
• peasants wanted land reforms, issues that were often intertwined with indigenous identity movements
• downside is that these movements tended to be a bit more heterogeneous that old union movements, since new movements were mobilized around multiple issues, not just at the point of production (like labor of old)
• but the weakness of labor also meant these movemetns had a chance to be of more central importance to the resistance against capitalism
• Argentina
• Unemployed movements showed up first in small towns in the interior (13)
• because they were unemployed, locus of fight was communities, not the workplace
• successful unemployed and underemployed movements in the WOrkers' Party in the late1990s (14)
• piqueteros, asembleas populares also happening
• these community-based movements linked up with the CTA
• the main CGT never hooked up with these movements, was mainly fighting rear-guard actions to control its own downsizing (15)
• Bolivia
• COB national union was powerful in Bolivia, but was massively weakened by privatization of tin mines and radical downsizing of the satate (16)
• coca federations, other peasant groups rose up in their place
• coca sindicatos were targeted for eradication by the US and Bolivian authorities in counternarcotics raids
• the CSUTCB union joined up with the cocaleros, framed the movement as anti-imperialism, neogtiated coca laws with the federal government (17)
• intertwining of material and indigenous culture strengthened the movement
• when the government took on indigenous rights and customs, the movement further consolidated itself and fought off this challenge
• also, water wars (18) and gas wars, demanding water access and use of money from gas mining to benefit the nation
• Ecuador
• urban labor movements mobilized against the reforms, but were weak and easily coopted (19)
• organized indigenous peoples became the main opposition to neoliberalism
• CONAIE, combined movement of highland and lowland indigenous movements, blocked land liberalization
• Exchange and the Repertoire of Contention
• direct action in the form of roadblocks, takeovers, and other disruptions to daily business overtook strikes on production as the most important form of direct action (19-21)
• Exchange and Framing
• exchange-based framing allowed individuals to unite despite the fact that they were in different locations in the structure of production (22)
• neoliberalism became an important frame
• it came to stand for loss of sovereignty to foreign governments, international institutions, and transnational capital
• corruption by government officials and helping foreign creditors and/or foreign banks was framed as theft
• moral indignation rallied people (22-23)
• life became an encompassing frame as well
• neoliberalism became an assault on life
• such big terms, frames allowed groups to make many horizontal linkages, more than just class-based ideas (23)
• (23-24) in Argentina many people experienced unemployment, precarity, or new forms of employment which they attributed to neoliberalism
• many differently situated people recognized themselves as part of the world of work, and saw neoliberal reforms as a worsening of their work lives (24)
• some dissident unions began proclaiming "the neighborhood is the new factory"
• this shifted the center of resistance away fro teh factory and into popular sector neighborhoods
• the demand for state intervention brought in other groups as well, environmentalists, gender, human rights, as they saw the state as the only actor who could protect them from the market
• Conclusions
• in practical matters, this means that movements need to be more broadly cooperative and coordinate with each other (26)
• but it also brings a challenge to the left in Latin America, who will be expected to agglomerate and channel these movements into real political power