COOPERATIVISMO NOS PROCESSOS DE ORGANIZAÇÃO POLÍTICA E ECONÔMICA DOS TRABALHADORES NA LUTA CONTRA A EXPROPRIAÇÃO CAPITALISTA NO CAMPO: a resistência do Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra no Maranhão

Abstract

This is a study on cooperativism in the current economic and political organization of workers, having as reference the resistance waged by the MST in Maranhão. The historical background of the study is disclosed, presenting the cooperativism as a contradictory tool on the workers struggling process, to the extent that its determinants present two perspectives: one used in the free market idealistic proposals presenting a political and ideological dimension that meet capitalist interests, being currently updated in the processes of flexibilization work; the other, expresses an alternative of resistance and struggle of the workers, which might be an important tool in the context of social struggles, if it is consciously constituted. A historical recovery of cooperativism, is also carried out, as one of the models of agricultural cooperation organized by the MST since the 1980s, when there was an intense worsening of the agrarian question due to the advancement of capitalism in the countryside. The study considers the cooperativism as a major instrument of political and economic organization for farmers, even though in Maranhão this initiative has shown weakness in relation to the economic return to the cooperative members. The main limits pointed out by the leaders in the production sector of the movement, have been: technical and managerial difficulties, lack of production technologies, as well as little support given by the State through public policies that generally follow the logic of the current agricultural policy, allowing the landowner to be the major beneficiary of public funds. The study identifies that somehow, politically, the cooperativism has contributed to the process of resistance within the MST, provided that it has led to the formation of new concepts about the organization of production and labor relations, even though this strategy is posed in a contradictory way.