“Earning But Not Leading: Argentina’s Economic Elites and the Exercise of Power in Global Capitalism”

HEREDIA MARIANA

Political Economy of Elites in Latin America

Routledge

Lugar: Nwe York/London; Año: 2023; p. 20 - 36

Since the 1970s, growth in Argentina has stalled in comparison to that of other Latin American nations, yet the country continued to stand out as one of the most equal in the region. This configuration has been attributed to weaker elites facing a mobilized civil society (Fairfield, 2010). This paper questions this hypothesis and examines economic elites’ composition and powers in Argentina. On the one hand, considering a detailed description of the country’s activities, corporations, and leaders, it shows the dislocation between structural and instrumental business power. While big companies, especially those that export grains, remain the most competitive and profitable at the global market but lack of robust political influence, small and middle-sized companies -most of them domestically oriented- are more cohesive and organized, with strong political ties. On the other hand, through an analysis of long term economic and social trends, it shows that instability provoked a deep transformation of economic elites while moderate growth increased social inequalities and poverty climbed and stayed high for most of the period. Therefore, the relationship between Argentina’s economic elites and political authorities is much more complex than a zero-sum game in which social unrest forces businessmen to cede and negotiate. Local unpredictability combined with financialization produced diverse effects. One of them is the consolidation of escape mechanisms that encourage the search of easy profits as well as capital outflow preventing long-term investments and growth. Besides structural differences, most businessmen privileged short-term advantages rather than collective efforts to forge a sustainable economic order.