Cooperativismo e crédito na região colonial do RS : convergências e contradições

Abstract

The cooperative has its historical roots stuck in the Industrial Revolution. Was born, therefore, inextricably linked to the rise of capitalism in nineteenth-century European society. It was proposed initially as an alternative path to economic liberalism, advocating self-help (-mutual) as an instrument to achieve what we call a "moral economy". The greatest question that was created to be cooperative without being competitive. Same time, European immigration to America offers a model for implementation of a set of socio-economic structuresunder, which the cooperative itself was part, being used in self-organization of the colonies of immigrants, especially in southern Brazil. In this work, two cases are examined as models of non-governmental reaction of the peasants. The research effort takes place in order to analyze both the experiences from the regional context in northwestern RS. Inhabited primarily by indigenous, lusitanian and caboclos, this region was settled from 1890 by European immigrants in search of land to farm. It was used first mode of division of the family study, oriented to obtain ownership of land, mixed with subsistence activities. However, the inevitability of commodification of production for the discharge of debt and improvements on the lots, required the inclusion in the regional economy. The absence of banks in the before-1930 RS, offered conditions for local traders submit these immigrants usury, an immoral procedure for the customs peasants. The analysis of documentary sources indicates that cooperatives emerged as an adaptive mechanism to the liberal market economy. The colony of Serra Cadeado (reference object of this analysis) self-ordered it from forms of socioeconomic organization as the cooperative credit that collectively capitalizing on the colonial economies, interfered in public community life, funding the production and commodification, defending the interests of settlers associated with running and even works of local infrastructure