Right Vs Left

Finland actually has one of the highest expenditures of social spending as percentage of GDP in the world. That's about as far from neoliberalism as you can get. The US is not even in the top 20, and no Latin American nation is even in the top 30. Most developed nations, except the US, more closely follow the Keynesian economic model, not neoliberalism, which basically combines free markets with a strong welfare state.
I would also point out that, in Finland, the government owns all or majority parts of all liquor stores, the airline, the major oil refining and distribution company, the electric companies which generate and distribute power, and has a much tighter control on suppliers and subcontractors to the government than Argentina- mostly segments are owned and run by the supermanagerial class for profit in Argentina.
By any standard, Argentina even before Macri was far more neoliberal than Argentina.

The term neoliberal does not mean open borders to trade- obviously the weird Peronist heritage of Argentina is heavily focused on restricting imports and taxing exports, which is rare, globally. But that economic isolationsim- the reason you cant just transfer money from bank to bank, order from Amazon, or buy an iphone for a reasonable price- does not instantly mean that Macri was not feathering the beds of his peers. He certainly was.
 
I would also point out that, in Finland, the government owns all or majority parts of all liquor stores, the airline, the major oil refining and distribution company, the electric companies which generate and distribute power, and has a much tighter control on suppliers and subcontractors to the government than Argentina- mostly segments are owned and run by the supermanagerial class for profit in Argentina.
By any standard, Argentina even before Macri was far more neoliberal than Argentina.

The term neoliberal does not mean open borders to trade- obviously the weird Peronist heritage of Argentina is heavily focused on restricting imports and taxing exports, which is rare, globally. But that economic isolationsim- the reason you cant just transfer money from bank to bank, order from Amazon, or buy an iphone for a reasonable price- does not instantly mean that Macri was not feathering the beds of his peers. He certainly was.

Seems to confirm what antidopean was saying about nationalization only working well in low corruption environments.
 
Having government participation or majority shareholding in companies does not mean those countries don't have a liberal economy, especially if the state owned sector is a natural monopoly anyway (in "smaller" countries this is a more relevant point since multiple companies would not be viable or efficient and it would be unfair and anti-competitive to give any one private company a monopoly.)

At least from my experience, the government itself cannot interfere with appointment of suppliers and subcontractors of SOEs (unlike the Argentine government...) since these are the prerogative of the company, perhaps with some preferential procurement criteria such as EO rules etc and audit/ transparency requirements. The government do not appoint CEOs or executives of the SOE. Like any shareholder, the government may have an opinion that it usually only expresses in extreme cases. The SOE is also generally expected to be self-reliant and turn a profit. Likewise the government cannot get directly involved prices as the scope of the government is to protect fair competition (e.g. Finnair, Air New Zealand, Norwegian do not enjoy unfair advantages versus SAS or QANTAS without a real legal shit-sorm and political scandal) The governments of these countries also privatise their holdings when it makes sense and is no longer strategically necessary, it will not harm competition law and the social impact will not be unreasonable.

Actually doing business here in Argentina it is impossible for me to consider it a liberal economy. In all practical terms, a company is simply not free to buy what it wants from where it wants or sell what it wants where it wants due to various union and governmental restrictions, barriers and red-tape. In some sectors the government actually sets prices for private companies to sell at. Likewise with staffing it cannot hire who it wants to do what it wants due to union restrictions and labour laws, meaning companies are constantly trying to fit square pegs into round holes. A company or investor is not free to take their capital in and out of the country. Plus there is a constant reality of knowing that favours need to be traded if you want to avoid issues or solve problems with the state. If your hands are constantly tied by the state in how much, who, what, where you buy and sell, it is not a liberal economy. It was like this under the Ks, under Marcri and now. This is where the "supermanagerial class" win from having protection of the state and it is where corruption manifests itself in an Argentine context.

To me it is totally separate matter to whether or not the Argentine state wants to participate in some companies (providing there is a solid competition law and clear divisions) or what the prevailing corporate tax rate is or what the prevailing social security contributions are and what state services these go to funding.
 
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Hi. As a local, and a sociologist (not to brag, but I have studied this gigantic complexity of peronism) I dont see you actually have a good idea of what it is.
In economical terms, talking of structure, of what happens in the economic field, that later projects and constructs ideology, politicians, ideas, culture, etc, Peronism is, as a well known argentine analyst says (who did his entire carreer in the US, Guillermo O' Donnell) a defensive alliance, of the pymes, the great network, like a fabric, what we call "tejido industrial" or industrial fabric, internal market oriented.
What are they defending from? (always talking exclusively from an economic pov) They are defending from the big national capital, the concentrated capital, that manages the internal market, some export, huge companies, some important industry, as Techint, etc, PLUS the multinationals, the external capital, mainly from US, and the big land owners.

This is from a structural point of view.

Now, politically, it is very complex. For instance, Peron gave a lot of rights, and power to the unions, to the working class, it was the bigger industrialist fase of our history (big industries, arms, trains, planes, migration from the interior to the city, full employment level, etc, our new deal..... KEYNESIANISM) but also, to the big national industry.... that was just for a moment, a class alliance: the working class + big industrialists versus, obviously, the people who support economically this, EL CAMPO, the land owners, the main entrance of dollars of the country, since our industry is not competitive for export and only to supply the local market. There was nationalism, including a pinch of militars nationalists in Peronism.
The middle classes hatred the first peronism, while 20 years later, given that it was prohibited, Peron in Madrid, the militars in power for so many years, no democracy whatsoever, they started to like him. In the 60, in that context, French May, Cuban revolution, Che Guevara, cold war, hippism, Viet nam, Independence of Asia & Africa, etc, etc, etc, lots of middle class people embraced socialism, not per se, latin american socialism, which oposed 100% to US capitalism. This socialism is mainly nationalist, to defend our development, cause our capitalism is quite different than europeans or americans, is what Stiglitz says, "capitalismo de pillaje" crony capitalism, without strong institutions, allowing people in power do what they want. Money, money, money. With money you can do whatever you want. No democracy, no political representation from the working class, or middle class, unions intervened, peronism prohibited... that for 18 years. If thats not the breeding ground for a bloody dictatorship then what it is.

Thats why the young upper middle class students wanted peronism.

So basically we have two sides:

1) Unions, working class, pymes, our weak industry, or everything that is related or oriented to the internal market. Economically: Keynesianism, protectionism (they protect argentine jobs all in all).
2) Big capital, great industry (leftover from the 40s), multinationals, land owners, etc. Economically: neoliberal, which means: market friendly in an argentine level, which is no other thing that avoid ANY tax to investors, and let multinationals destroy our weak industry.

Now, Peronism has, besides this huge bizarre propaganda element, a GREAT dose of authoritarism when in power. One may say its necessary to fight againts that enemy (90% of the media, etc), or to run a country relatively in peace given the power the other part has. I think, probably cause Im naive, that it is not. Yes the unions are maffias, big mafias, but still, due the high grade of politization of argentine people (Perons legacy) the unions have this power and they DO care for them, they do, they maybe are all what you want, but they dont kill theirselves getting rid of their bases. That is, the power the unions have against the big capital, for example, the cause of inflation, something that distinguishes Arg from Latam.

Anti peronism: lots of coups, dictatorships, torture, desappearence, kill thousands and thousands, repression, bomb the Plaza de Mayo killing houndreds in one afternoon (for instance, a school bus packed of children), because of the HATE that provokes losing privileges, because of the hate of having to subsidize our poor industry, our State, our public school, hospitals, parks, jobs, everything.

Violence, is clearly more used in history by one side. Clearly: duration, intensity, ways.
Corruption is patrimony of boths sides.

This unbalanced economic structure of EL CAMPO financing our industry and almost everything have not changed along the years, our industry did not become competitive although helped a lot our alliance with Brazil during the K era.


So we have that peronism is actually the only national project to grow and develop. Sadly. Because the others only want a banana republic, in the facts, in how they act. It seems there is no win win situation. Industry becoming competitive is far, and EL CAMPO can not employ that people.
 
So we have that peronism is actually the only national project to grow and develop. Sadly. Because the others only want a banana republic, in the facts, in how they act. It seems there is no win win situation.

You give nice insights, but I do not agree with everything. First and foremost, the current day Peronists do not represent all workers or pymes, I am aware of people of these groups that are clearly anti-Kirchnerists, because of the market unfriendly measures (e.g. access to dollars) that also affect the average Argentinian. In their view, the Kirchnerists want to make everyone poor and give subsidies to the poor so the poor become dependent on them. They see the Kirchnerists stimulating patronage instead of defending the interest of the common people.

Argentina, as much of Latin America has indeed this distorted view that it has either to be the rich or the poor that are in power. They always need to fight. The socialists here are always spewing nonsense about the need for the militancia against the capitalists. If you come from a developed place, this gets tiring. The only way forward is unity between both the poor and the rich, where the different political parties are only about paying a bit more attention to the one side and a bit less to the other side. Here the other side is always the enemy. Do not think you will grow and develop the country like that.
 
The socialists here are always spewing nonsense about the need for the militancia against the capitalists.
Agree with the rest but am I'm not sure about this part of the statement - Peronism does not represent or reflect socialism in Argentina (while it may have some policies that appear socialist on their own) and I don't really recall either of the two socialist parties advocating militancy against capitalism. In Santa Fe I found the former socialist government to be very mellow and business friendly, for example.
 
Hi. As a local, and a sociologist (not to brag, but I have studied this gigantic complexity of peronism) I dont see you actually have a good idea of what it is.
In economical terms, talking of structure, of what happens in the economic field, that later projects and constructs ideology, politicians, ideas, culture, etc, Peronism is, as a well known argentine analyst says (who did his entire carreer in the US, Guillermo O' Donnell) a defensive alliance, of the pymes, the great network, like a fabric, what we call "tejido industrial" or industrial fabric, internal market oriented.
What are they defending from? (always talking exclusively from an economic pov) They are defending from the big national capital, the concentrated capital, that manages the internal market, some export, huge companies, some important industry, as Techint, etc, PLUS the multinationals, the external capital, mainly from US, and the big land owners.

This is from a structural point of view.

Now, politically, it is very complex. For instance, Peron gave a lot of rights, and power to the unions, to the working class, it was the bigger industrialist fase of our history (big industries, arms, trains, planes, migration from the interior to the city, full employment level, etc, our new deal..... KEYNESIANISM) but also, to the big national industry.... that was just for a moment, a class alliance: the working class + big industrialists versus, obviously, the people who support economically this, EL CAMPO, the land owners, the main entrance of dollars of the country, since our industry is not competitive for export and only to supply the local market. There was nationalism, including a pinch of militars nationalists in Peronism.
The middle classes hatred the first peronism, while 20 years later, given that it was prohibited, Peron in Madrid, the militars in power for so many years, no democracy whatsoever, they started to like him. In the 60, in that context, French May, Cuban revolution, Che Guevara, cold war, hippism, Viet nam, Independence of Asia & Africa, etc, etc, etc, lots of middle class people embraced socialism, not per se, latin american socialism, which oposed 100% to US capitalism. This socialism is mainly nationalist, to defend our development, cause our capitalism is quite different than europeans or americans, is what Stiglitz says, "capitalismo de pillaje" crony capitalism, without strong institutions, allowing people in power do what they want. Money, money, money. With money you can do whatever you want. No democracy, no political representation from the working class, or middle class, unions intervened, peronism prohibited... that for 18 years. If thats not the breeding ground for a bloody dictatorship then what it is.

Thats why the young upper middle class students wanted peronism.

So basically we have two sides:

1) Unions, working class, pymes, our weak industry, or everything that is related or oriented to the internal market. Economically: Keynesianism, protectionism (they protect argentine jobs all in all).
2) Big capital, great industry (leftover from the 40s), multinationals, land owners, etc. Economically: neoliberal, which means: market friendly in an argentine level, which is no other thing that avoid ANY tax to investors, and let multinationals destroy our weak industry.

Now, Peronism has, besides this huge bizarre propaganda element, a GREAT dose of authoritarism when in power. One may say its necessary to fight againts that enemy (90% of the media, etc), or to run a country relatively in peace given the power the other part has. I think, probably cause Im naive, that it is not. Yes the unions are maffias, big mafias, but still, due the high grade of politization of argentine people (Perons legacy) the unions have this power and they DO care for them, they do, they maybe are all what you want, but they dont kill theirselves getting rid of their bases. That is, the power the unions have against the big capital, for example, the cause of inflation, something that distinguishes Arg from Latam.

Anti peronism: lots of coups, dictatorships, torture, desappearence, kill thousands and thousands, repression, bomb the Plaza de Mayo killing houndreds in one afternoon (for instance, a school bus packed of children), because of the HATE that provokes losing privileges, because of the hate of having to subsidize our poor industry, our State, our public school, hospitals, parks, jobs, everything.

Violence, is clearly more used in history by one side. Clearly: duration, intensity, ways.
Corruption is patrimony of boths sides.

This unbalanced economic structure of EL CAMPO financing our industry and almost everything have not changed along the years, our industry did not become competitive although helped a lot our alliance with Brazil during the K era.


So we have that peronism is actually the only national project to grow and develop. Sadly. Because the others only want a banana republic, in the facts, in how they act. It seems there is no win win situation. Industry becoming competitive is far, and EL CAMPO can not employ that people.
Thank you for your extensive contribution. Just a couple of points:
1) since the last dictatorship, Peronism was in power for roughly 75% of the time. Regardless where you stand politically, it is clearly not working. And at one point they should also take a bit of responsibility
2) what also clearly is not working for Argentina is the economic protectionism which dates back even longer. So as you state correctly, the industry here is not competitive. But rather than to make it more competitive, your view is to take this as granted and try to protect the market even more. Question is: who is going to create jobs now, especially after this crisis? What kind of jobs do you want to protect if there are no jobs left?
3) you also imply that international companies per definition are something bad. Why is that? I am fortunate enough to work remotely for a European company here. But if i ever had to go to a local job here, why would it be something bad to work for an international company? Normally they pay better, have better benefits etc.

my view is that Argentina at one point should get more competitive, that it has to open up. Buenos Aires is the stand out city in South America, the people are still relatively well educated, and economically it cant get much worse (salaries in USD terms are low)
 
Now, Peronism has, besides this huge bizarre propaganda element, a GREAT dose of authoritarism when in power. One may say its necessary to fight againts that enemy (90% of the media, etc), or to run a country relatively in peace given the power the other part has.

This is what every authoritarian government says. It's never we are authoritarian because we like power and want more of it, but because it's necessary to fight "the enemy" whoever that might be.
 
Anti peronism: lots of coups, dictatorships, torture, desappearence, kill thousands and thousands, repression, bomb the Plaza de Mayo killing houndreds in one afternoon (for instance, a school bus packed of children), because of the HATE that provokes losing privileges, because of the hate of having to subsidize our poor industry, our State, our public school, hospitals, parks, jobs, everything.

Violence, is clearly more used in history by one side. Clearly: duration, intensity, ways.
Corruption is patrimony of boths sides.
If i were a jew (Amia), or a fiscal, i would probably see that differently ... And i really fail to see the similarities between Macri and a military dictatorship (other than they are both not peronists)

NB: i also believe that high level government corruption under Macri was far lower than during the Kirchner years. They even managed to get some public works done. Admittedly the standard that Kirchner set in terms of corruption is definitely hard to beat
 
You give nice insights, but I do not agree with everything. First and foremost, the current day Peronists do not represent all workers or pymes, I am aware of people of these groups that are clearly anti-Kirchnerists, because of the market unfriendly measures (e.g. access to dollars) that also affect the average Argentinian. In their view, the Kirchnerists want to make everyone poor and give subsidies to the poor so the poor become dependent on them. They see the Kirchnerists stimulating patronage instead of defending the interest of the common people.

Argentina, as much of Latin America has indeed this distorted view that it has either to be the rich or the poor that are in power. They always need to fight. The socialists here are always spewing nonsense about the need for the militancia against the capitalists. If you come from a developed place, this gets tiring. The only way forward is unity between both the poor and the rich, where the different political parties are only about paying a bit more attention to the one side and a bit less to the other side. Here the other side is always the enemy. Do not think you will grow and develop the country like that.


Antiperonism are mainly rich, and, for example with Macri, retiree people that watch tv all day. High consumers of the media. That was his base. People that work, people that depend on the local market, are peronists. (Of course, generally talking).
PYMES were greatly beneffitted with the Ks, not only for this alliance I mentioned with Brazil, but because of thee growth of our internal market. Pymes are 70% of our labour market. The second presidnce of CFK was bumpy. Inflation, Cepo, etc. Not very good. But still, way better than Macris best year.

Socialism in Latin America is more linked with independence, sovereignty, development, as oposed to the gringos who come, destroy, and take everything. Its more a reaction to US capitalism than agree with the socialism cause.

I dont think unity ois possible right now. There is a tragic tie. Opposal interests. No one could win if the other one not loses. Impossible a win win situation. Thats the tragedy, its definition. One wants what the other dont. 100% oposal directions. There si no national project, as other Latam countries, Chile, for instance. The Unions are strong, el campo too, they both are going to defend their posture. There is no other stage, that synthesize this. Only movement. Only time.
 
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