Argentina: From Egalitarian Stagnation to Authoritarian Growth

Abstract

The capacity to export manufactured goods is probably the single most important characteristic of the new international division of labor. Between 1946 and 1976, at least six different political regimes in Argentina have attempted without complete success to move its economy into a new role within the international division of labor by means of industrialisation policies. The Argentine case is instructive for several reasons and cannot safely be relegated to the dustheap of failures in development without closer scrutiny. A first reason is that the failures may be attributed to a variety of political regimes ranging from populist-anti-imperialist nationalism to military-authoritarian liberalism. That is to say, the failures cannot be blamed exclusively on the development strategies of a single political stripe. A second reason for studying Argentina is that its trade relations with Great Britain in the 1930s have been described as a classic example of the traditional international division of labor. Argentine exports of cereals and chilled beef in exchange for British manufactures (textiles, consumer durables) constitute a clear baseline from which its attempts at change may be measured and evaluated. A final argument for the merit of studying the Argentine case is that it provides us with one of the earliest experiments in the Third World of concerted strategies for change in the international division of labor.