The Popular and the Economy in Latin America: Concepts and Possible Policies

Abstract

“The popular” does not have a univocal definition, since it represents a complex reality and admits approaches from different angles. The possible ways of understanding the relationship between the popular and the economy are diverse. In this paper, I am interested in recovering the use, in certain currents of Latin American thought, of the concept of the urban informal sector (UIS) as popular economy.

I analyze this theoretical perspective and the political actions derived from it, as formulated by different authors. I present a state of the question concerning the formation and use of the category of popular economy in current Latin American thought. Four representatives are analyzed: Javier Iguíñiz, from Peru; Fernando Villarán, from Peru; Diego Palma, from Chile; and José Coraggio, from Argentina.

Although the perspective I propose focuses on part of the production in and about contemporary Latin America, the issue is not new. For example, much of eighteenth-century social history can be read as a succession of confrontations between an innovative market economy and the customary moral economy of the plebeians. In these confrontations, later class formations and class consciousness can be seen as prefigured.

Plebeian culture belongs to the people: it is a defense against the intrusions of the gentry or the clergy, and it consolidates the customs that serve the interests of the people’s own moral economy. The taverns are theirs, the fairs are theirs, and they have their own means of self-regulation.