By Will Reissner IN THE current conflict between the Argentinian British governments over the Malvinas Islands, the critical commentary in the big business media focuses on the fact that Argentina is now ruled by a military dictatorship while Britain has a parliamentary democracy.
This obscures a much more fundamental difference the two countries that Argentina is colonial country while Britain is one of the major imperialist powers in the worid.
Decisive control Argentina's economy is not in the hands of Argentinians, but in the hands of the capitalist investors abroad. fact explains both how Argentinian economy developed and it been misdeveloped.
Argentina is one of the most highly developed, and one of the most industrialised the senicolona countries. But comparisons between semicolonia. aircillila and perialist Canada show the limitations of industrial development in the semi-colonial world.
Argentina and Canada have many Both were settied over whelmingly by Europeans. important producers or grain livestock. Both export large amounts of food and raw materials. Both have educated and skilled workforces. Both are largely urban.
But the following chart on this page shows the tremendous difference in their levels of economic development. The reason for the gap between the two countries is explained by the principal difference between Argentinian economic development has been deformed and distorted by predominant role that capital has played in the development of industry, and by the fundamental influence that imperialist companies exert on the Argentinian state.
Argentina's economic ment has been largely determined by an alliance between Argentinian landowners and imperialism. The landowners, who raise grain and livestock huge estates (estancias), traditionally been content to export their produce and import industrial products, which are generally cheaper and better made than domestic production.
Their power rests on the staggering concentration in landownership in Argentina. Only two-tenths of 1 per cent of the landowners control 65 per cent of the country's acreage and employ 50 per cent of the agricultural labour wo land companies alone own as much land as the total areas of Belgium and logchick While 160,000 farmers cultivate 1.5 million hectares, the 2,100 largest landowners cultivate 53.5 million hectares. Two out of every three farmers do not own the land they work.
While in absolute terms Argentina's agricultural exports mous, its agriculture is inefficient by advanced capitalist standards, being based on minimal cultivation of huge tracts. According to 1964 and 1966 figures compiled by the United Nations Economic Commission Latin America (ECLA), Argentinian farmers used 19 times fewer tractors per arable acre than their counterparts, and 140 times less fertilizer than West German farmers.
The fact that Argentinian exports are overwhelmingly agricultural make it particularly vulnerable to shifts in and hypobetsemiover This the has has economic stranglehold the world market.
While the large landowners are mainly Argentinian, investment became the dominant factor in Argentinian industrial developBoth are ment in the third quarter of the 19th That from Britain until the 1940s, was in- cellul y itially concentrated in railroads and the meat export trade.
But investments system were made to further the interests of British capital rather than the internal needs of the Argentinian economy. Lines were laid out in a fan pattern, to move exports from the in. terior to the port of Buenos Aires and to move imports from Buenos foreign develophave put are col.
Al Haig, dependent Argentina over Juan Peron, unable to break out of the imperialist imperialist munication investment, largely imperialist in the railroad nian For archetype US imperialist, backed Britain against the Malvinas/Falklands Aires to the interior. No grid was built to facilitate internal trade and com cities and regions of Argentina itself.
The second major focus of early investment was in meat-packing industry. The develop.
of refrigerator ships in 1876 made it possible for the first time to transport large amounts of Argenti• beef to European markets, and by 1890 a fleet of 278 refrigerator ships was constantly moving between Buenos Aires and Britain.
intents and purposes, Argentina had become a British colony by the turn of the century. Fully - OVERTISEAN - VOSS POrU • AGAINSE Not everyone supports the w 80 per cent of all foreign investm the country came from Britain, influence aspects of Argentinian life By the 1930s, capit controlled three-quarters of the road mileage, most of the urban sit systems and utilities, much o meat-packing industry, and had stakes industrie Capitalists from other countries had a substantial presence in A During the 1930s and 1940s was considerable developmen consumer-oriented 'import sub tion' industries in Argentina. D the world-wide capitalist depres markets for Argentinian expor Western Europe shrank, leavin country with less money to pur manufactured goods abroad. when markels agriculture picked up with the break of the Second World Argentina was still unable to pur industrial goods due to the conve of European industry to war pr tion.
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