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Sectoral Clashes and Political Change: The Argentine Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Gilbert W. Merkx
Gilbert W. Merkx*
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
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Since 1929 Argentina has undergone a remarkable series of political and economic changes. During the twenties it was a showcase of economic growth based on export expansion, as well as a model of bourgeois democracy in its parliamentary form. Yet that Argentina now lies in the distant past, and nowadays the name Argentina is likely to conjure up military coups and economic stagnation. This transformation deserves more attention than it has yet received. The question, “What went wrong in Argentina?” is as important for students of underdevelopment as is the question, “What went wrong in Germany?” for students of advanced industrialization.

Type
Topical Review
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , Fall 1969 , pp. 89 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © 1969, by Latin American Research Review

References

Notes

1. Markos Mamalakis, “La teoría de los choques entre sectores,” El Trimestre Económico, Vol. 33 (Abril-Junio de 1966), Núm. 130, pp. 187-222, and “The Theory of Sectoral Clashes,” Latin American Center, The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Center Discussion Paper No. 19, April, 1969. In addition to my debt to Professor Mamalakis for his conceptual contributions, I would like to acknowledge my dependence upon the insights and empirical achievements of Carlos F. Díaz-Alejandro, Javier Villaneuva, Hugh Schwartz, Eldon Kenworthy, and Gino Germani.

2. CEPAL, El desarrollo económico de la Argentina (México: Naciones Unidas, 1959), Anexo Estadístico, pp. 4 and 81.

3. República Argentina, Censo industrial de 1946 (Buenos Aires: Dirección General del Servicio Estadístico Nacional), p. 16.

4. Carl C. Taylor, Rural Life in Argentina (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University, 1948), p. 446.

5. Data presented by Díaz-Alejandro shows that the exchange value of the Argentine peso to the dollar was approximately 200% higher (when deflated by the wholesale price indices of the U.S. and Argentina) in 1953-1955 than in 1935-1939. Carlos F. Díaz-Alejandro, “An Interpretation of Argentine Economic Growth since 1930,” Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Oct., 1966), pp. 14-41. Data cited from Table 7, p. 28.

6. Peso amounts were similar, but agriculture's share of all new investment in percentage terms had dropped considerably. CEPAL, El desarrollo económico de la Argentina, op. cit., Anexo Estadístico, p. 81.

7. The question of real wages in Argentina since 1943 is highly complicated by inflation, distortions of price mechanisms, hidden subsidies, and taxes. An extensive discussion of this is found in Javier Villanueva, The Inflationary Process in Argentina, 1943-1960 (Buenos Aires: Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, mimeograph, 1964), pp. 4-112. A recent treatment of several real wage indexes is found in Clarence Zuvekas, Jr., “Economic Growth and Income Distribution in Postwar Argentina,” Inter-American Economic Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Winter, 1966), p. 19-38). The picture presented by the various indicators is similar: rapid growth of real wages until 1949 and uneven decline since then, with the sharpest drops coming during 1950-1952 and 1958-1959. The index which Zuvekas believes to be most accurate (based on Ministry of Labor data about collective bargaining agreements) shows more than a 50% drop in real wages of skilled workers between 1950 and 1960.

8. Peronist economic reasoning is convincingly set forth by the then Finance Minister Alfredo Morales, in Política económica Peronista (Buenos Aires: Escuela Superior Peronista, 1951).

9. República Argentina, Síntesis estadística mensual de la República Argentina (Buenos Aires), Junio-Julio 1955, p. 164.

10. Orígen del producto y composición del gasto nacional (Buenos Aires: Banco Central de la República Argentina, Junio de 1966), p. 19. Between 1950 and 1965 the only changes of note in the shares contributed by different economic sectors to the Gross National Product were a decline of agriculture's share from 19% to 17% and an increase of manufacturing's share from 30% to 35%. This was a continuation of the pre-1950 trend, but in greatly reduced form.

11. A preliminary report of this study is presented by Alberto Fracchia and Oscar Altimir, “Income Distribution in Argentina,” Economic Bulletin for Latin America, Vol. XI, No. 1, pp. 106-131.

12. Gino Germani, Estructura social en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Raigal, 1955).

13. Economic Commission for Latin America, The Economic Development of Latin America in the Post-War Period (New York: United Nations, 1964), p. 52, Table 52. The Mexican figure to which the Commission refers is taken from Ingenía M. de Navarrate, La distribución del ingreso y el desarrollo económica de México (México, D.F.: Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, Escuela Nacional de Economía, 1960).

14. Gino Germani, “Estrategía para estimular la movilidad social,” (México: UNESCO, 1960), cited in Torcuato S. Di Tella, El sistema político argentino y la clase obrera (Buenos Aires: Eubeda, 1964), p. 78.

15. The Argentina military also keeps close watch over economic developments. Onganía's first statement after taking power justified the coup for economic reasons: “In this disorganized situation, further vitiated by electioneering, a sane economy cannot exist as a rational process.” Mensaje de la Junta Revolucionaria al Pueblo Argentino (Buenos Aires: Presidencia de la Nación, 28 Julio, 1966).

16. Much of the following discussion draws upon the published and unpublished work of Carlos F. Díaz-Alejandro, Hugh H. Schwartz, Javier Villanueva, and Markos Mamalakis. The author thanks them for the contribution and suggestions.

17. Banco Central de la República Argentina, Orígen del producto.

18. Carlos F. Díaz-Alejandro, Essays on the Argentine Economy (New Haven, Conn.: Economic Growth Center, 1967), Chapter 7, p. 1.

19. This observation was taken from Díaz-Alejandro, Essays, Chapter 7, p. 7.

20. Díaz-Alejandro, p. 5.

21. Díaz-Alejandro, p. 11.

22. Diaz-Alejandro, p. 17.

23. Carlos F. Díaz-Alejandro, Exchange Rate Devaluation in a Semi-Industrialized Country (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1965), pp. 76-87.

24. Costa del nivel de vida en la capital federal, Nueva encuesta sobre condiciones de vida de familias obreras, Año 1960, Dirección Nacional de Estadística y Censos, Buenos Aires, February 1963. Cited in Javier Villanueva, The Inflationary Process in Argentina, 1943-1960 (Buenos Aires: Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, 1966), p. 35.

25. Cited by Díaz-Alejandro, Exchange Rate Devaluation, p. 61. The study was carried out under the joint auspices of the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Consejo Nacional de Desarrollo.

26. Díaz-Alej andro, Essays, Chapter 7, p. 17-42.

27. Díaz-Alej andro, Exchange Rate Devaluation, p. 168.

28. Díaz-Alejandro, Exchange Rate Devaluation, pp. 168-169.

29. For an extensive discussion of this issue within the framework of Mamalakis' Theory of Sectoral Clashes, see Markos Mamalakis, “Public Policy and Sectoral Development. A Case Study of Chile, 1940-1958,” pp. 44-54, 71-82, and 149-168, Essays on the Chilean Economy (Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1965), ed. Markos Mamalakis and Clark W. Reynolds. The conceptions that “the export sector functions as a quasi-capital sector” and of “the capital-goods bottleneck” are developed by Mamalakis in ibid. See also Mamalakis, “El sector exportador, etapas de desarrollo económico, y el proceso ahorro-inversión en América Latina,” El Trimestre Económico, Vol. XXXIV(2), México, Abril-Junio 1967, pp. 319-341.