The Argentine economic crisis of 2001, the result of two decades of savage neoliberalism, left the country in ruins. The industrial fabric was dismantled and public companies were privatized. The financial “corralito” froze bank accounts, capital flight exceeded 40 billion dollars, and factories closed their doors in a succession of mass layoffs that impoverished the population.
In this context of crisis and political corruption, a wave of solidarity also emerged, in which workers from different factories and companies decided to respond and take over the means of production in a self-managed manner, taking direct control of them, without bosses. This happened in various sectors, from industry to hospitality and tourism, including graphic arts companies. It was not something adopted as a result of ideological debates, but as a logical and necessary response to urgency. The recovered factory movement was thus born as a direct response to desperation, claiming not only the means of production, but also dignity and integral democracy in the workplace and subsistence.
Although there are historical precedents of factories that become self-managed and turn into cooperatives, a process that began much earlier in many places around the world, and even as a temporary tool of trade union struggle in the country, the phenomenon spread after the crisis. This act of rebellion was the germ of a movement that would extend throughout the state and continent, and which the documentary The Take (2004) turned into a global symbol of resistance to the prevailing economic model. The phenomenon spread and can be counted in the hundreds across Latin America: more than 20 in Uruguay, more than a hundred in Brazil, and more than 400 in Argentina.
The documentary that reflects this, directed by Avi Lewis and written by renowned activist and author Naomi Klein, is a 87-minute Canadian production that was first shown in September 2004.
The narrative, delivered by the couple themselves, follows the struggle of the workers of La Forja, but also stops at the cases of the Brukman textile factory and the Zanon ceramics plant. Under the slogans “Fire the boss” and “Occupy, resist, produce,” the documentary builds a story that goes beyond simple chronicle to become an economic and social manifesto against the recipes of the International Monetary Fund and the privatization policies promoted during the Menem decade and neoliberalism in general.
The Take also portrays with rawness the judicial and legislative battle that workers had to fight to legalize their cooperatives.
The documentary shows how, against all odds, they managed to start the machines and produce with their own resources, turning the factory into a space for worker self-management. The film highlights solidarity among the different factories and neighborhood support, as in the case of Zanon, later renamed Fasinpat (from “fábrica sin patrón”: factory without a boss), where the community came out in defense of the workers against eviction orders.
The film’s legacy transcends its own running time. The Take not only documented a phenomenon, but also served as inspiration for similar movements in other countries, proving that worker self-management is possible even in the most adverse economic contexts and that democracy can be exercised from below.