Impatience, Resistance, Production and Possibility: The Take, revisited

Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis have an interesting article in The Nation this week following up on the situation they documented a couple of years back in the extraordinary documentary The Take.

The Take is a document partly of the destructive tendencies of neoliberal capitalism, but more of the forms and structures that emerge in the wake of its collapse. When the Argentinian economy was detonated by a Menem-bomb at the turn of the decade, workers in the factories of Buenos Aires were left jobless, their bosses having fled for higher ground. At the end of every street, factories stood intact but empty. Dusting off the most basic sentences of Marx, workers realised the means of production were right there in front of them.

The story of how collectives formed, broke the gates and began to produce in these ghost factories--some more profitable than they ever were before--provides a strange sort of optimism that we're not used to seeing in the protest documentary. It shows a tangible model for real social change, and a brief glimmer of possibility of a better, fairer world. There's little more inspiring than a vanguard of aging seamstresses, storming a police line, fighting for their right to work and support each other. Nothing more, nothing less.

I had a fascinating conversation with Avi Lewis (son of the equally inspiring Stephen Lewis) a couple of years back which I've always meant to get around to posting. So here's a wonderful excuse.

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