Rob: Is that?
Marina: Yeah. I know, I think it is. I mean, that's where it's so dynamic and alive. Very much, I mean we're doing it together, but that it's in the process that more things open and more things become possible. And why so many people use different kinds of metaphors about walking and moving is because it's this kind of organic living-almost phenomenon that changes as you move with it.
Rob: Can you give me an example, say from somewhere, where you've observed this happen, what that looks like?
Marina: Of how people change along the way or--
Rob: Of autogestion--of people engaging in it. It's something you engage in, isn't it?
Marina: It's something you engage in and you make. I mean, it's - a concrete Something comes out of it. You know, on a big scale, I was in Argentina for a number of worker takeovers of workplaces, so one was what used to be a four star hotel, the hotel Bauen in downtown Buenos Aires. And when workers went into the lobby, they'd been locked out of their hotel and the management, the owners were planning to close it, or they'd closed it, but they were planning to close it permanently, and about 150 workers went in with people from the community and from other workplaces. And first they'd had assemblies, they'd had all the democratic discussions, and then the first stage was then to go in and take over. First, it was just the lobby, but as the beginning of taking over their hotel, and through the process of taking over the lobby, they then, with horizontalism, began to run--it took over a period of time--but began to run the hotel themselves, and it's now a running hotel in downtown Buenos Aires, run by workers using assemblies, and horizontalism, and autogestion totally, on making decisions themselves, and figuring it out as they go. And it's successful!
Actually, dome of the workers are making more than they did before, and they're happier. And it's not just making more monetary sense, it's that, people who are working in a lot of these spaces, whether they were cooperated places or other kinds of self-organized autogestionado spaces, you're the one making decisions over your lives with other people, and that process is much more meaningful than having some boss come and tell you what to do, and when to do it, and how much you're going to get paid or you're not going to get paid, or your vacation's cut, and people are actually deciding themselves. So, it's an incredibly powerful meaningful experience.
Rob: This whole process in Argentina, which started on the 19th and 20th of December 2001, was a huge massive revolution, wasn't it?
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