Mutual assistance cooperativism in Uruguay: a self-administrating people's alternative for solving the housing problem

Abstract

This work attempts to describe the characteristics of the system of building houses by Mutual Assistance Cooperatives, which was introduced in Uruguay in 1968. Its advantages are analyzed with respect to other systems in countries with a capitalist economy, dependent in economic and urban aspects on adapting to the needs of those it is designed for and, in particular, with reference to the profound social and community meaning contained in these experiments. This aspect, which reaffirms values of solidarity deeply-rooted in the sectors of society organized into Cooperatives, subsequently leads the groups to also face colectively other social problems they come up against, which arise from the conditions of under-development and dependence pertaining to Latin American countries: in short, the substantive feature of this type of experience, more than its unquestionable validity, is rather the idea of housing cooperativism as a solution to the habitation problem.