Neo-developmentalism, Accumulation by Dispossession and International Rent—Argentina, 2003–2013

Abstract

After the crisis of the neoliberal project in Argentina, dominant classes were able to recreate their social hegemony under the umbrella of a new development project, which has been labelled neo-developmentalist. A new articulation of productive forces, state-form and constitution of the class conflict, led by a new hegemonic bloc dominated by the transnationalized fractions of capital, dialectically displaced neoliberal adjustment momentum in Argentina. Much in line with Rosa Luxemburg's analysis, neo-developmentalist savoir-faire tries to create the conditions for sustained capital accumulation while accepting—as a question of historical inevitability and, even, good luck—the place of Argentina as producer-exporter of primary commodities and basic manufactures of those commodities. In such context, a permanent and systematic process of “primitive accumulation,” or accumulation by dispossession to follow Harvey's terminology, becomes tantamount to the production and expanded reproduction of capital in Argentina's value-space. In this article, I discuss these processes showing how ground-rent articulates with primitive accumulation to perpetuate accelerated valorization and accumulation of capital in Argentina after 2003. First, I discuss some relevant theoretical concepts. After that, I discuss how Rosa Luxemburg's approach can be useful and enlighten the analysis of the current process of capital accumulation in Argentina. Finally, I present some brief conclusions and the bibliographical references.

Keywords:

• neo-developmentalism
• neoliberalism
• extraordinary rent
• accumulation by dispossession

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the anonymous referees for their useful comments on the initial draft.

Notes on Contributor

Mariano Féliz is Adjunct Professor of economics at the Department of Sociology of the Faculty of Humanities and Sciences of Education at the National University of La Plata (Universidad Nacional de La Plata, UNLP), in La Plata, Argentina. He is also Adjunct Researcher at the Centre of Geographical Research (Centro de Investigaciones Geográficas, CIG) of the Institute of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences (Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, IdIHCS) of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, CONICET) and the UNLP, in La Plata, Argentina. He specializes in development theory, Marxian critic of political economy and macroeconomics. His most recent book is Neo-developmentalism in Argentina (in Spanish; co-edited with Emiliano López; Editorial El Colectivo/Herramienta Ediciones, 2012). He has also published articles in Historical Materialism and Review of Radical Political Economics.

Notes

¹While this is not the place to go further into this, somewhere else we have shown that the crisis of the neoliberal project in Argentina (1998–2002) was led by the TPRF and the mechanisms analyzed by Luxemburg were part of the counter forces at work in such a process (Féliz 2007, 2011).

²The process of transnationalization of capital has not been symmetric between central and peripheral countries. While the former have retained control of the key phases of production, most peripheral regions have been placed again as sources and providers of cheap labor and basic commodities.

³Private property implies privative as opposed to common use (which does not imply necessarily state property).

⁴“Fertility” refers to the productivity of labor in certain plot of land where capital is producing a particular commodity. It may apply to agricultural activities but also to mining and other branches where land becomes a means of production.

⁵This was the case in the agricultural production in Argentina's Pampas up until the late 1970s.

⁶This does not mean that nation-states lose all possibilities for appropriation and redistribution of land-rent. The experience of Argentina regarding taxation of soya exports (and the partial redistribution of such income to the working people), and the re-nationalization of the main oil corporation (YPF, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales) show that there's still much room for political intervention.

⁷While there is some debate regarding the nature of economic policy during the 1980s (Brenta 2008), it is clear to us that the general framework for it was structuralist macroeconomics, and thus it can be understood as “heterodox” (and not overtly “neoliberal”) in nature.

⁸I understand neo-developmentalism as more than “discursive innovations that operate within the parameters of actually-existing neoliberalism,” as Webber (2010, 227) sustains. To me, “Neo-developmentalism in Argentina is built on the structural transformations created by neoliberalism, but it implies much more than discursive innovations for it has signified very real changes in state-intervention, class-composition and the general dynamics of capitalist development. That said, neo-developmentalism maintains the main traits exhibited by neoliberalism but represents a whole new level of capitalist development and contradictions” (Féliz 2012).

⁹These figures do not include transnationalization of land ownership and/or use, or foreign control over common goods such as oil, gas and mineral reserves.

¹⁰According to Arceo, Basualdo and Arceo (2009), the main changes in the structure of agricultural capitals are (a) the increasing renting of land by big landlords and (b) the increasing weight of non-land owners (such as agrarian pools) as producers on rented land. In the nuclear agricultural lands (Pampean region), the number of hectares rented by landlords grew by 25% between 1998 and 2002 (the latest figures available) while the number of hectares rented by non-owners of land increased by 49.6% in the same period. The fraction of land under let for rent increased from 21.4% to 33.4% in that same period.

¹¹Recent changes in public policies regarding oil and gas production point to a new side of the process of primitive accumulation. Through the partial re-statization of YPF (the formerly privatized petroleum company) and a policy of “inviting” foreign corporations to participate in the development of new “non-conventional” oil and gas fields, Argentina could become one of the world's largest exporter of both oil and gas (see IEA 2013).

¹²The main exception is production and export of cars and trucks. However, since this industry benefits from a particular regime for exporting to Brazil (the overwhelming destination of car exports) it can be said that capitals operating in this manufacturing branch appropriate a huge amount of extraordinary rent (see Bekerman and Montangú 2007). In this case, however, this is absolute or monopoly, not relative, rent.

¹³While important legal transformations were produced in the previous neoliberal stage, this heritage was ratified and strengthened in the neo-developmentalist era. In 2004, newly elected president (Néstor Kirchner 2003–7) promoted a mining strategy that secured those privileges, while in 2008 his successor (Cristina Fernández, his wife, 2007–15) vetoed the glacier protection law to favor mining capital's interests (see Comelli 2010).

¹⁴These changes have had an important political outcome for they have created a sizable number of new rentiers (land owners that rent their land for production by third parties, and cash in a sizable rent out of it). This new rentier middle class lives in the cities and has become a relevant political actor in Argentina, as the conflict in 2008 regarding taxes on primary exports has shown (Sartelli et al. 2008).

¹⁵In the case of soya, almost 95% of production is exported in some way or another. This makes agricultural production increasingly “independent” of the internal market. In the previous decades, primary exports of wheat, maize and their by-products competed with their use in domestic consumption (Vertíz 2012).

¹⁶In Argentina, the use of taxation on exports of rent-accruing commodities is one significant, but not necessarily the most important, means of redistribution of ground-rent to industrial manufacturing capitals. These taxes finance an array of subsidies that include reduction in the costs of transportation and energy and “industrial promotion” through tax exemptions, amongst others (see Azpiazu and Schorr 2010).