Popular Upheaval And Capitalist Transformation in Argentina by Pablo Pozzi Pablo Pozzi, holds a PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is a professor of history at the University of Buenos Aires. He has researched and published on Argentine labor history and has taught history in several trade-union schools. Currently he is researching an oral history of Argentina’s Partido Revolutionario de los Trabajadores-Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (Revolutionary Party of Workers-Peoples’ Revolutionary Army– PRT-ERP).
Transcript
Popular Upheaval And Capitalist Transformation in Argentina
by Pablo Pozzi
Pablo Pozzi, holds a PhD from the State University of New
York at Stony Brook and is a professor of history at the
University of Buenos Aires. He has researched and published
on Argentine labor history and has taught history in several
trade-union schools. Currently he is researching an oral
history of Argentina’s Partido Revolutionario de los
Trabajadores-Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo
(Revolutionary Party of Workers-Peoples’ Revolutionary Army–
PRT-ERP).
In March 1997, as summer was ending, Argentina exploded
in a bout of social conflict and popular upheaval that was
unexpected to the average observer and lasted until October.
Throughout those six months there were riots in townships,
such as Cutral Có and Plaza Huincul in Patagonia, Tartagal
and Jujuy in the Northwest, and La Plata and Buenos Aires on
the coast. National highways were blockaded by pickets,
students demonstrated and confronted the police, workers and
farmers went on strike, and the colla community in Salta
besieged a huge tract of land bought by a U.S. corporation.
Incredibly, while all of this was going on, the flow of
foreign capital into Argentina was at a record high, and
President Carlos Menem spent more time traveling than
dealing with social unrest. It was emblematic that, visiting
Argentina in October 1997, U.S. President Bill Clinton
praised the Menem administration while, outside, police went
on a rampage beating up demonstrators and onlookers alike.
The contradiction is too flagrant to be ignored.
Socially Argentina has all the characteristics of an unsafe
haven for any kind of investment (whether productive or
speculative), and yet it continues to grow. In a
transnationalized world, local or even regional social
upheaval seems to have little impact on government and
investment policy. However, the uprisings such as those of
Cutral Có and Tartagal had an effect on the popular
imagination and on the left, which felt reinvigorated. Each
new conflict helped to set off others. Innovations in modes
of struggle spread from one to the next, suggesting both
informal networks of communication and a willingness to
confront neoconservative state policies.
Over the past decade social scientists and political
analysts have suggested that Argentina’s working classes had
undergone a process of fragmentation as a result of both the
1976-1983 dictatorship and the neoconservative policies of
the Menem government. In addition, social disorganization
had led to cultural and political changes including a
distancing from the leftism of the 1960s and 1970s and the
rise of a “democratic” culture (see, e.g., Hintze et al.,
1991; Lesser, 1991; Ranis, 1992; Campione, 1994). The
upheavals of 1997 call these conclusions into question and,
especially, suggest that Argentina’s democratic system has
promoted the disenfranchisement and marginalization of broad
sectors of the population.
I
Clearly, the social upheavals that began in March 1997
were not the first ones of the new neoconservative
Argentina. In 1989 the people in the Patagonian province of
Chubut mobilized for a week to get rid of a governor
(Paniquelli and Sancci, 1993). Later, in June of that year,
thousands of persons in Buenos Aires and Rosario rioted,
sacking supermarkets and grocery stores (Serulnikov, 1994).
Over the next two years neighbors in different cities and
towns took to the streets several times: in Venado Tuerto to
protest the appointment of a parish priest guilty of human
rights violations, in Catamarca to demand justice for a
raped and murdered teenager, and in the town of Pilar and in
Buenos Aires province to protest police brutality. By 1993
the riots had turned more violent, with people attacking
(and burning down) the government house in northwestern
Santiago del Estero province, and rioting in Jujuy, La
Rioja, Chaco, Tucumán, and Corrientes. The main
characteristic of these riots was their unexpectedness–the
fact that they happened suddenly, rarely lasted more than a
day and left no visible forms of organization. In a sense,
they were more a catharsis of accumulated anger and
frustration than a new form of struggle. Though violent and
pervasive, they were relatively easy to control. In all
cases the government attempted to ignore the upheaval,
hoping it would die down, and when it did not its response
included repression by security forces. The result was an
increase in collective violence. For instance, elderly
retirees have carried out numerous demonstrations and had
several very violent clashes with the police over the low
level of pensions (on the average US$150 a month), and
strikes, numbering in the hundreds over the past four years,
have often turned into battle royal with the security forces
and company guards.
This latest bout of upheaval, though it clearly had
continuities with the ones that had taken place over the
past eight years, was qualitatively different. A good
example of this was the conflict in Cutral Có and Plaza
Huincul, two townships in the upper Patagonian Neuquén
province with some 55,000 inhabitants (Favaro and Arias
Bucciarelli, 1997). Both of these townships were built and
developed around the petroleum industry. The national
petroleum company (Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales: YPF),
had provided jobs and income in the area for over 50 years.
Because of its petroleum fields, Neuquén had been a wealthy
province, with high rates of employment and relatively good
wages. This had attracted migrants from other provinces to
the area, making the local population fairly young and
linked to family networks in other areas of Argentina. YPF
was privatized between 1994 and 1995, with over 80 percent
of its employees being laid off as a result. By 1996 the
townships had a 35.7 percent unemployment rate, and 23,500
persons were below the poverty line (INDEC, 1996). In June
1996 the local governor had failed to sign an agreement with
a Canadian corporation to establish a fertilizer plant in
the area, and the local population had taken to the streets.
Local shopkeepers had closed their doors, and all over the
two towns barricades were set up and manned by some 5,000
residents, who became known as the piqueteros (for
“pickets”). Security forces had besieged the entrenched
townspeople, and a week later, on June 26, a compromise had
been reached with Governor Felipe Sapag, who promised to
find a speedy solution to the unemployment problem. Over the
next nine months a committee of townspeople had met with the
authorities, while a small subsidy was granted to 1,000
needy families in the area.
By March 1997 no solution had been reached, and the
provincial teachers’ union went out on strike over layoffs
and salary reductions. The teachers had the support of
parents, students, and the local labor movement. Their
struggle included demonstrations, petitions, lobbying, and
the blocking of a bridge on Highway 22 connecting Río Negro
and Neuquén provinces. The Gendarmería (national militarized
police) forcibly opened the bridge to traffic in what turned
into a violent confrontation with the teachers. As a result
the conflict became nationalized, and the residents of
Cutral Có and Plaza Huincul went out once again. Initially
they took over the town in support of the teachers, but
quickly their demands turned toward solutions to the
unemployment problem in the area. Groups of young men from
the townships, learning from the teachers, set up barricades
on the highways connecting the towns of most of the
province. To differentiate themselves from the earlier
piqueteros, who were regarded as having sold out to the
provincial governor, they called themselves fogoneros, after
the fires (fogones) set up along the barricades. After
several days the governor sent the Gendarmería to clear the
highways. The result was a violent battle between 400
gendarmes and 100 youths armed with slings and sticks, which
ended in the death of a woman.
The fogoneros were youths between 14 and 20 years old
and numbered no more than 100. They did not accept a
leadership role and had no easily recognizable ideology
beyond repudiating politicians, government functionaries,
and trade-union leaders. Though they sent representatives to
the coordinating committee, they rarely participated in town
meetings. At the same time, the rest of the population was
mobilized through the people’s assembly. People participated
in this assembly directly or through elected
representatives. In addition, both town notables and local
politicians (councilpersons and legislators) participated.
These meetings voiced the demands of the townspeople for
immediate relief for the area through 1,200 new jobs, three-
year contracts for former employees of the now privatized
YPF and of the state gas company, a tax moratorium, area
subsidies from the national government, and tax exemptions
for new businesses in the towns, and, in the long term,
investment in the YPF refinery in the area and a sales tax
exemption. The provincial government granted its support for
the demands, and on April 19, after several days of tension
and violent confrontations, the assembly voted to accept the
national government’s commitment to fulfill the immediate
demands and to study all the others. The fogoneros, who were
fully participating in the assembly for the first time,
opposed the deal on the ground that the government had not
kept the promises made in 1996. However, the majority, led
by local politicians and town notables, considered that the
conflict had reached an impasse and it was necessary to seek
a negotiated solution. By the end of October no definite
solution had been reached, and the area remained in a state
of latent upheaval.
Instead of showing fragmentation, the community
struggled in 1996 and went out again in 1997 in support of
the teachers. In spite of widespread poverty and hunger,
wider solidarities persisted. But, at the same time, once
the 1997 struggle became locally oriented, the people of
Cutral Có demanded (among other things) that the provincial
Council for Education be moved to their area as a source of
jobs, reducing employment in Neuquén city. Though this
demand was finally abandoned, the fact that the townspeople
thought about it shows an increase in tension toward, at
least, fragmentation between communities; that it was not
upheld seems to demonstrate that, for now, overarching
solidarities are still stronger than local interests. In
this sense, the Cutral Có/Plaza Huincul conflict has
contradictory readings. On the one hand, faced with extreme
poverty the townspeople mobilized to seek immediate relief.
In this sense they were successful, since the national
government created 500 jobs through a program called Plan
Trabajar, and granted several million dollars in relief
funds. However, these jobs implied wages of US$150-200 a
month, approximately one-eighth of what official sources
estimate is a basic income level for a family of four.
Though the number of jobs granted was less than half of
those demanded, at the same time it meant that 500 families
had work, and this is important. The unemployed of Cutral Có
were vehement in demanding jobs rather than charity, linking
need with dignity and expressing an interesting level of
collective consciousness. In addition, the people’s assembly
was a form of popular democracy that contrasted favorably
with the formal democracy promoted by the government. Still,
the control of the assembly remained firmly in the hands of
the elite, politicians and town notables, and, though it
carried an implicit questioning of the current political
system, was not a break with the power structure. The
fogoneros, as the most combative sector of the townspeople,
had the sympathy (and sometimes the support) of many of
their neighbors, but they did not constitute a political
alternative to the traditional leadership. This was so
because most of them were too young to be family heads, and
many were seen as too extremist to be representative. The
majority of the townspeople seemed to have been very
conscious that, though the power elite was not to be
trusted, they had to negotiate because there was little
possibility of one locality’s overturning what was seen as
an unfavorable correlation of forces on the national level.
Though the residents sympathized enough with the
intransigence of the fogoneros to waver in the assembly that
decided to negotiate, they were also conscious that the goal
was immediate relief for the area. In this sense, faced with
a political system that had proven impermeable to popular
demands, the townspeople turned to the streets as the only
way to make their needs felt and obtain a response. This
type of possibilism is not, in and of itself, wrong. Faced
with the lack of alternatives, people search for ways to
survive: in other words, they struggle to win, not to die.
This type of struggle, limited as it is, expresses and
causes changes. The experience of popular participation and
power creates a heady feeling and raises new questions and
needs in people’s minds. Perhaps the most noticeable result
of the two conflicts in Cutral Có was that the experience
and forms of struggle quickly spread throughout Argentina.
Just as the townspeople had learned from the teachers that
blockading a highway was an effective means of generating
government response, others learned from them. From Buenos
Aires to the North and to Patagonia, dozens of highways were
blockaded by people demanding relief and government
attention. A good example of this happened in the town of
Río Cuarto, in Córdoba province. On May 29, 1997,
representatives of the shantytown dwellers met with the Rio
Cuarto Unemployed Committee and with the Asociación de
Trabajadores del Estado (State Employees’ Union–ATE) to
organize a blockade of the main highway into the town. About
an hour after the meeting started, the town mayor showed up
and offered 200 jobs on the Plan Trabajar on the condition
that they not carry out their plans. Since the goal of the
blockade was to elicit government response, the participants
accepted and the blockade was not carried out (El Puntal,
May 30, 1997). Both members of the Communist Party and the
independent left Patria Libre organization participated in
the meeting, but their role seems to have been as observers
while the leadership remained firmly in the hands of the
shantytown and unemployed representatives.
One of the main elements that forced the State to
negotiate with the rioters and blockaders was their
collective willingness to confront the security forces. In
most of the upheavals people, faced with repression, have
fought the police instead of backing down. This is why in
late March 1997 members of the Río Negro provincial
government were armed by the police to “ensure their
protection from social danger” (Clarín, March 27, 1997). An
example of this “social danger” happened across the river
from Rio Negro, in the city of Neuquén, on October 9, 1997.
That day the provincial legislature voted to reduce the
salaries of public employees and provincial teachers. Called
out by their respective labor unions, 600 demonstrators
vented their anger in front of the legislature by throwing
stones, breaking a few windows, and shouting epithets. The
police intervened to clear the streets and drove the
demonstrators into the center of town where they were joined
by several hundred persons. Workers and neighbors charged
the police. While the battle was going on, groups of
unemployed sacked a supermarket and a store owned by Daniel
Scioli, a prominent Buenos Aires Peronist politician. The
result was over 50 arrests and a score of wounded policemen
(Clarín, October 10, 1997).
The Cutral Có riots have to be considered in the
context of the upheavals known in Argentina as the azos (for
Cordobazo, Santiagazo, Rosariazo) (Balvé at al., 1973). The
azos came into being with the popular uprising of 1969 in
the city of Córdoba. By 1973 there had been a dozen or so of
these social explosions. Sixteen years later, in 1989, when
towns rioted because of poverty and hunger, harking back to
those earlier uprisings people termed them azos. The main
characteristics of these latest upheavals have been their
spontaneity, massiveness, focused violence, and neighborhood
or civic rather than class character. By 1993 most of those
who participated in these riots did so as unionized workers
and through organizations of the unemployed, adding a class
character that had been almost nonexistent. To these nuclei
of protesters were added others who joined in as neighbors
or citizens. Though the sparks setting off the upheavals
have been various (from an unsolved murder and police
repression to wage reduction and cutbacks), they have been
perceived as a political protest and a challenge to
neoconservative policies.
The azos of the 1990s have had both specificities and
commonalities. They were clearly the product of
neoconservative market economic policies and limited
democracy. Hunger, unemployment, marginality, the
impossibility of obtaining redress from elected
representatives, and the lack of a viable justice system are
the most immediate causes. As James Petras (1994) has
pointed out, this represents not the failure of
neoconservative policies but rather their success: they are
a product contemplated by the ruling class. This is why,
though the increase in social conflict was there to be seen,
the government chose to increase its security forces rather
than modify any aspect of its social and economic policies.
It is not that Carlos Menem and his advisers desire social
conflict but rather that they believe it is an expression of
dysfunctional sectors of society that have been unable to
adjust to the new Argentina. In their eyes, the government
is carrying out a necessary transformation, and in all
transformations some sacrifices are necessary. Any other
government in Argentine history, faced with riots throughout
the nation in a few short months, would have been ready to
introduce changes in its socioeconomic policies. On the
contrary, neither President Menem nor the opposition has
made more than a rhetorical response: both continue to
adhere to neoconservative economic policies. This is the
result of political changes in Argentina over the past two
decades, that have succeeded in delinking (or insulating)
government policy from voter pressure.
IIThe 1989 election was heralded as the definitive return
to democracy in Argentina. The Peronist candidate, Carlos
Menem, handily won the presidency promising a "productive
revolution," a big wage increase, and support for labor's
demands. Once the election was over, these promises were not
carried out. The new minister of the economy, an executive
of the Bunge and Born transnational corporation, began an
economic program that would find its counterparts on the
social, political, and diplomatic levels. The policies
implemented by the Menem government bear a remarkable
resemblance to those of the 1976 dictatorship; between them
they have succeeded in changing Argentina forever.
Economically the Menem government, like many others in
Argentina's history, considered that the problem centered on
three interlinked aspects: (1) that protectionism had
generated an inefficient industry with high labor costs, (2)
that a large state sector constituted a drain on national
resources in that it was not subject to free-market
competition and therefore was inefficient and the main
source of corruption, and (3) it believed that Argentina had
to modify its role within the international division of
labor, focusing on those economic areas to which it was
particularly well suited–agricultural industry and
agribusiness (see Dorfman, 1992; Pozzi and Schneider, 1994).
The effects of these views were immediately felt. On the one
hand, credit for small and middle-sized industrial concerns
was reduced, while the nation was opened to imports. The
small and middle-sized businesses that had survived the
harsh policies of the dictatorship now began going under.
Wages, already low (about 60 percent of 1975 values), were
reduced even further, first through inflation and later,
once inflation was under control, by a wage freeze. This
also reduced the amount of domestic demand at a time when
supply was increasing, because of the freeing of imports.
At the same time, the Menem administration decided to
combine economic criteria with need and began selling off
many state-owned enterprises. These enterprises could be
bought either with cash (through various forms of financing)
or with Argentine foreign debt bonds to be redeemed at face
value (though their market price was about 25 based on par
100). Between 1990 and 1992 most money-making state-owned
enterprises were sold to either the private sector or to
foreign state-owned corporations. A total of US$23 billion
was obtained by the government in this way, of which US$13
billion was in foreign debt bonds. State-owned service or
industrial sectors that found no buyers, such as passenger
railroad lines, were shut down.
The initial result of these measures was a flow of
funds into Argentina between 1991 and 1994 taking advantage
of the bargain-basement sale of the state. This was passed
off by Menem as productive investment, but the reality was
very different. Though the service sector did grow
significantly, the industrial sector continued its
recession. At the same time, this had the effect of
stabilizing the rate of inflation. The inflow of dollars
permitted the government to maintain a fictitiously low rate
of exchange for the dollar (one for one). This meant that
the agricultural export sector, which had benefited from the
low production costs generated by hyperinflation, now had
problems competing internationally because of high dollar
costs. Agriculture also began contracting. The increase in
imports, together with a reduction in income derived from
agricultural exports, generated serious problems in the
balance of trade for the first time in decades. At the same
time, profit repatriation, debt interest payment, and the
payment of services to foreign-owned companies that
participated in the privatization of the state led to an
increase in the Argentine foreign debt. In 1989 Argentina
owed US$61 billion to foreign institutions. In 1994, after
selling off US$23 billion in assets, it owed US$73 billion.
This situation has also meant a differentiation between
economic groups, leading to their concentration. Those who
were able to participate in the privatization (even as minor
partners of foreign corporations) surged ahead making
windfall profits; those who did not fell by the wayside and
were absorbed by others. Between 1991 and 1994 there was a
record number of takeovers of Argentine corporations by
foreign firms. United States, British, French, Spanish,
Mexican, Brazilian, and even Chilean corporations have
become firmly ensconced in Argentina through buyouts or
takeovers of Argentine food, electrical, energy, and garment
firms. Most of these have been able to retain oligopolic
control of the shrinking domestic market, gearing their
products toward those families that earn more than US$3,000
a month. This has permitted them to maintain record profits
in spite of reduced sales in relation to 1975. For instance,
automobiles sold in Argentina cost twice as much as in the
United States in dollars, and even a car produced in
Argentina sells for 40 percent more on the average within
the country than in Chile, where it is exported.
All of this is combined with a realignment of Argentina
within the world market. Free-trade agreements such as
MERCOSUR with Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay have meant a
veritable flood of cheaper Brazilian goods into the
Argentine market. In addition, Argentina has aligned itself
diplomatically with the United States, resigning from the
Non-Aligned Movement and beginning what Menem has called
"carnal relations." Thus Argentina sent ships to the Gulf
War, troops to Bosnia and Haiti, and counterinsurgency
advisers to Mexico and Peru. The reasoning behind these
decisions is that Argentina has made an enemy of the United
States through its non-alignment for too long and must now
make amends to earn the trust and thus the economic support
of both the U.S. government and the U.S. business community.
In this sense, it has abandoned any semblance of a Latin
Americanist position to support all U.S. initiatives in
world forums.
By 1997 the social and economic situation expressed the
new Argentina. Menem’s reforms generated changes and some
economic growth. For instance, throughout 1996 there was a
strong increase in the export of foodstuffs, soy and
sunflower oils, and flours (Clarín, March 19, 1997). The
industrial index went up 8.1 percent in the first seven
months of 1997, capping a 16-month increase, while the gross
national product went up 4.4 percent (Clarín, August 21,
1997). The aluminum exporter ALUAR reported an annual profit
of US$120 million and a 30 percent increase in productivity.
ALUAR also reported generating 70 new jobs in 1996 after
laying off 350 workers in 1994. The profits announced
implied a 35 percent annual rate of return on the
corporation’s investment (Clarín, May 26, 1997). Between
1994 and April 1997, US$22,229.5 million in foreign
investment flowed into Argentina (Página/12, April 24 1997),
mostly to take advantage of opportunities that had opened up
with privatization. This investment went into three main
areas: purchases of existing Argentine firms, real estate,
and petroleum, automotive, mining, and foodstuffs. George
Soros has bought 405,000 hectares and Benetton has become
the biggest landowner in Argentina with 900,000 hectares,
both in Patagonia, and the Seabort Corporation acquired
79,000 hectares in Salta (Clarín, July 1 and October 8,
1997).1 Some US$4.3 billion were invested in new auto
factories and the expansion of old ones (Clarín, August 21,
1997).2 However, the lion’s share of foreign investment in
Argentina (US$12.5 billion) went to the service sector
1One hectare is 2.5 acres. Benetton acquired 280,000 head of cattle and 270,000 sheep with the land.
2 The distribution of this investment was as follows: Ford Motors and General Motors (US$1 billion each); Volkswagen (US$280 million); Peugeot (US$500 million), Fiat (US$700 million), Chrysler (US$165 million), Scania (US$60 million), Toyota (US$400 million), Mercedes Benz(US$100 million). As a comparison, these same firms invested US$17 billion in Brazil over the same period of time.
(Página/12, April 27, 1997). Most of it came to Argentina
either to take advantage of the opportunities opened up by
the MERCOSUR or to hedge bets in terms of the much more
considerable investments in Brazil. At the same time, the
influx of funds has implied an outflow. Between 1992 and
1997 the imbalance of payments has increased exponentially.
For instance, dividends went from US$1 billion in 1992 to
US$2,258 million in 1996. The total capital outflow
(dividends, interests, service payments, and the commercial
deficit) for 1997 was calculated to be at least US$12,157
million, almost twice the annual inflow of funds (Clarín,
July 5, 1998).
One of the key results of the above-mentioned
investment is that the Argentine economy and corporations
have become transnationalized. Eight out of the ten major
corporations in Argentina are subsidiaries of
multinationals, as are nine of the ten major banks. Foreign
corporations were involved in almost 60 percent of all goods
bought and sold in Argentina in 1995 (Clarín, August 10,
1997). If Argentina was always dependent on the world
economy, because of its agricultural-export-oriented
economy, now this dependency has increased through the
transnationalization of its economy: it has literally become
a subsidiary economic system. An example of this
vulnerability can be seen in the case of Argentina’s
Bridas/Bulgheroni oil corporation. An important player in
the Argentine economy, Bulgheroni became associated with
AMOCO in mid-1997. The new partnership strengthened
Bulgheroni’s investments in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and
Afghanistan. The transnationalization of the Bulgheroni
group means that the evolution of Argentina’s economy is now
inextricably linked to the economic situation in Kazakhstan
(see Clarín, September 14, 1997).3
Though this subsidiarization increases the
vulnerability of the Argentine economy to external cycles,
3Bulgheroni will invest, with Amoco, US$15-20 billion in Kazakhstan oilfields, while the group has already invested US$2.5 billion in a gas pipeline through Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Other examples are Argentine investments in Mexico and the MERCOSUR nations. Argentine businessmen have invested heavily in bicycle factories in China and in copper wiring and pipe manufacturing in Hungary. In this last case they have done so in association with the Russian Mafia, whichprovides protection, labor tranquillity, and connections with the Hungarian authorities. The now privatized YPF (US$6 billion in yearly sales) has invested heavily in Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Venezuela.
most economists and businessmen have expressed boundless
optimism. The Menem government has done what was needed, and
the economic indicators are on the rise. However, these
numbers not only belie a vulnerable economy but raise some
question as to whether they indicate real growth. According
to the Ministry of the Interior, Argentina grew 18.3 percent
between 1991 and 1995. These statistics take 1980 as a base
year; had they used 1975 = 100 the results would be vastly
different, as all the data indicate that the economy has not
recovered from the decline begun that year. In addition, the
economist Daniel Muchnik points out that government
statistics on industrial growth do not take population
growth into account. Had they done so, instead of a 7
percent growth rate over 25 years there would have been an
18 percent decrease (Clarín, March 10, 1997). Another
indicator that calls into question long-term optimism is the
fact that Argentine corporations have taken advantage of
excess world liquidity by increasing their indebtedness in
the bond market. During the first eight months of 1997,
Argentine firms sold US$5.8 billion in bonds, most of in
Wall Street – more than the total amount sold in 1995 and
1996. Most of these funds have been used not for productive
investment in Argentina but to take advantage of
privatization opportunities or for investment overseas.
Analysts estimate that Argentina’s foreign debt service will
increase at least 60 percent by the year 2000, reducing the
rate of investment by 35 percent (Clarín, September 22,
1997). As a result the Argentine foreign debt has increased
by US$23 billion between 1994 and 1997, to a low estimate of
US$96,731 million; this means that each Argentine now owes
US$2,714, the highest amount in Latin America (Clarín, July
15, 1997). Another indicator of economic vulnerability is
the fact that Argentina’s imbalance of trade is growing.
While exports have been increasing only at a 9 percent
annual rate, imports have done so three times as fast
(Clarín, September 9, 1997). This is why, in May 1997,
Moody’s and other investment analysts gave Argentina a
rating below that of Romania, Panama, the Philippines, and
South Africa (Página/12, April 27, 1997).
In spite of these alarming data, most corporation
executives in Argentina are euphoric about the country’s
economic future. One should not confuse this joy with
overall economic growth, since it mostly expresses increases
in productivity, profit rates, concentration of income, and
increased possibilities for speculative investment. They
believe that MERCOSUR, the possibility of extending NAFTA to
all of Latin America, and sustained world liquidity will
permit them to maintain the flow of foreign funds in the
foreseeable future. In a sense their optimism is not
groundless, though it is vastly inflated. Analysts have
projected an estimated additional US$15 billion in
investments by the 2003. The principal investors are the
U.S.A., Spain, Canada, France, and Italy, and Argentina is
ranked 15th among developing nations in terms of direct
foreign investment (Página/12, April 27, 1997). This implies
a continued flow of investment but at a reduced rate
compared with the past five years.
Socially the overall effects of these policies have
been devastating. By 1994 the neoconservative free-market
policies had led to a drop in real wages, and an increase in
unemployment rates. According to the Instituto Nacional de
Estadística y Censos (Argentine Census Institute–INDEC), at
least 25 percent of the population were considered to be
below the poverty line of "basic unmet needs." In December
1995, unemployment was calculated at 18.3 percent of the
population, with another 20 percent being underemployed.
Nobody has calculated the percentage of those who have
dropped out of the labor market altogether. In addition,
many Argentines hold more than one job, and the eight-hour
workday has disappeared, with most workers fighting for
overtime to make ends meet. Whole areas of Argentina, such
as the Northwest, have quickly become impoverished with
hunger, malnutrition, and infant mortality increasing to
rates unheard of since the 1930s. Health has also suffered;
cholera, polio, and tuberculosis, which had disappeared by
1960, have reached epidemic proportions. The elimination of
"inefficient" rail lines and the reduction of airline
flights have left areas of the country full of ghost towns.
For instance, the town of Trelew (pop. 80,000) had, until
1992, 5,000 garment and textile workers. Only 900 remained
employed in 1995 and five families a week were emigrating
from the area, while the city was surrounded by shantytowns.
This process of transformation had been almost
completed by mid-1995, and problems were emerging. In spite
of growth in the gross national product --fueled mostly by
the service and financial sectors of the economy-- a
recession seemed to begin. Industry had a negative rate of
growth, bankruptcies increased, unemployment shot up, and
the rate of investment slowed. Though productivity had gone
up significantly and production costs had decreased
(especially through wage reductions), consumer sales had
slowed considerably and were maintained through extensive
credit. Thus, personal indebtedness had skyrocketed between
1991 and 1995. The recession had an unusual electoral
effect: Carlos Menem played on fears of a renewed bout of
inflation and was reelected in May 1995. Most analysts agree
that, in spite of widespread criticism and discontent, the
amount of debt in dollars was a key factor in the plurality
that cast their ballots for Menem and stability. Another
factor in Menem’s reelection was that until 1993 layoffs
were controlled by a law that called for substantial
severance pay (three months for the first year worked and
another month for each year thereafter) instead of
unemployment insurance. In addition, a series of "voluntary
retirement" programs were set up with World Bank funds. This
meant that there was an initial cushion for unemployment, as
well as a short-term cash influx into the economy. Unable to
find other employment, laid-off workers set up small
businesses such as newspaper stands, vegetable and grocery
stores, and taxicabs. For instance, between 1988 and 1994
the number of taxicabs in Buenos Aires increased from 36,000
to 55,000. These businesses were short-lived, for demand
dropped, at the same time, precipitously. A year after a
worker had been laidoff the severance pay had been spent and
the standard of living dropped. Thus, the full impact of the
recession was only felt after the May 1995 election.
The net result of all this has been social dislocation
and conflict that has been so atomized, so unorganized that
it has had a limited political impact and little or no
capacity to stop the downslide in workers' living standards.
This has affected not just the working class but also the
middle-class. Traditionally state employment has been the
channel for middle-class social mobility in Argentina.
Cutbacks in state employment have significantly reduced
middle-class opportunities and unleashed a cannibalism not
previously seen. Many state employees were fired, hiring
freezes applied, and wages reduced, while a few privileged
employees saw their salaries increase significantly. For
instance, one-third of national university professors were
laidoff and their salaries redistributed among the remaining
two-thirds. In addition, education as a route to better
employment was severely curtailed. Since the nineteenth
century, Argentine university education had been free and,
generally, of a high standard, with few low-quality private
universities. After 1991 tuition was charged at several
national universities (for instance, the National University
of Córdoba). This affected primarily the children of worker
and lower-middle-class families. In addition, entrance exams
were instituted (at the National University of Cuyo) that
favored students attending the wealthier secondary schools.
The number of university students dropped 12 percent between
1992 and 1994.
Argentine businessmen have made record profits over the
past decade. This has meant a deep shift in the distribution
of the national income away from the wage-earning sectors.
The extremes of poverty and wealth have increased enormously
over the past few years. While the number of shantytowns has
increased, so has the number of fortified neighborhoods for
the very rich. According to official Argentine government
statistics only 5.7 percent of all Argentines earn more than
US$800 a month, 14.3 percent have no reported income, and
32.9 percent earn between US$3 and US$163. This is gross
income; net income after taxes is 17 percent less. The
average monthly income for an Argentine is US$605. Since the
INDEC reports that US$1605 a month are needed to cover basic
needs for a family of four, this means that 85 percent of
all Argentines are technically poor even if both spouses
earn salaries, and 54.7 percent do not make ends meet even
if the children are employed (statistics in Clarín, February
10 and June 11, 1997). As a result, job stability and
security have deteriorated while unemployment,
underemployment, and overemployment have increased.
According to the Ministry of Labor 80 percent of all new
jobs are unstable, 38.1 percent of all wage earners are
employed off the books without any type of coverage, 2.8
million people (50 percent of all employed wage earners) are
searching for new jobs, and 29.3 percent of the economically
active population is under- or unemployed (Clarín, April 11,
May 18, July 19, 1997). The INDEC has estimated that some
3,200.000 persons in the Greater Buenos Aires area (the
wealthier area of the country) are below the poverty line
and of that total 1,429,000 are considered to be in a
critical situation (Clarín, June 10, 1997). This is
compounded by the fact that 97 percent of all employers do
not abide by safety and health regulations, increasing job
accidents to 1,000 a day. In response to this situation, as
we have seen, the Menem government created the Plan Trabajar
which created 378,000 jobs at US$150 a month.
Clearly, these changes have amounted to a social
earthquake, generating anger and frustration. The depth of
these changes is what has led many analysts to posit a
process of social fragmentation. However, upheavals such as
the one in Cutral Có indicate that, though there are changes
and tensions, this fragmentation has not yet occurred. The
massiveness of the effects of neoconservative policies and
the general decline of the standard of living has both
increased individualism and had a homogenizing effect. In
spite of the pressure to break up social groups, the fact
that people can survive only through collective responses
has been a barrier to fragmentation. In addition, the
durability of some cultural notions reinforces natural
conditions to generate solidary, communitywide responses.
James Petras (1981) studied the relationship between
working-class culture and resistance during the 1976-1983
dictatorship, and with some variations amounting to
resignifications this culture still persists (Pozzi,
Schneider and Wlosko, 1996).
This does not mean idealizing this solidary culture.
There are numerous examples that show that it is not
homogeneous, that it can vary according to the situation and
is different in important ways from that of earlier decades.
During the 1989 supermarket riots there were numerous cases
in which neighbor was pitted against neighbor. There were
whole neighborhoods that organized to repel a supposed
attack by another. However, even in these cases what was
noticeable was that these people acted within the
neighborhood collective, which in itself did not show any
fragmentation. Where there have been breakdowns of
traditional solidarities and their replacement by new ones
has been in the poorer neighborhoods and in shantytowns.
Robbery and violence between neighbors in the same
shantytown is something that has increased in the past few
years and thus is relatively new. This is the result of
hunger and unemployment and increased marginalization over a
lengthy period of time. However, there have arisen new forms
of collective organization, such as gangs, that express
solidarity within an underclass or, more properly, a
lumpenproletariat. A clear example of this solidarity is
that gangs rarely rob the shantytown they live in (except as
an element of discipline or revenge). This implies a strong
type of bond in this marginal organization.
At the same time, racism and class hatred have
increased significantly. Jokes, comments, aggression, and
discrimination are often directed at the more recent
immigrants from neighboring countries and those from South
Korea. This racism is also expressed in notions that the
chilotes (Chileans) and boliguayos (Bolivian-Paraguayan) are
lazy, backward, thieving people who have come to steal jobs
from Argentines. The Confederación General del Trabajo
(General Confederation of Labor–CGT) and the Unión Obrera de
la Construcción de la República Argentina (Construction
Workers Union–UOCRA) have carried out campaigns demanding
laws that would stop their coming to Argentina or at the
very least restrict their employment. Though racism has
always been a feature of Argentine society, recent research
demonstrates that it has increased over the past decade
(Wlosko, 1996).
In spite of this, a manifestation of the existence of
an underground solidary culture can be seen in various
studies of shantytowns. Unemployment has increased the
numbers of shantytown dwellers and changed the social
structure of the settlements. Whereas in the 1970s
shantytowns were seen as transitional, now they are
considered permanent. In addition, many workers have taken
up residency there. These workers have a higher level of
formal education and more experience in labor organization
than the earlier residents of the shantytown. This means
that within the shantytown different forms of social
organization, including gangs, the parish, and the
shantytown committee (comisión villera), coexist. This is
reflected in the changed educational level of the Itatí
villa, one of the older shantytowns in southern Buenos
Aires. In 1996, 24.3 percent of residents were reported to
have finished primary education, 11 percent had been to
secondary school, and only 0.5 percent had attended at least
some years of college. In general, this means that this is
not the marginal element of earlier years (Municipalidad de
Quilmes, 1997).
Social and economic transformation has also had a deep
impact on national politics. Argentina has experienced what
could be termed an organic crisis since 1955 (when Perón was
overthrown), in which no social sector had the power or
consensus to impose its objectives on the direction of the
nation. The bourgeoisie and the Menem government have
resolved this crisis not by establishing a new consensus but
by delinking politics from its mass electoral base. Rather
than establish a political party that would express its
interests, the highly concentrated bourgeoisie has succeeded
in co-opting the two traditional mass parties (the Unión
Cívica Radical and Peronism) to its policies. Elections have
stopped being issue- or program-oriented and have become a
question of polls, slogans, publicity, and marketing. All of
the mainstream politicians agree with the Menem economic
policies and attempt to differentiate themselves only in
terms of "efficiency" or "honesty." To win an election a
party has to obtain the support of economic groups that will
provide it with resources and media to mobilize the voters.
Once an election is won, daily politics has little or
nothing to do with the electors and is responsive to
lobbies. Thus, though over 100,000 workers came to Buenos
Aires from all over the country to protest Menem's economic
policies in July 1994, they had little impact on a
government more concerned with maintaining the goodwill of
the U.S. embassy and of big business. The result has been
telling. The prestige of democratic institutions has
plummeted over the past few years. According to several
polls, politicians are commonly seen as lying and corrupt.
In addition, voting trends are down all over the country.
While an average 90 percent of the electorate voted between
1946 and 1991, in the 1993 by-elections 25 percent of the
voters abstained, while another 6 percent cast blank ballots
(a constitutional right meaning "none of the above"), and in
the 1995 presidential elections only 76 percent of those
registered bothered to vote in spite of the fact that voting
is obligatory. This tendency was maintained in the 1997
elections. In addition, party affiliation has dropped, and
most local party structures are in crisis. It is interesting
to note that in 1997 many of the registered political
parties demanded a tenfold increase in government subsidies
(to US$10 per vote obtained in the latest election). This
was the result of increased electoral costs in the
television age, but it also implied a deep-seated change in
party structure. Until 1989 most parties relied on volunteer
activists; over the past few years the number of activists
has plummeted and they have been replaced by paid employees.
However, since mass struggles seem to have little impact on
government policy, people retain some faith in the electoral
process. This has meant significant setbacks in the creation
of a political alternative to Menem's neoconservatism.
Workers will struggle, bravely face the police and the
security forces, challenge labor bureaucrats, and defy
employers, and then they will try to get a congressman or a
senator involved, pass a law, or get a subsidy to help them
out. This means that the mainstream political parties can
(for the moment) afford to remain unresponsive to popular
needs without losing too many votes.
Perhaps the biggest political impact has been on the
working class. Traditionally most Argentine workers have
responded politically to Peronism as a defender of a
populist, laborite, protectionist, welfare state. Suddenly a
Peronist president, elected under a traditional populist
However, also in 1997, in the town of San Miguel (a suburb
of Buenos Aires) voters split their ballots between the
center-left human right activist Graciela Fernández Meijide,
who was elected to Congress, and Rico, who was elected
mayor.
Thus, though many workers, and especially the older
ones, remain Peronistas de corazón (Peronists in their hearts),
their political loyalty has been severely shaken. What has
replaced it, for the moment, is politics based on
clientelism and possibilism. For a neighborhood to vote
against the provincial or municipal power structure can be
very costly: subsidies may be curtailed, bus lines may be
rerouted, housing projects may be stopped, and the police
may be given a free hand in the area, turning it into a
free-fire zone. People experience this as "So-and-so does
things for our neighborhood" and rarely as electoral
blackmail. However, when the opposition accumulates enough
strength in a neighborhood (from neighborhood associations
and soccer clubs through labor unions to municipal
councilmen), there is a noticeable electoral shift that can
only be interpreted as the costs of bucking the power
structure have gone down or become acceptable. A clear
example of this is the triumph, in 1990, of the social
democratic Partido Socialista Popular (Popular Socialist
party–PSP) in Rosario, Argentina's second city and a former
Peronist stronghold. Conscious of this, Buenos Aires
Governor Eduardo Duhalde has created a neighborhood
provincial network structured around the manzaneras (women
block leaders). These women serve as a conduit for
government aid and as a connection for political favors. At
the same time they constitute an element of neighborhood
control and political mobilization.
Overall, then, popular politics in Argentina is marked
by two major characteristics. The first is that politics in
general have been menemized. This means, essentially, that
most parties have delinked themselves from the electoral
base in order to seek the support of different economic
power groups. The net result of this has been a level of
corruption and unaccountability not seen in Argentine
history since the 1930s (the so-called Infamous Decade). The
judicial and legislative branches of government have become
appendages of the executive. Though there have been myriad
cases of corruption registered, not a single person has been
imprisoned as a result. The most noted case occurred in
1991, when the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires went public and
denounced Emir Yoma, a presidential adviser and Menem in-
law, for demanding a million-dollar kickback from Swift
Corporation to certify its new Rosario meat-packing plant.
The adviser was eventually fired, and though the kickback
was proven he was neither tried nor imprisoned. The
opposition has accepted the rules of the game. The UCR, led
by former president Raúl Alfonsín, signed a public agreement
in 1993 called the Olivos Pact (after the president's
vacation home) in support of the new economic and social
laws, and Menem's constitutional reform. As a result, the
UCR's electoral share dropped from 30 to 14 percent, and at
the same time it was permitted to share power through
appointments and subsidies. In exchange it agreed to a new
constitution that enshrined the reelection of the president,
reduced social benefits, and strengthened executive power.
To recover some of its lost electoral base, the UCR allied
itself with the FREPASO in 1997 and succeeded in channeling
many anti-Menem votes.
The second major characteristic of popular politics is
the crisis of the organized left. Though it grew
significantly between 1983 and 1986, it was hurt by the
1976-1983 repression, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and
the overall international situation. The disappearance
without a whimper of the USSR demoralized many activists,
including those who had traditionally criticized Stalinism.
In addition, to many people it implied that socialism was no
longer on the agenda, if it had ever been. This opened up a
whole range of possibilist options, including several social
democratic variants, which ultimately implied reaching an
accommodation with capitalism in an attempt to humanize its
worst trends. The road to socialism suddenly became not
revolution but rather an evolution of ever-increasing
democratic spaces to be acquired through electoral
participation. This was buttressed by the effects of the
dictatorship. The 1976-1983 repression physically eliminated
a whole generation of experienced activists, instilling fear
of provoking another round of military intervention. Without
the activists forged over decades of struggle, the new and
younger leftists lacked the necessary ideological strength
and political skills to create strong social and political
organizations to challenge neoconservatism. The many social
and human rights struggles were unable to come together into
a political alternative. In addition, placed on the
defensive, the left tended to accept the style and many of
the principles of the bourgeois parties.
After 1983 most leftist organizations launched
themselves into the electoral struggle hoping to elect a few
legislators. Many leftist groups spent their scarce
resources and their activists in elections, pulling them
away from mass work. A lot of energy was spent in forming
electoral alliances (and in jockeying within them to be at
the top of a ticket), and efforts were made to become
acceptable to the press and to the mainstream voter. Since
the middle class has a higher electoral turnout than
workers, this meant that the left tended to move to the
right, adopting middle-class symbols, language, and demands
and seeking "acceptable" candidates. These candidates were
either leftists with media presence or mainstream
politicians who had been left out of their own parties.
Thus, increases in votes for the left also meant pulling
away from, and fracturing, their base among workers and the
urban poor.
Initially this was relatively successful. The Communist
party and the MAS, together with smaller groups, formed the
Izquierda Unida (United Left–IU) in 1989, gathering close to
8 percent of the vote. The main organization within the IU
was the MAS, which had done a lot of work among both
students and workers for over a decade, with noticeable
success. Through the IU, the MAS succeeded in electing a
national congressman, a local councilman, and a provincial
deputy, but the cost was high. Cadres and resources were
pulled away from mass work and turned to electoral
activities. In addition, the very electoral success
generated pressures to try and continue along those lines.
Thus the notion emerged within the party that participation
in mass struggles imperiled further electoral advances, for
it alienated the middle class. The net result was a series
of splits within the MAS, setbacks in the organizing they
had so carefully crafted over a decade, and a crisis that
persists to this day.
The same is true of the Communist party. Focusing most
of their activity on elections and political alliances, the
Communists have succeeded in fracturing their mass base and
their cadres. For instance, in 1993 they were instrumental
in setting up the Frente Grande (FG). This was an electoral
alliance that included leftists and a whole series of
Peronist groups that were left out of the Menem coalition.
Their main public figure was Carlos "Chacho" Alvarez, a
charismatic Peronist politician who was a supporter of Menem
until 1990. Forming alliances to his right, Alvarez expelled
the Communists who became paralyzed and split into three
factions. In the 1995 presidential elections, the FG joined
with several small traditional parties and with the PSP to
form the FREPASO. This coalition allied itself with the UCR
in the 1997 by-elections and publicly declared that it
accepted the Menem economic program but not corruption.
Beyond these main parties, there are hundreds of small
groups, ranging from a dozen to several hundred activists,
in neighborhoods, trade unions, and universities. Most are
short-lived and are linked to local demands. Few have
publications, and even fewer coordinate their activities
with each other. A sizable number have accepted the umbrella
of the FREPASO as a means to obtain some national influence.
However, this has also meant that they have had to accept a
leadership that has increasingly joined the Menemist system.
Not all of the left remains tied to electoral politics.
After its several splits, what remained of the MAS focused
once again on mass work, eschewing all but token electoral
participation. The Corriente Patria Libre (an independent
left organization formed by former 1970s activists and many
young people) is geared mostly toward neighborhood and
university organizing, with relatively good results
especially outside the Buenos Aires area. These parties and
the many smaller groups participate actively in most social
struggles. However, the main problem with all of these
organizations is that because of their ideological
differences they have been unable to come together in any
kind of joint action. However, this does not mean that there
is a decrease in the overall number of leftists; it is
simply that most of them are independent activists who focus
their energies on specific social movements. A good
indicator that a vibrant left culture in Argentina persists
is the 13 “Ernesto Che Guevara” cátedras libres in various
national universities for the discussion of Che’s thinking
and current left politics. Thousands of students and social
activists (both independent and organized) signed up for a
14-week series of conferences throughout 1998 to share
experiences and debate the future of Argentina’s left.
Beneath the organized left there is a broad but very
atomized resistance movement in which most of the
independent leftists can be found. The combination of
popular hopes for parliamentary politics and the weakness
and confusion of the organized left means that most of these
struggles do not come together into anything even remotely
resembling a political alternative. However, these movements
are slowly and hesitantly developing new forms of
organization and struggle. Over the past seven years myriad
women’s groups, unemployed committees, student
organizations, and gay groups have either come into being or
become more active. For instance, the Movimiento de Mujeres
en Lucha (Women in Struggle Movement), in upper Patagonia,
has been successful in militantly stopping the eviction of
bankrupt farmers.
Cultural and sports activities have become transformed
as a vehicle for social and political organizing. Local
radios and theater groups have served as channels for
community protest or for just keeping people together. A
good example of this is the neighborhood football clubs in
the working-class suburbs of Buenos Aires. Parents organize
these clubs as a way of keeping their children away from
drugs and gangs. The clubs quickly develop commissions
elected by members whose role is to organize matches, obtain
or build a clubhouse, or acquire rights to a piece of land
for a playing field. The commissions serve as a locus of
neighborhood organizing and, eventually, political activity
such as the petitioning of local authorities. Some of these
clubs have become increasingly politicized and serve as a
basis for organizing the opposition to government policies
in the neighborhood.
The most important of these new forms of organization
is the Congreso de los Trabajadores Argentinos (Congress of
Argentine Workers–CTA) (Rauber, 1997). Organized by state
employees, the teachers’union, and several smaller unions
and other union locals, the CTA is trying to develop a new
form of trade unionism more in tune with what Kim Moody
(1997) has called “social-movement unionism.” The main
changes introduced by the CTA deal with organization.
Workers can now affiliate themselves directly with the
confederation without belonging to a specific union or even
having employment. In addition, CTA leaders are elected by
the vote of the members and not of the affiliated union
representatives. Finally, the CTA perceives union activism
as something that links on-the-job and neighborhood
organizing, together with coordination with unions in the
nations of Latin America’s Southern Cone. Hesitantly, the
CTA has become an opposition pole to neoconservatism in
Argentina and an alternative to the progovernment CGT. For
the first time in 30 years there are two clearly defined and
legal labor confederations in Argentina. Together with
several dissident CGT unions and the left-led Corriente
Clasista y Combativa4, the CTA carried out a general strike
on August 14, 1997. In spite of government harassment and
the strict neutrality of the opposition UCR-FREPASO
Alliance, about 40 percent of wage earners supported the
4 The main leader of the Corriente Clasista y Combativa is Carlos “Perro” Santillán, who heads the public employees’ union in Jujuy province and is a member of the Maoist Partido del Trabajo y del Pueblo (Party of Labor and the People–PTP).
strike, definitively breaking the labor monopoly of the CGT.
The general strike was particularly strong in the provinces,
and less so in Buenos Aires. In addition, more than 20
national highways were blockaded in support of the strike,
and there were violent confrontations with the police in
cities such as La Plata, Rosario, and Córdoba, as well as in
Cutral Có.
Another interesting development is the increased
organization and participation of Argentina’s small Native
American community. There were several demonstrations by the
Mapuche community between 1992 and 1996 repudiating
massacres of Amerindians and their exclusion from national
history textbooks and demanding things such as the return of
community lands. In the province of Salta, the Colla
community has been conducting a struggle over several months
in defense of its lands. These lands had been finally
granted to them in 1989 by the provincial governor, but a
few years later the Seabort Corporation bought the rights to
79,000 hectares of these lands , from the former owners and
appealed to the government to expel the Collas. In late June
1997 the community blockaded the highways and effectively
besieged the Seabort employees sent to take over the land.
Between July and October the provincial police made several
unsuccessful violent efforts to open the highways and expel
the Collas, who resisted (Clarín, July 1, 1997). The actions
by the Mapuches and the Collas have surprised the government
in their level of organization and their politicization.
All in all, between March and October 1997 the
Argentine press reported several dozen labor actions, some
50 instances of rioting (albeit some very minor), close to
100 highway blockades, 2 strikes by farmers, 2 nationwide
strikes by teachers, the general strike carried out by the
CTA, and 21 violent confrontations between demonstrators and
the police and the Gendarmería resulting in hundreds of
arrests, many wounded, and one dead. These actions are a far
cry from constituting an alternative to the current
neoconservative policies, but they are sufficient to worry
the government. By the end of May 1997, government officials
were asking business to help out with the social situation.
But most of the businessmen remained clearly unconcerned;
said the management of the privatized YPF, “Unemployment is
the government’s problem, not ours” (Clarín, May 16, 1997).
A supermarket chain ratified what YPF had said and backed it
with action: it instituted a practice whereby once a week
one of its employees was chosen through a lottery system to
be laidoff (Clarín, April 11, 1997). Perhaps because of
this, the Catholic Church has sounded the alarm declaring
that the current social situation is giving rise to violence
and to the danger of a loss of legitimacy by the state.
Faced with an increasingly violent social situation, on the
one hand, and employer intransigence, on the other, Menem
and Argentina’s political leadership have no other recourse
than repression. The left has been accused of trying to
destabilize Argentina. Organizations such as Quebracho,
Corriente Patria Libre, and the Partido Obrero have been
accused of being behind most riots and blockades (see
Clarín, May 29, 1997). Accepting this notion not only means
granting the left a level of organization, size, and
influence that it clearly does not have but it also suggests
a level of coordination between different conflicts that has
escaped most analysts. Yet this has been the rationale
behind the government’s spending increasing quantities of
funds to improve and enlarge the security forces. According
to the daily Clarín, by December 1995 the only area of
government that had increased its overall number of
employees was the security and armed forces, which reached a
total of 60 percent of all state employees (Clarín, December
9, 1995). It should be pointed out that this number
represents the "public" members of the security forces. If
we take into account the numerous members of the
intelligence community as well as the undercover security
teams and police informers, the overall percentage goes up.
The Ministry of Economics (1997: 56) reported that
employment in “Public Administration, Defense, and Social
Services” had increased 15.5 percent, the second highest
increase after “Agriculture.” The chief of the general
staff, General Martín Balza, said at a conference in the
Universidad de Palermo on October 23, 1997, that the “new
mission” of the army included opening up blockaded highways,
in a clear reference to the continued role of the armed
forces as an element of social control. Harassment and
persecution of left activists have increased significantly
over the past three years, as has government surveillance
over the population in general. In addition, the economic
program is already showing signs that its
transnationalization has made it more, not less, vulnerable
to economic cycles. Of course this does not mean that a
political alternative will emerge. As stated before, the
organized left is in disarray, while the right has joined
Menemism. What it does mean is that Argentine politics is in
a state of flux and transition.
In the October 1997 by-elections, the government was
soundly defeated (45.67 percent to 36.15 percent
nationally). The UCR-FREPASO Alliance emerged victorious,
almost unexpectedly. However, the third-largest political
choice remains the blank and void ballots, amounting to 6
percent of the total, and an estimated 30 percent of the
electorate abstained. In Córdoba city over 5,000 votes were
cast for “Silvio,” a monkey in the local zoo. Even in the
case of Governor Duhalde’s manzaneras, the “new” politics
has had an impact. Many manzaneras in the poorest
neighborhoods and shantytowns voted for the opposition. They
perceived a shift in both voting trends and the support of
the economic power groups away from the governing Peronists:
the costs of bucking the government had gone down while the
possible benefit of switching allegiances in time had gone
up. Menem was now perceived not only as inefficient and
corrupt but also unable to control social conflict. Is this
a measure of success or of failure of Argentina’s newfound
democratic system? Most ballots cast for the opposition were
really negative votes, and it is questionable how many
people feel represented by the UCR-FREPASO Alliance. Still,
voting shows a desire to participate and make one’s voice
heard. Riots, blockades, strikes, blank ballots, and voting
for the opposition all seem to be forms of political
participation in the search of a political alternative to
neoconservatism. But at the same time transnationalization
of the economy has made the bourgeoisie less rather than
more responsive to social upheaval. In addition, the changes
in the political system reflect these new realities, giving
birth to an electoral system that is scarcely democratic. In
this sense it is likely that popular political participation
in Argentina will increasingly be channeled through many
different and often violent forms of expression.
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