Call for Papers: "The Worker's Economy" U of Buenos Aires, July 19-21, 2007

The University of Buenos Aires, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, the
Center for Global Justice and the Argentina Autonomista Project are
excited to invite you to:

The First International Gathering to Debate and Discuss Self-Management

"The Worker's Economy: Self-Management and the Distribution of Wealth"

July 19-21, 2007
University of Buenos Aires
217 - 25 de Mayo Avenue
Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Workers' struggles have reemerged with force in the last decade in numerous forms--union-based struggles, self-managed workspaces, rural movements, unemployed workers' movements.... These are responses to the hegemony of neoliberal globalization imposing itself throughout the world with absolutist pretensions after the debacle of so-called "real socialism."

At the same time, the old methods and strategies of struggle--class-based parties and traditional unions, amongst others--have by now shown themselves to be, at minimum, insufficient. Old debates and ideological frameworks are now in crisis. The dominant discourses used to describe the functioning of the capitalist world system can no longer explain quickly enough (never mind predict) the changes in this system that have been occurring over the past few decades, while popular struggles have had to create new paths without having a clear horizon in sight from which to map out a final destiny. And the plethora of means ever available for capitalism to respond to threats against it, as well as the sheer force and relentlessness of its repressive power, amply overcomes the popular sectors' capacity for change...with tragic consequences.

While the taking of State power has been the driving objective of political forces for more than a century now, more recently there have appeared compelling movements that, on occasion, have questioned such objectives for revolutionary action. At minimum, these movements distance their strategies and tactics from the aims of taking State power, recognizing the difficulties of such a task. But, as evidenced in various Latin American contexts, some popular movements with solid historical roots have ended up allying themselves with national governments swept into power via electoral triumph. And so, when they least expected it, these movements found themselves at times controlling key sectors of the State's administrative apparatus which, in turn, needed to be profoundly transformed in order to be oriented towards
grassroots-based policies.

Please send a 250-word (max) abstract by May 15, 2007, or any other correspondence to: ( in Spanish): fabierta@filo.uba.ar, (In English): UBA.selfmanagement@gmail.com

For more information about this conference please visit
http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/
or http://www.autonomista.org)