Paper short abstract:

Limitation of capitalist principles and ethics have long been an issue for self-organized enterprises. Oscillating between the common and the market infrastructure, as a contested terrain, constitutes a critical factor for the viability and potential of self-management initiatives.

Paper long abstract:

Limitation of capitalist principles and ethics have long been an issue for self-organized enterprises both in terms of practice and literature. Self-organized enterprises operate in capitalist environments, where needs and ideology delineate the means and methods of production for them. Even though capitalist modes of labour organization, administration and management are typically expelled from the workplace, issues of growth, investment, production and circulation are shaped by dominant forms of production. Nevertheless, communities of solidarity along with spatial and techno-material settings constitute the infrastructure of practices of commoning in endeavours of self-organization. We compare between the cases of factory occupation movement in Argentina and the occupation of the VIOME factory in Greece (2010), where a shift to self-organization emerged as answer to the mass unemployment following the Argentinian and Greek economic crises. In that vein, we focus on struggles revolving around the use and ownership of spatial-material infrastructure and the production of use-values highlighting the emancipatory potential of self-organization. Space and objects attain elevated symbolic statuses as a contested terrain, while at the same time material settings are physically transformed, following considerations of the collective’s participation in networks of distribution and solidarity. Finally, we focus on skills and competences as a critical factor that leads to material transformations.