Paper short abstract:

Argentina's 2001 crisis of neoliberalism led to an explosion of worker-recovered companies and state policy responses which sought to both support yet deradicalise the movement. This paper analyses the experience of workers' self-management and assesses its impact on worker subjectivities since then

Paper long abstract:

This article analyses worker responses to mass unemployment during Argentina's economic 2001 crisis with a particular focus on the recovered company movement as well as the state's policy responses to it. We assess the extent to which the state has taken an active role in supporting, yet also de-mobilising and de-radicalising this autonomous, grassroots movement under Kirchnerismo's National Popular project. The impact of participation on worker subjectivities is examined as is the government's rhetoric of empowerment and the theme of participatory democracy. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first, we identify the 2001 popular revolt against a decade of neoliberal reforms in the 1990s and its significance for both the emergence of the self-management project and the state's policy responses to it. In the second section, the ways in which the government have tried to control and co-opt workers self-management initiatives through the establishment of state cooperatives are examined, with a particular focus on the Programme for Self-Managed Work and Plan Let's Get to Work, both in 2004. The concluding section evaluates the political and economic sustainability of these state initiatives as a credible alternative to neo-liberal policies in Argentina and the region, given the mounting political opposition to the Kirchner government in the context of increased economic difficulties.