Argentina's Model of Accumulation: Twenty Years of Ruptures and Continuities
2014; Volume: 40; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2327-641X
Autores Tópico(s)Politics and Society in Latin America
ResumoArgentine political movements are engaged in a profound debate about the nature of the country's economic model. Some claim that recent government policies have finally put an end to decades of neoliberalism, while others point to persistently high levels of poverty and inequality. The devaluation of Argentina's currency in early 2002 facilitated changes in the model of accumulation. These changes benefited the export sector to the detriment of the economic sectors that predominated throughout the 1990s, thus changing the correlation of forces among classes and fractions of classes and leading to significant changes in the levels of unemployment and poverty. Defenders of the current process point out that for the first time since the military dictatorship seized power in 1976, Argentina is witnessing the beginning of the end of neoliberalism, including an economic recovery and incipient restructuring of the bloc in power. In political terms, we are facing the recomposition of the state, which has assumed greater involvement in politics and the economy, and has confronted local and transnational corporations in ways that it had not in past years. These political changes are also associated with a politicization of young people, a phenomenon not seen since the arrival of the neoliberal storm decades earlier. However, those on the left who challenge the Kirchner government (President Nestor Kirchner, 2003 to 2007; President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, 2010 to the present) point out that despite the historic rates of growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) since 2002, the government has been unable to reverse poverty and destitution. According to this view, the government has allowed the leading business sector to benefit the most from the economic recovery. The government's populism, critics argues, has enabled the distribution of a small share of the substantial profits from different capitalist fractions, but at no time has the government challenged the production process in a way that would allow for a genuine redistribution of wealth. Critics on the left also condemn the government's persecution of the militant opposition through initiatives such as Project X, which has allowed the government to collect information on militants, and the antiterrorism law that allows for their judicial prosecution. This article will not attempt to analyze all of the important issues in dispute among Argentina's progressive political movements, such as human rights policy, media laws, re-nationalization of the pension system, or the Equal Marriage Act, to mention just some examples. Rather, our goal is to analyze the major changes in Argentina's model of accumulation, (1) economic policies, the bloc in power, and the impact these have on the living conditions of the different social classes. We will focus on the years of the Kirchner government from 2003-2010. The Puzzle of Post-Convertibility Key Policy Changes for 2002 In response to the deep economic crisis of the 1990s, in early 2002 the government applied a set of policies that constitute a central pillar of the new scheme: (1) devaluation of the peso, (2) asymmetric conversion to pesos of some debts and deposits, (3) debt default, (4) freezing of fees charged for public services, (5) charging export tariffs, and (6) salvaging financial capital. The devaluation resulted in an internationally competitive, floating exchange rate, whereas previously the Central Bank had fixed the exchange rate at one peso to one dollar. This spurred exports and reduced the demand for imports, which favored the national tradable goods industry, which was characterized by low productivity. As Kulfas (2011) points out, the new exchange rate served as an umbrella for reactivating and renewing the profitability of a wide spectrum of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As a result, 47,000 SMEs that had closed in the 1990s were recovered and 40,000 new ones were created. …
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