[stop-imf] Roger Ebert Reviews 'The Take'

[Robert Weissman]

The Take

Documentary Tracks Workers Who 'Take' Chance at Revival
by Roger Ebert

Published on Friday, February 18, 2005
by the Chicago Sun Times

As one documentary after another attacks the
International Monetary Fund and its pillaging of the
Third World, I wish I knew the first thing about global
economics. If these films are as correct as they are
persuasive, international monetary policy is
essentially a scheme to bankrupt smaller nations and
cast their populations into poverty, while
multinational corporations loot their assets and whisk
the money away to safe havens and the pockets of rich
corporations and their friends. But that cannot be, can
it? Surely the IMF's disastrous record is the result of
bad luck, not legalized theft?

Forja workers take time out on the roof of their
worker-controlled factory in the made-in-Argentina
documentary "The Take."
I am still haunted by "Life and Debt" (2001), a
documentary explaining how tax-free zones were
established on, but not of, Jamaican soil. Behind their
barbed-wire fences, Jamaican law did not apply, workers
could not organize or strike, there were no benefits,
wages were minimal and factories exported cheap goods
without any benefit to the Jamaican economy other than
subsistence wages. Meanwhile, Jamaican agriculture was
destroyed by IMF requirements that Jamaica import
surplus U.S. agricultural products, which were
subsidized by U.S price supports and dumped in Jamaica
for less than local (or American) farmers could produce
them for. That destroyed the local dairy, onion and
potato industries. Jamaican bananas, which suffered
from the inconvenience of not being grown by Chiquita,
were barred from all markets except England. Didn't
seem cricket, especially since Jamaican onions were so
tasty.

Now here is "The Take," a Canadian documentary by Avi
Lewis and Naomi Klein, shot in Argentina, where a
prosperous middle-class economy was destroyed during 10
years of IMF policies, as enforced by President Carlos
Menem (1989-1999). Factories were closed, their assets
were liquidated, and money fled the country, sometimes
literally by the truckload. After most of it was gone,
Menem closed the banks, causing panic. Today more than
half of all Argentineans live in poverty, unemployment
is epidemic, and the crime rate is scary.

In the face of this disaster, workers at several closed
factories attempted to occupy the factories, reopen
them and operate them. Their argument: The factories
were subsidized in the first place by public money, so
if the owners didn't want to operate them, the workers
deserved a chance. The owners saw this differently,
calling the occupations theft. Committees of workers
monitored the factories to prevent owners from selling
off machinery and other assets in defiance of the
courts. And many of the factories not only reopened,
but were able to turn a profit while producing
comparable or superior goods at lower prices.

A success story? Yes, according to the Movement of
Recovered Companies. No, according to the owners and
the courts. But after Menem wins his way into a runoff
election he suddenly drops out of the race, a moderate
candidate becomes president, the courts decide in favor
of the occupying workers, and the movement gains
legitimacy. The film focuses on an auto parts plant and
ceramics and garment factories, which are running
efficiently under worker management.

Is this sort of thing a threat to capitalism, or a
revival of it? The factories are doing what they did
before -- manufacturing goods and employing workers --
but they are doing it for the benefit of workers and
consumers, instead of as an exercise to send profits
flowing to top management. This is classic capitalism
as opposed to the management pocket-lining system,
which is essentially loot for the bosses, and bread and
beans for everybody else. Sounds refreshing to anyone
who has followed the recent tales of corporate greed in
North America. Is it legal? Well, if the factories are
closed, haven't the owners abandoned their moral right
to them? Especially if the factories were built with
public subsidies in the first place?

I wearily anticipate countless e-mails advising me I am
a hopelessly idealistic dreamer, and explaining how
when the rich get richer, everybody benefits. I will
forward the most inspiring of these messages to
minimum-wage workers at Wal-Mart, so they will
understand why labor unions would be bad for them,
while working unpaid overtime is good for the economy.
All I know is that the ladies at the garment factory
are turning out good-looking clothes, demand is up for
Zanon ceramics, and the auto parts factory is working
with a worker-controlled tractor factory to make some
good-looking machines. I think we can all agree that's
better than just sitting around.

Cast & Credits
First Run/Icarus Films presents a documentary directed
by Avi Lewis. Written by Naomi Klein. Running time: 87
minutes. No MPAA rating. In English and Spanish.

(c) 2005 rogerebert.com