As previously stated, I am keeping people updated on the CBC documentary, The Take. As a recap, the doc is about the worker's uprising in Argentina. In Argentina, jobs are scarce due to the collapse of the industrial sector which was brought about by contracts and agreements with the IMF.
Now, the labourers of these foreclosed factories are creating workers' assemblies to re-open the buildings and ensure their right to work. The workers refer to these assemblies as co-operatives: everybody has a say and everybody gets to work.
However, since the State and the Corporation are intrinsically linked, the workers are finding it very difficult to escape the bureaucratic process of making the factories 'legitimate'. This obstacle brings up the fundamental difference between the formal and informal markets.
Formal markets are deemed legitimate by the State because they have completed and paid-off an authorized legal process. Informal markets are seen as illegitimate because of, what? Although safety and human rights regulations are benefits to the legitimization process, small businesses and entrepreneurs are failing in the market because they cannot afford legitimacy.
Secondly, those that can afford it are big businesses, major corporations, that also get tax relief and subsidies.
What about this legitimization process is fair?
Legitimacy should come from ownership of one's work and product as long as it does not impede or hurt another person's life.
Well, that is not really worth buying into, is it? How else would the rich get richer?
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