Power Bloc Legitimation Strategies in a Dependent Society: The Case of Argentina (2001–2019)

• Author: Francisco J. Cantamutto
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Date: 01 March 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211069563
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211069563

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 243, Vol. 49 No. 2, March 2022, 163–182

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211069563

© 2022 Latin American Perspectives

163

Power Bloc Legitimation Strategies in a Dependent Society

The Case of Argentina (2001–2019)

by

Francisco J. Cantamutto

Translated by

Victoria Furio

Argentina is a dependent country whose incorporation into the world market has deep-

ened in the last decades. The question that arises is how it has been possible to politically

legitimize this regressive trend. A study of the combinations of two structural mechanisms

of dependency (extractivism and superexploitation of the workforce) with respect to the

building of legitimacy shows a shift from a consensual strategy led by the industrial frac-

tion—which seized the opportunity to redistribute land rent—to one centered on the

power bloc as a whole in opposition to the popular classes. While extractivism increased

throughout the period, superexploitation of the workforce displayed different phases of

augmentation and attenuation depending on the power bloc’s political strategies.

Argentina es un país dependiente cuyos rasgos de inserción externa se han profun-

dizado en las últimas décadas. El interrogante que emerge es cómo ha sido posible legiti-

mar políticamente esta tendencia regresiva. Un estudio de las combinaciones de dos

mecanismos estructurales de la dependencia (extractivismo y superexplotación) de las

posibilidades de las fracciones del bloque en el poder para construir legitimidad demues-

tra un cambio desde una estrategia consensual dirigida por la fracción industrial—apr-

ovechando la posibilidad de redistribuir renta de la tierra—a una centrada en el conjunto

del bloque en el poder y contraria a las clases populares. Mientras el extractivismo se

intensificó durante todo el período, la superexplotación de la fuerza de trabajo mostró

diferentes fases de intensificación y morigeración, según las estrategias políticas del blo-

que en el poder.

Keywords: Dependency, Argentina, Power bloc, Superexploitation, Extractivism

This article studies the strategies of dominant classes to legitimize their con-

trol in Argentina, a dependent society. In this context, it is worth examining

consensus building—or its absence—among the popular classes and how this

relates to the structural compensation mechanisms of dependency, the super-

exploitation of the workforce and extractivism. Is there a relationship between

the predominance of one of these mechanisms and the leading fractions of the

power bloc?

Francisco J. Cantamutto is an associate researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas

y Sociales del Sur and Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina, and the author of Economía política

de la Convertibilidad (2013). Victoria Furio is a conference interpreter and translator located in

Yonkers, NY.

1069563LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X211069563Latin American PerspectivesCantamutto/Legitimation Strategies in a Dependent Society

research-article2022

164 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Argentina is a dependent country, as described by Latin America’s Marxist

dependency theory, and this means that its possibilities of development are

conditioned by the performance of other dynamic centers of accumulation (Dos

Santos, 2011). There is a relatively unexplored link between legitimacy building

strategies and the structural aspects of dependency, something on which

Cardoso and Faletto (1986) contributed from a Weberian viewpoint. This article

neither analyzes the construction of hegemony in a long-term, historical, or

cultural sense nor describes the changes in the organizational and identity com-

position of the popular classes. Instead, it aims to examine the strategies uti-

lized by the various fractions of the power bloc to build legitimacy for their

own programs. These strategies link conflicts among these fractions and

between them and the popular classes constrained by their relation to the

above-mentioned compensatory mechanisms. The study of these strategies

uses tools of Marxist dependency theory, since it is the only one of the different

dependency theories capable of combining the analysis of a country’s position

in international trade with class conflicts within it.

It is argued that, under the direction of the industrial fraction of the power

bloc during the neodevelopmentalist phase (2002–2015), it was possible to

design a strategy of dominance based on consensus, taking advantage of the

prospect of redistributing part of the land rent, which limited the need for

superexploitation of the workforce. The use of this compensation mechanism

created tensions within the power bloc, which were ultimately resolved by

relegating the strategy of seeking consensus among the popular classes. The

administration of Cambiemos (2015–2019) represented this convergence of the

power bloc against the popular classes, escalating both extractivism and super-

exploitation of the workforce.

The first section presents the basic features of the Marxist dependency the-

ory with respect to Argentina. The second one connects this dependent condi-

tion to the political struggle and the role of the state. The third and fourth

sections analyze the changes produced regarding the leading fractions of the

power bloc and the prevalence of the compensation mechanisms in the twenty-

first century, distinguishing between the neodevelopmentalist phase and late-

stage neoliberalism.

ArgentinA from the PersPective of the mArxist theory

of DePenDency

After the political independence of the colonies, the imposition of the

metropolis was no longer explicit, thus modifying Latin American and

Caribbean relations with the rest of the world. This gave rise to a debate on

dependency that dates back, at least, to the centennial of the Latin American

independence struggles (Beigel, 2006). In the case of Argentina, the debate over

the prospects of autonomous development increased during the period of

import-substitution industrialization (Peralta Ramos, 2007).

Emerging from this political and intellectual concern, Latin American struc-

turalism explained the existence of dynamic centers of accumulation specialized

in the manufacture of industrial goods and an extensive periphery engaged in