Re: The Collapse of Argentina, part one
Santiago wrote: Dear Mr. Proyect, I came across your comment about a marxist explanation about my country's collapse and I found it really interesting. While studing for my degree in International Trade I had the luck to have professors of marxist thinking. Santiago, I hope you don't mind if I reply to you on the listserv I moderate, where my posts first appeared. I will leave off your last name in the interest of privacy. I think it will be hard to find a marxist explanation to this country's collapse because I think that the reasons that led this country to disaster had been little discussed in Marxism. As Marx stated, to reach socialism, a feudal society must become capitalist first. Well, not exactly. I would recommend Teodor Shanin's The Late Marx, which discusses Marx's correspondence with Russian populists and socialists who believed that a peasant based revolution could be a springboard for a continent-wide assault on capitalism. In fact, he disassociated himself from his more orthodox followers, including Plekhanov, who did believe that capitalism was a prerequisite for socialism. First of all I wouldn't say Argentina is a capitalist country. I think it is a country that has been trying to convert to capitalism without success for about 400 years. Socially Argentina can be divided in two parts: Buenos Aires and Inland Argentina. During the Spanish Empire, due to the leather trade (and smuggling) Buenos Aires was a city where the bourgeoisie, not the aristocracy, mattered. This fact was unique in the Spanish Empire. As we know, to reach development a country must change from a feudal society to a capitalist one. Spain, the metropolis took 200 years to complete that change, Buenos Aires was a trading, proto-capitalist society already in 1800. To illustrate this I will tell you that Buenos Aires in spite of being a very marginal part of the Empire, at the time of the Napoleonic Wars had the second merchant navy of the Empire. The Spanish monopoly and the feudal and low populated hinterland being major obstacles for its development. I imagine that I have a more rigorous definition of feudalism than you do. I regard this as a system based on the circulation of use-values organized around fiefdoms. Marc Bloch's studies of feudal society are a good place to understand how class relationships were organized there. By contrast, Spanish colonialism was organized around commodity production. Despite the prevalence of forced labor of one sort or another, goods such as cattle, wheat and cotton were produced for the world market. For an extended analysis of these questions, I recommend a look at articles I have written at: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/economics.htm under the heading Brenner thesis. Today things have not changed a lot, although the capitalist Argentina expanded towards northern Buenos Aires Province and southern Santa Fe and Cordoba, the rest of Argentina is still feudal. In a feudal society the population work for the lord, in a feudal Argentine province you will see that the governor is responsible for most of the jobs: It may be the most important landowner, he may be also the owner of the most important produce-processing industries and of course, he administrates the provincial governement that is the local main employer!. What about the other capitalists that should participate in the government? They donnot count: if they exist, their business activities depend on the existing governor activities so they will be part of the ruling party and will agree with any decission that makes the governor's business prosper. If there is any industrial investment it is surely foreign (i.e. from a Buenos Aires industrialist or a true foreign investor) and does not participates in the local politics. Isn't this feudalism? (Just see Carlos Menem, his province of origin (La Rioja) and the ruling party, Peronista). This fight between feudalism and capitalism has been the origin of the civil war in 1820-1860. Although feudalism won the war, it was Buenos Aires that effectively rule. Being a semi-capitalist country, Argentina found its way towards development until 1914. 1914 was the year when universal sufrage was put into practice and was the beginning of the retirement of the bourgeoisie from politics. Well, if you want to describe Argentine society as feudal, who am I to stand in the way. Let's agree to disagree on definitions. In any case, good luck with your studies. I know that graduate school can be a real bitch. I find a close relation between populism, neo-feudalism and imperialism. The foreign capital works with local caudillos who collaborate with them, creating a symbiotic association that obstrucs the upsurge of a local capitalist class which are economic competitors for the foreign capital and the political ones for the caudillo. But how did this all originated? My answer is Latifund, by creating such a dispair wealth distribution it obstacles democracy and capitalism. The
Re: The Collapse of Argentina, part one
[EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Hmmm. Yea, there is a lot of superficial truth in this account, at least as relative to Canada. But there is also a lot of overgeneralization and obfuscation in this account also. There is also a lot of superficial truth in his overview of Australian economic history. I also agree that a proper critique of Louis's posts on these matters could take many pages. However the statement Australia's Federal government constructed its own [rail] system in the separate Colonies, and later, Federal capital remained responsible for construction and operation is factually incorrect. (I'll address some logical/theoretical/bibliographical issues after this significant historical point.) Briefly: before 1901 the six current States were highly autonomous and mutually competitive, although nominally British-controlled Colonies. Before Federation , railways were actually a strong means of protection for the bourgeoisies of the five mainland Colonies, who made sure that different rail gauges were used, so that rolling stock from one Colony could not be used in another, effectively tying rural capitalists and small commodity producers to each colonial capital/major port. In some cases it _was_ the separate Colonial governments which constructed the lines; in other cases they were privately built and owned (although in all of these cases, government -- either Federal or State eventually stepped in when the lines became unprofitable). By the time there _was_ a Federal government (1901), virtually the entire present rail network had been constructed. The _only_ major line actually built by the Federal government has been the Trans-Australian line, completed in 1917. * * * * Also, with reference to The Collapse of Argentina, part one, in general I'm afraid I can't see anything unique within Louis's description of the exploitation of Argentina by 19th Century British railway companies, when compared to the activities of British capital in the formal Empire or even Britain itself for that matter. This is not to say, of course, that the evidence for an unusual degree of such exploitation in Argentina does _not_ exist. However, for example, how and why should the rationales for the routes and termini of the railways have been any different to any other part of the world in which the economy was focussed on primary production? Is there anything at all unusual about cartels and monopolies dictating terms to weak states? More importantly, in what and where was Argentine-based capital being invested after the railways were built? There is, I suppose, a general lack of awareness of the English-language comparative literature on Australia and Argentina. A common reference in comparative economic history (including southern Africa, Chile, Uruguay and New Zealand) is: Donald Denoon, 1983, _Settler_Capitalism:_the_dynamics_of_ dependent_development_in_the_southern_hemisphere_. Oxford, Clarendon Press; New York, OUP. A relevant quote: [L]andowners had compelling reasons to burke agrarian revolution, which must accompany the establishment of fully capitalist relations of production. Surrounded by a dispossessed majority, they had to give first priority to social stability; often remote from markets, they had to await the improvement of transport services. Landowners were both imaginative and opportunist, but the best opportunities were unrelated to rural production, such enterprises as urban land speculation and mining ventures (p.123). Whatever the differences may have been, Australia and Argentina clearly shared a remarkable number of similarities given their diverse locations and histories. I am also puzzled as to why, in Collapse you have repeatedly compared, in passing, Argentina's situation to that of Britain and the US, rather than the comparisons, offered by those you were critiquing, e.g. Australia. I mean, even by the late 19th Century Britain and the US had (1) very large internal markets, (2) large export-oriented manufacturing industries and (3) dominant and aggressive FIRE industries. I would argue that the Australian FIRE sector, during the 19th Century, was nothing like as dominant as the British equivalents, in _both_ Britain and Australia, although locally-based mining capital (in particular) was beginning to make the transition into finance capital. Several weeks ago, an Argentine friend wrote to me recently that we are a failure as a society. I think a lot of us would agree that he that he was going too far, unless we understand a state to constitute the whole of a society (which I certainly don't). Such a comment is, I think as misguided as the utilisation of models of the apparently homogenous exploitation of a whole national society, by one layer of international capital which - apart from matters of fact and logic - may also inadvertently contribute to reactionary chauvinism and paranoia. Regards, Grant Lee.
Re: Re: The Collapse of Argentina, part one
Grant Lee: Briefly: before 1901 the six current States were highly autonomous and mutually competitive, although nominally British-controlled Colonies. Before Federation , railways were actually a strong means of protection for the bourgeoisies of the five mainland Colonies, who made sure that different rail gauges were used, so that rolling stock from one Colony could not be used in another, effectively tying rural capitalists and small commodity producers to each colonial capital/major port. In some cases it _was_ the separate Colonial governments which constructed the lines; in other cases they were privately built and owned (although in all of these cases, government -- either Federal or State eventually stepped in when the lines became unprofitable). By the time there _was_ a Federal government (1901), virtually the entire present rail network had been constructed. The _only_ major line actually built by the Federal government has been the Trans-Australian line, completed in 1917. This is far too technical for our purposes, I am afraid. Reading this, one can not really figure out whether Great Britain ripped off Australia the way it ripped off Argentina. According to the Argentine parliamentarian I cited in my first post, 1/3 of the GNP of Argentina was being expropriated by England in the 1870s. When a local Argentine bank resisted British chicanery, London sent gunboats to impose its will. Was this Australia's history as well? That would be news indeed. I have never heard anybody refer to Australia as a victim of imperialism. Also, with reference to The Collapse of Argentina, part one, in general I'm afraid I can't see anything unique within Louis's description of the exploitation of Argentina by 19th Century British railway companies, when compared to the activities of British capital in the formal Empire or even Britain itself for that matter. You can't tell the economic difference between Great Britain building railroads inside its own territory and in Argentina? Good grief. Is there anything at all unusual about cartels and monopolies dictating terms to weak states? More importantly, in what and where was Argentine-based capital being invested after the railways were built? You don't seem to get the purpose of my posts. They are to prove that cartels and monopolies dictated terms to a weak state, namely Argentina. By establishing the data, it weakens the case of people like Chris Harman of the British SWP who can't tell the difference between a European economy and Argentina. It was such a theoretical failure that led large sections of the British left to be neutral in the Malvinas war. It is also responsible for the failure today to see the NATIONAL aspects of the Argentine revolution. Whatever the differences may have been, Australia and Argentina clearly shared a remarkable number of similarities given their diverse locations and histories. Actually, I am going to be spending most my next post identifying the differences between Canada and Argentina--only because I am trying to write email reports rather than a book. Bringing Australia into the mix would be too much. I will argue that Argentine agriculture was a variation on the latifundia with a low level of mechanization. Canada was just the opposite. The government encouraged small-proprietor ownership and the level of mechanization was substantially higher. Was Australia based on something like the latifundia? I am also puzzled as to why, in Collapse you have repeatedly compared, in passing, Argentina's situation to that of Britain and the US, rather than the comparisons, offered by those you were critiquing, e.g. Australia. In my next post, I will be comparing Argentina to Canada. I don't see what purpose would be served by comparing it to the US or Great Britain, which were imperialist powers of some magnitude. Several weeks ago, an Argentine friend wrote to me recently that we are a failure as a society. I have no idea what you could have written him in consolation, since you don't appear to recognize that the country has been victimized by imperialism. During the early years of the Great Depression, unemployed men would blame themselves for their failure. Eventually a mass radical movement gave them the understanding that the fault is in capitalism, not theirs. This is the lesson I am trying to impart for Argentina. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: RE: The Collapse of Argentina, part one
(This was posted to Marxmail by Carlos, a west coast activist who is from Argentina originally.) Louis wrote: As the Argentine economic collapse began to deepen, I decided to search for radical or Marxist literature on the country written in English to help me understand the situation better. This proved futile (although I continue to be open to recommendations). Nestor Gorojovsky, an Argentine revolutionary who I have been in touch with on the Internet or by phone for at least five years now, could recommend nothing. Answer: While this is generally true, there are some materials in English that you might consult and read. For example, if you get a copy of Galeano's las venas Abiertas ... ( I think was also published in English), you'll find some material of the author there as well as bibliography he used for the book, some of it in English and from Marxist or filo-Marxist authors. Also, if you consult Moreno's Metodo de Interpretacion de la Historia... which essentially deals with an overview of Argentina's history since colonial times to about the beginning of the 70s (if I'm not mistaken), you'll find a number of quotes and the sources of material in English, some of them Marxists. I do believe that there is an English version of Moreno pamphlet somewhere. You can also research whether some pieces of the work from Milciades Pena is available in English. Your friend Gorojowski could probably help you to dig out some of the English language material quoted by Abelardo Ramos here and there in his books. You can even find some limited debates with English Marxists, I believe, from the Argentinean revisionist school of history (if you can call them that). During the factional struggle you mentioned in your posting inside the SWP/USFI, some historical material was produced dealing with some attempts of a Marxist overview of Argentinean history. Some quick notes about the debate as to whether Argentina is a semicolony or not: It is a common mistake made by a number of Marxists, including Galeano and others, not just European historians, to confuse the military and economic actions of one semicolony against another - as agent of an imperialist power - as imperialistic, etc (See for example the mistake by a number of historians making the assumption that the war of the Triple Alliance (Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay) against Paraguay as an imperialist war or the characterizing as imperialistic the Chaco War between Bolivia and Peru. Some of these authors, unsure of the term, called Brasil or Argentina sub-imperialist because they cannot deny that these war were waged as proxy for extra-continental powers that essentially strengthened the character of semi colonies of the victor countries. For example, the debt incurred by Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay waging the 7-year war against Paraguay (which bravely resisted them) strengthened British domination over these three countries through loans at very high interests to pay for the war. Ins some other instances, some Marxist authors confuse the uneven and combined character of the Latin America economy - which sometimes gave an edge in some branch of industry or financial business to one semicolony over others - as the prove that these countries are more developed and act as imperialistic in regards other semi colonies. Any close inspection of any of those instances (like the known confrontations over salitre and shit (guano) and also copper between Peru and Chile were just manifestations of the aggressive policies of British imperialism through their proxies in the continent, etc In the post-war period, when the US replaced Britain as the main imperialist power in South America, the character of imperialist investments changed radically. The US introduced a diversified strategy that continued to include financial capital but also an increasingly industrial investment (i.e.: Brazil's miracle of the 60s and 70s). These investments helped Brazil became the strongest economy in Latin America and the crumbs of the imperialist investments strengthened for a while layers of its national bourgeoisie. But Brazil did not become an economically advanced, independent country, but remained a semicolony since most of the core of its economy was privatized and transferred to the imperialist multinationals that increased its utilization of Brazil as its economic enclave surrounded by a vast semi colonial territory and impoverished population. Louis wrote: If views like these are meant to support a kind of Argentine exception to the Leninist concept of imperialism or its subsequent elaborations such as the Baran-Sweezy theory of monopoly capitalism, they are mistaken. They would fail to see Argentina's role in the world capitalist system, which--despite favorable moments--has been that of victim of imperialism. Comparisons with the USA, Canada, etc. are specious, even if in a given year income or other statistics were comparable. The
RE: The Collapse of Argentina, part one
I can sympathize with Louis Proyect's lament concerning the lack of good available work on the Argentinian situation from a radical or Marxian perspective in English. But one good recent work at least should be mentioned: Stunted Lives, Stagnant Economies: Poverty, Disease, and Underdevelopment, by Eileen Stillwaggon (342 pp, with illus, $50, ISBN 0-8135-2493-8, paper, $23, ISBN 0-8135-2494-6, New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1998.) Despite the title, the book is about Argentina. Despite the fact that it focuses on health and health care issues, it does a good job of dealing with the problems caused by structural adjustment policies generally, a main thesis of the book being that socioeconomic factors are at the root of the health crisis. And despite the lack of an explicitly Marxist approach, I think it is fair to say that the book is coming from a radical perspective. There are a number of on-line reviews for those wanting a summary and outline. But I'd be interested in Louis dedicating one of his 'columns' to this book. mat
Re: The Collapse of Argentina, part one
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/01/02 07:51PM As the Argentine economic collapse began to deepen, I decided to search for radical or Marxist literature on the country written in English to help me understand the situation better. This proved futile (although I continue to be open to recommendations) i, admittedly, do not read in this area as i once did so below references are not current... michael hoover Juan Eugenio Corradi's chapter on Argentina in _Latin America: The Struggle With Dependency and Beyond_, Chilcote Edelstein, eds., Sheldon Liss' chapter on Argentina in _Marxist Thought in Latin America_ Donald Hodges, _Argentina, 1943-1976: The National Revolution and Resistance_ Richard Walter, _The Socialist Party of Argentina: 1890-1930_ (not marxist but worth a look) back issues of _Latin American Perspectives_
