Social classes in La Plataïs horticulture: Exercise of theorizing, historicizing and empirical analysis

Abstract

This article provides a characterization of the social relations that prevail in vegetable production in La Plata. The work is based on the tenets of Marxism, which are used for understanding and description of the society. In the first section, a brief theoretical description of the capitalist logic of production is made following the historical materialism methodology, and proposed a designation of the subject of horticulture in the classic formulation of Marxism to capitalist social relations: landowners, bourgeois and salaried. Then empirical data is displayed on the sector that accounts of the historical formation of social classes in it. This information emerges from the analysis and study of the historical shape of La Plata horticultural land, the 1998 and 2005 horticultural census results, the confrontation and conflict register brought on by the different subjects of production over the last 50 years and ends with several contributions arising from oral histories taken from interviews. Finally, some conclusions are systematized.