Poverty, work and debt. The neoliberal rationale and socialentrepreneurship processes

José G. Giavedoni
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-4693-5130
josegiavedoni@hotmail.com
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Argentina

Abstract:

This paper aims —from a governmentality approach and the reading of Marxian texts— highlight the processes of social entrepreneurship occurring within the framework of the new ways of governing poverty, and, as a correlate, labor force. For social entrepreneurship, we understand a poor individual turning into an economic subject, by becoming his/her own entrepreneur, which leads to take upon himself/herself a set of behaviors related to financial life, including taking a loan and getting into debts. Thus we understand enterprise as a principle of social deciphering, within the framework of the governmental neoliberal rationale, and we can see this in the participation of workers in business’ block of shares and in the microfinancing phenomenon.

Keywords: poverty, neoliberalism, social entrepreneurship, microfinance.