Una lectura de Polanyi desde la economía social y solidaria en América Latina

Abstract

Se presentan elementos del pensamiento social y de conceptos desarrollados por Karl Polanyi, en confrontación con el liberalismo económico, haciendo un paralelo con la lucha actual contra el neoliberalismo. Se plantean diferencias que surgen al hacer una lectura desde América Latina: un sesgo que podría calificarse como eurocéntrico, que excluye consideraciones sobre la co-constitución de AMérica y Europa, la heterogeneidad estructural que nos hace economías de mercado incompleta. A la vez se muestra la coherencia entre aportes de Polanyi y la propuesta de construir Otra Economía con el aporte de prácticas de Economía Social y Solidaria de la cual se esbozan algunos rasgos.

Karl Polanyi and substantivism in economic development

“…The autonomous market is the result of the conscious action and articulation of the state in favor of a transformation of history that has debased multi-secular traditions and customs. This created a situation that led to unsustainable situations which generated new actions of politics in a double movement that Polanyi interprets not as a mechanical movement, but as directed with the intention of overcoming the tendencies for the self-destruction of society (Coraggio, 2014). Polanyi's argument was that the cataclysmic events of the time such as World War I, the rise of fascism, the Great Depression, the implosion of the world market, and an arms race that pointed to a new global conflict were not isolated facts but manifestations of a problem underlying the rupture of social unity, which was rooted in the "market society" (Dale, 2010).…”

“…The economy in its substantive sense refers to an entire area of social life in general, completely circumscribed by practices, rules and institutions, whose objective is the production, distribution and consumption of resources, goods or services necessary for the individual and the collective (Sobel, PosTEL, 2016). Substantial economics is the system of institutions, values, and practices that a society uses to define, mobilize, distribute, and organize capabilities and resources to best meet the legitimate needs of all according to Coraggio (2014). Such rationale was inspired by Polanyi's thinking and continued by its followers.…”

Ethical and methodological challenges for a lawyer facing fieldwork amidst the working poor

“…Let me give what I think is a good example of why I don't believe that sanitizing the poor is good for the poor. Some scholars like Coraggio (2012) argue that there is an increasing number of poor workers in Latin America who oppose capitalist thought by creating forms of self-employment based on relations of solidarity, reciprocity, and cooperation but not on capitalist relations. Their conclusions are based on very specific examples of groups of poor workers who joined efforts after moments of massive political or economic crises (hyperinflation, dictatorships) or on the experiences of minority groups with very specific cosmogonies (indigenous communities, highly ideologized workers), but not on the experiences of the traditionally marginalized and atomized majority of the working poor.…”

Clusters in the Solidarity Economy: the strategy of participating in networks of enterprises in Brazil

“…The draft of what became the Solidarity Economy movement, or Social Economy in some countries, appeared in the context of resistance to a system of increasing social exclusion, poverty and structural unemployment, resulting from the emphasis on capital accumulation and profit maximization. In fact, the creation of solidarity enterprises in Brazil, according to the SENAES, emanates as an alternative to unemployment or a complementary source of income (Singer, 2005a, 2005b, Brazil, 2007, 2008, Coraggio, 2014. Commonly depicted as similar, the difference that can be established between social economy and solidarity economy emerges from the experiences of distinct countries; inasmuch Solidarity Economy is associated with the creation of networks and initiatives for generating collective, sustainable and solidary forms for the production, trade and consumption within communities (Satgar, 2014).…”