From the origins to the boom. Historiographic reconstruction of Argentine public enterprises before the privatization cycle (1800-1975)

ASCENCIO DÉBORA ELIANA

Ciudad de México

Congreso; Business History Conference; 2021

Bussiness History Conference

Beyond the inescapable current and historical relevance of public enterprises, the specialized literature coincides in pointing out a historiographical vacuum around their study, especially in Latin America (Guajardo Soto y Labrador 2015). However, there is a very prolific and relatively recent research agenda, coming from European economic history, which carried out historiographical studies from the origins of the firms, arguing with the "over-ideologized" interpretations of the neoliberal paradigm, which tended to associate the growth of public enterprises only to the emergence of left-wing governments and left aside the complex and diverse causes behind their creation and diffusion. Taking up these discussions and findings, as well as the aforementioned regional vacancy, this paper carries out a historiographic reconstruction of the main Argentine public enterprises, with the purpose of answering the following fundamental questions: what were the motivations behind the creation of state-owned firms? is there a correspondence between the political cycles and the "phases" of growth or decline of the entities? Among the main findings, it stands out that, coinciding with the world experience, the origin of the firms dates back to the emergence of the nation-state. From then on, there was a practically uninterrupted growth, responding to very diverse social and economic demands, beyond the political orientation of successive administrations. Behind this "ideological stigma" there is a series of myths about the inefficient State, which is also relevant to contrast in the light of the national historical experience, since most of the public companies analyzed played a leading role in the generation of new markets, were prone to the assumption of entrepreneurial risk and made long-term investments, in the absence of private initiative.