The Class Basis of Anticapitalism: Labor Politics in Contemporary Argentina

Abstract

In this chapter I aim to contribute to bring Erik Olin Wright's early class analysis into relationship with his later oeuvre on anticapitalist strategies. As Michael Burawoy has pointed out, Erik's work has moved from a class analysis without utopia to a utopia without class analysis (Burawoy 2020, 69). One way of transcending this hiatus is to explore the political ramifications of class divisions that affect agents of transformations capable of taking up the tasks of anticapitalism (i.e. resist capitalism while at the same time prefigure a socialist pathway to transcend it). In particular, I will explore the way in which the socio-economic fragmentation of the working class in Latin America affects the capabilities of the labor movement to become an agent for progressive social change and, potentially, an anticapitalist social force. I first engage in what Erik defined as the task of "diagnosis and critique" of capitalism. Using statistical analysis of survey data and ethnographic material from fieldwork research, I explore the links between formal and informal workers in the formation of the contemporary labor movement in Argentina. The focus is to discuss the complex relation between class identity and class interests in the collective action dynamics of a fragmented working class. In the final part of the chapter I explore the implications of these dynamics for Erik's theory of anticapitalism in the Latin American context. I argue that grassroots unions that organize to overcome the socio-economic fragmentation of the working class can be understood as "agents of transformations" that could help undermine capitalism from within. A strong unified labor movement would be a prerequisite for progressive social change in the context of crisis and permanent austerity, and it is simultaneously a potential platform for anticapitalist strategies.