Social Security System Masyarakat Nelayan (Kasus Masyarakat Nelayan Ujung Kulon, Kabupaten Pandeglang, Banten).

Abstract

Historically, the transformation of fishing community at Ujung Kulon was started with the opening of isolated coastal area at Ujung Kulon in 1970s and increasingly developed since 1980s. Better transportation and access to and from the area had encouraged the penetration of capitalism and market influence to the society. The penetration of capitalism and market influence had caused significant change in the dimension of culture, institution and economic action. Those changes were related to the change on social security system mechanism in the livelihood of local. In economic cultural dimension, fishing community at Ujung Kulon had undergone change as a result of area opening and the introduction of market economic system. The market brought new goods, lifestyle, information and satisfaction where wealth and consumption were new needs to be fulfilled by the society. Market culture norms include being selfish, maximizing profit and satisfaction, individualism and market complexity had influenced and changed the economic culture of local fishing community. The development of market economic culture was supported by the development of transportation facilities and infrastructures such as television, mobile phone, and internet and so on. Some aspects in economic culture of fishermen were closely related to economic mechanism of the society that undergone change such as orientation for hard work, opinion on and decision making of investment and saving, reciprocity, trust system among economic actors, economic collectivity and solidarity. In the context of change on economic culture of fishing community, it seems that certain aspects in the culture that changed could become the economic motivation needed for the growth of market economic. One of the origin cultural aspects of fishermen which was tendency to work hard was one of economic motivations needed for market economic growth. Fishermen at Ujung Kulon had undergone change on value orientation. The value of hard work that initially was aimed for subsistence fulfillment had changed to pursue wealth and consumption. This change on orientation apparently functioned as the driver of economic wheel in fishery sector. Orientation of hard work was getting stronger when the aim is to pursue wealth and consumption which means to gain glory among the society. The situation would give more motivation to work to gain maximum economic profit. This motivation supported by the increase in self-confidence in investment and saving based on optimism and loss risk could be a driver for economic growth of fishermen. On the other hand, the introduction of market economic culture norm had diluted the mechanism of traditional social security system of local fishing community due to the change in norm system of reciprocity, trust, collectivity and solidarity which was the base of main value of traditional social security system that give social economic security to fishing community. Regarding the institutional change, the penetration of market economic system had brought significant change to patronage institution which was the social security institution and it existence was very significant in fishermen activity. Transformation was occurred in patronage institution of Ujung Kulon fishing community from traditional norm-based patronage (original morality) to market economic norm-based patronage. The implication of change in norm base occurred in exchange economic activities, economic transaction and the base of decision making of all economic actors. When patronage economic institution was based on original morality norm the survival economic action strategy depended on the institution. Patronage institution was functioned as social security institution; thus, survival economic action was manifested in to what extent the fishermen were able to build patronage relationship in order to give security in fulfilling subsistence need based on morality ethic that assuring mutually beneficial economic interaction within the patronage institution. However, when the norm base in patronage changed into market norm base, the function of patronage institution as social security institution was diluted. It made local fishermen were no longer able to depend merely on patronage institution. They had to build personal relation, relationship and network on the economic opportunities offered by the market. Those facts were proof that the economic system of fishing community at Ujung Kulon had moved from moral economic system to formal economic system. The change started from the change in rationality of substantive value system base to instrumental value system; in other words, substantive value oriented economic action to instrumental oriented economic action. If it linked to the discussion about social security system; when value system and traditional norm (original morality) became the base of social security mechanism, the mechanism adhered to the work of patronage institution as social security institution and in turn, would be the base of society ability to survive in critical situation. However, along with the penetration of value system brought by market culture that eventually would change the survival economic action in the mechanism of society economy. In other words, the study found that there was a fact that traditional social security system had diluted due to economic mechanism that tend to be based on market economic norm. At present, social security system mechanism relied on individual and household economic activities in personal and they had to search for beneficial economic opportunities and social network/relation. Therefore, it could be stated that survival economic action of fishing community in this research tended to reflect the form of relational embeddedness where economic action was situated socially and embedded in social network/relation of personal in social structure. Due to this situation, survival economic action was determined by individual/household economic action strategy and how fishermen build economic relation offered by the market; therefore, the ability to get social economic security system was vary among economic actors.