THE EDUCATIONAL ROLE OF COOPERATIVES OF THE MST SAO PAULO AND ITS LIMITS

Abstract

This article aims to address the educational role of cooperation and cooperativism of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) in the struggle for the construction of emancipated labour, as well as pointing out its limits. The first part of the article recovers the history of the MST's cooperativism, especially in the State of Sao Paulo. The second part analyzes cooperation and cooperativism in the MST settlements in the face of the new agribusiness offensive in this state. The research was carried out through analysis of the main documents of the MST, bibliographic review and empirical research (interview and indirect observation). We conclude that the struggle for new forms of production and consumption are part of the MST's strategy, especially cooperativism and agroecology, with a view to building new social relationships in the countryside and selling healthy foods, and therefore, they have an educational role. However, they have faced enormous difficulties and limits, due to the advance of agribusiness and the block of the State to agrarian reform, especially with regard to the creation of general conditions of production and reproduction of life in the countryside, in addition to the difficulties of sale production in the city.