Module 5: The Plata Geo-Cultural Formation

Question 1

Argentina

Answer 1

1. Amerigo Vespucci arrived in the region in 1502
2. Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata (1776)
   -capital: Buenos Aires
3. Argentina Independence (1810)
4. Economy
   - Cattle farms
   - The first modern Latin American country
5. “European” country of the South

Question 2

Civilizacion o barbarie?

Answer 2

1. Argentina between civilization and barbarism
   - Feudalism vs. Capitalism, Old vs. Progress
2. Civilization: European, North America
3. Barbarism: Latin America, Spain, Asia, Africa, Middle East
4. Education is civilization (Western Education)
5. Argentina was a barbarian place due to the administration of the caudillos and the gaucho culture
   - Caudillo: personalist military and political leaders in Latin America. Replaced the former conquistador’s power: Criollo elite
   - Gaucho: countryman, horseman. Occupied the rural lands in Southern Cone. It also means unruly and brave country man

Question 3

Europeanization of Argentina

Answer 3

1. Buenos Aires: the Paris of the South
   - Italian Immigration
   - - 60% current population is of Italian descendent
   - - 19th-20th more Italian immigrants than nationals (Spaniards, Indigenous, and Africans)

Question 4

1930s and 1940s Argentina

Answer 4

1. Wall Street Crash of 1929
2. Argentinian economy (economic transition)
   - Pre-1930: beef exportation
   - Post-1930: beef & import substitution (national industrialization
3. Increased the number of factory workers
   - Workers weren’t getting social and economic benefits from industrialization
4. Revolucion de 1943 — Military Coup in Argentina

Question 5

Peronismo: Juan Domingo Peron

Answer 5

1. Argentinian politician and Lieutenant General
2. Secretary of Labor (1943-45), President of Argentina (1946-55; 1973-74)
   - Established labor rights: sick leaves, maternity leaves, vacations, increment of real wages of industrial workers (50%)
3. Working Class Nationalism
4. Unionization of the working class
   - Incorporation of the working class into the state
   - - Workers as citizens
5. “Indeed, a crucial legacy of the Peron era for labor was the integration of the working class into a national political community and a corresponding recognition of its civic and political status within that community”

Question 6

Peronismo: Evita Peron

Answer 6

1. Eva Maria Duarte (Eva Peron)
   - Lower-class upbringing
   - Actress and First Lady of Argentina
2. Evita Peron Foundation
   - Social Welfare Program/Branch of Peron’s administration
   - - Health Care, Education, Food, Housing, Women’s rights, etc
3. The charismatic face of Peronism
   - She turned into a “saint” similar to Virgin Mary
   - Evita as a sacred figure in Argentina: “The Mother of the poor”
   - Died at the age of 33

Question 7

Peronismos: A Right-Wing or a Left-Wing Movement? A Belief, A Culture, An Ideology?

Answer 7

1. Peronism is not only a political movement but also a cultural movement
2. Peronism became synonymous with Argentinianness
   - Soccer, Food
   - Leasure is not a privilege of the upper class
3. Peronism is a belief, a value system (politics is not rational, it is also emotional)

Question 8

Definition of dictatorship

Answer 8

“Dictatorship, form of government in which one person or a small group possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limitations” (Britannica)

Question 9

Global and Latin American Context in the 1970s

Answer 9

1. Cold War: Capitalist Block (USA) vs. Socialist Block (Soviet Union)
2. Latin America in the context of the Cold War
   - The Cold War in Latin America was the “Hot War” of the Cold War
3. Military coup d’etat in Latin American Countries
   - Military Dictatorships: Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay, and Ecuador
4. Condor Operation: a US-backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents
5. School of the Americas:
   - the Latin American Training Center-Ground Division founded by US Army
   - - Trained Latin American military personnel

Question 10

Argentinian Context in the 1970s

Answer 10

1. Juan Domingo Peron’s third term (1973-74)
   - High Inflation Rate
   - Peron passes away in 1974
2. Isabela Peron (vice-president and Peron’s wife) succeed him in the presidency from 1974-76
   - Sign the Anti-terrorist Law
   - Military Forces gained more power

Question 11

Dirty War or The State Terrorism In Argentina (1976-1983)

Answer 11

1. The military coup in 1976. Military Junta (Army, Navy, Air Force)
   - Jorge Rafael Videla (Commander in Chief of the Army) and President of Argentina
2. Why Dirty War?
   - “Clean War” (Official War) vs. “Dirty War” (Informal, Clandestine War)
3. Max Weber definition of state: “The monopoly of the legitamate use of physical force within a given territory”
4. Why State Terrorism?
   - “State of Rights” vs “State of Terror”
   - - terror managed by the state against its civilians
   - - fear and extermination as a political strategy
   - - 30,000 people disappeared
   - - 500 clandestine jails
   - - the goal was to dismantle the guerrilla groups
   - - those who criticize the military regime are enemies and subversives
   - - There is no trial, only kidnapping, torture, and execution

Question 12

Neoliberalism

Answer 12

1. Socialism vs. Welfare State vs. Neoliberalism
2. “Liberals, therefore, reject any design or plan for society - religious, utopian, or ethical. Liberals feel that society and state should not have fixed goals, but that ‘process should determine outcome.’ This anti-Utopianism became increasingly important in liberal philosophy, in reaction to the Communist centrally-planned economies: it anticipated the extreme deregulation-ism of later neoliberalism”

Question 13

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

Answer 13

1. The first social movement to protest against the state violence
2. Argentine human rights association: find the disappeared
3. Women had organized to gather, holding a vigil, while also trying to learn what had happened to their adult children during the 1970s and 1980s
4. First, they started demonstrations at Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace

Question 14

Cryptocurrency

Answer 14

Cryptocurrency is any form of currency that exists digitally or virtually and uses cryptography to secure transactions. Cryptocurrencies don’t have a central issuing or regulating authority instead using a decentralized system to record transactions and issue new units

Question 15

George Simmel, “The Philosophy of Money” (1900)

Answer 15

For Simmel, money has a social nature. It is “entirely a sociological phenomenon” it refines exchanges among people and it can do this because it is a social institution. If money were a ‘mere tool’ without social significance and effects, it could not possibly have these alienating effects

Question 16

Recap: Liberalism vs. Neoliberalism

Answer 16

1. Economic Ideologies: Private Property & Free Market
   - Liberalism: Productive Capitalism (John Lock)
   - Neoliberalism: Speculative Capitalism

Question 17

Neoliberalism in Argentina

Answer 17

1. Neoliberalism + Dictatorships = Non-regulated economy + Authoritarian politics
2. Reproduction of colonial economic dependency (the contemporary way of neocolonialism)
3. First foreign debt that increased significantly under the military dictatorship. Second privatization program, deregulatory measures, and ‘opening’ to the world economy. Third, substantial concentration and centralization of capital and to the consolidation of large firm excluding small and medium-sized businesses
4. 1970s-80s
   - Highest income per capital and most industrialized countries in Latin America
   - Transition to foreigner indebtedness (1976-1983)
   - - Foreign debt increased by US$ 39 billion
   - - Interests increased by US$ 515 million to US$ 5.4 billion
   -“This drastic increase in indebtedness had a clearly defined purpose (…) to integrate Argentine finances into international financial markets, freeing exchange rates and establishing the full mobility of capital
5. 1990s — Menem’s administration
   - Convertibility Plan of 1991: pairing peso argentine to US dollar
   - - Limiting the function of the Central Bank
   - Privatization of state public enterprises
   - - 30 companies (e.g. water, our, etc)
   - - Elimination of regulations for foreigner investors (US and European countries)
   - Privatization of portion of retirement and pensioner funds
   - Banking system
   - - 1994: 15% total assets from foreigner banks
   - - 1998: 54% total assets from foreigner banks
6. November of 2001
   - Corralitos: prohibition the withdraw of deposits—mostly small operators— from the banking system
   - Rebellion of December of 2001
   - “unemployment reached 25 percent, and if underemployment is considered this implies that over 50 percent of the population was in some way unemployed. Unemployment reached 25 percent, and if underemployment is considered this implies that over 50 percent of the population was in some way unemployed