Ranis 1995

Ranis, Peter, and Peter Ranis. 1995. Class, democracy, and labor in contemporary Argentina. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

REACTIONS

• Author went down looking for Marxian style class issues, came back convinced that Marx was basically wrong

1. Introduction
1. Menem has engineered a profound change in Argentina, a shift simila is scope to Peron’s (x)
2. Argentine working class has been predisposed to Menem initiatives (because PJ keeps winning elections) (x)
3. Menem is first president to choose his OWN economic direction and ideological/philosophical positions, not just follow party (xi)
4. Menem appeals to workers as both autonomous and entrepreneurs, not as “unions” (xi)
5. Menem has multi-class alliance, even larger than Perón’s (xii)
6. really improved inflation situation, and economic situation (xii-xiv)
7. negative outcomes: unemployment growth, increased inequality, and increased poverty among the poorest (xiv)
8. Argentine workers don’t associate democracy with the state performing basic economic functions (xvi)
9. changes in obras sociales, labor contracts, and poverty relief  programs (xvii-xix)
10. Opposition weak, because (xx-xxi)
1. PJ has moved to the right to occupy similar space as the Radicals (xxii as well)
2. unions find themselves hoping for a social democratic party that doesn’t exist, choosing between being critical ally or weak opposition
1. union leaders old, inflexible
2. also not allowing young leaders to move up, making them less innovative
11. MTA and CTA opposing privatizations (xxi)
12. workers are not synonymous with neoliberal project, but are “far closer to this orientation than has generally been acknowledged”
13. Menem’s success with anti-inflation policy has outweighed negative economic consequences (xxiv)
14. discussion of class as a subject, not just simple Marxism anymore (xxvii-xxix)
2. Chapter 1: Putting workers in perspective
1. workers are not class, unions, voting blocs, but masses of varied opinions and desires (1-3)
2. “Argentine workers have struggled relatively successfully for their interests over the years by combining demands for social justice with a demand for share political influence” (5)
3. Argentines support democracy because it allows them autonomy (6)
4. Argentine working class able to topple 5 military regimes in two generations: 1962, 65, 69, 75, 82) (7-8)
5. industrial proletariat shrinking, more and more professional workers in the tertiary sector (8)
6. gubernatorial, legislative, and presidential victories in 1987-1989 of PJ represents a new, more authentically pluralistic Peronist party (10-11)
3. Chapter 2: Labor and Peronism: The Historical Connection
1. Lots of immigrants to Argentina, mostly artisans, came to make a better life, not to incite proletarian revolution, THUS most early strikes were simply wage-related (17)
2. despite revolutionary rhetoric through the 1940s, unions sought to be institutions of bargaining, not revolutionary organizations (18)
3. Perón stepped in to aid workers in a meatpacking strike in 1943 (while he was at the Ministry of War, of all things), even as union leaders were calling for end to strike -- creating strong alliance between Perón and workers (18-19)
1. following the pro-worker settlement of this strike, Perón becomes Secretary of Labor (19)
4. Perón’s corporatist scheme was one of class collaboration under the auspices and direction of the state (20)
5. Peronism is nationalist (22), not socialist or marxist, later grew to have three pillars (23):
1. economic independence
2. political sovereignty
3. social justice
6. Peronism: a reject both of the left and the right (24)
7. After Perón’s reelection in 1951, legislative PJ became less powerful, party/power became centered on Perón
8. Paradoxically:  Perón democratized Argentina, in that he allowed/brought the working classes into politics, but then restricted opposition and became authoritarian leader
9. with Perón, capitalist sector still dominant, but now working class involved in social and cultural policy (26)
10. organized labor flourished under Perón
1. 43% unionization rate in 1954
11. unions lost some militancy and autonomy, but traded it in for “political access, social acceptability, and major wage improvements” (27)
12. Perón was overthrown because he had alienated the Church parts of the military, and some fans of liberal political democracy
13. “Because of Perón and since Perón, almost any Argentine worker has a sense of what foreign domination means” citing Hernández Arregui
14. post-Perónism, all significant political parties tried to appeal to unions (28)
15. workers/unions were against increase of foreign capital under military governments (29)
16. In Frondizi years, CGT established itself as a prime corporative actor in society, regardless of regime (29)
17. 1960s had industrial expansion, but increasing employment as well (30)
1. industry becomes dominated by foreign capital
18. 1969 Cordobazo: major revolutionary uprising, one example of true revolutionary spirit since WWI (30)
1. workers and students united (31)
2. rising expectations given booming economy increased societal expectations, but these expectations unfulfilled (31)
3. social rebellion was a challenge to the military government AND to the “reformist” union leadership
19. Student militancy led to guerilla fighting, military regime put on the defensive (32)
20. Perón ally Hector Campora wins presidential election in 1973, Perón returns weeks later
1. his coalition is originally broader than 1940s, includes students, intellectuals, and small business people (32)
2. but Perónism returns to its reofrmist, moderate, welfare capitalist roots pretty quickly (33)
3. labor rank and file seeking democratization of the unions (33)
4. leftist factions of coalition forced out (34)
21. Labor militancy now more political with Perón back (34)
22. Perón dies, Isabel Perón determined to break social pact between labor and business (34)
1. general strike against Isabel and her economic policies
23. El Proceso
1. all out war against subversion (36)\
2. society became largely militarized (36)
3. 1973-1983: high inflation, capital flight, plummeting production, mounting debt
4. devastating reversal of working class fortune (37)
5. early 1976 CGT intervened
6. right to strike abrogated
7. But in mid-1976 CGT starts to resist (38)
8. page 38; quick and dirty about 62, 25, CNT, etc.
4. Chapter 3: The Contexts and Conditions of Labor Under Alfonsín
1. Institutional context
1. Argentina does not have a labor surplus economy (43)
2. urbanization is largely complete
3. many workers are self-employed, and seek self-employment
4. agricultural exporter (44)
5. large internal market, the engine of economic growth
6. many policies since WWII have been pro-labor, minus military dictatorships
7. LPA (45):
1. rights never restricted
1. freedom of association
2. right to have unions as representatives
3. one union per industry
4. employers must pay salaries of union delegates and shopfloor stewards
5. union delegates cannot be fired while they are serving their term
2. rights, but have been restricted at times
1. striking
2. union control of social funds
3. dues checkoff
4. employer contributions to retirement, etc.
8. Discussion of LPA and changes over the years (45-47)
9. Alfonsín law normalized union elections after military dictatorship had controlled them (47)
10. LPA 1953 law has only rarely been totally implemented, thanks to military (48)
11. Alfonsín returned many of CGT’s formal powers, including right to administer its own social programs
2. Sociological and Economic context
1. workers tend to identify with neighborhoods more than class (49)
2. racial and ethnic distinctions are muted (50)
3. Argentina looks like a Western European country (51)
4. In early 1990s 50% of Argentines were service sector workers (52)
5. military period saw a loss of 425,000 jobs (53)
6. 1983 was first defeat of Perónism in free elections (54)
7. Austral Plan initially looks good, but prices slowly rise for workers while CB and wage increases still restricited.  resulted in worker criticism (55)
3. The Union Structure
1. CGT was able to resist the full-blown democratization sponsored by the Radical Party (55)
2. Over 50% of workers in Argentina are unionized (56)
3. unions are seen as the best way to defend themselves against attacks on living standards (57)
4. also unions have become customary means of participating in social and cultural benefits
5. CGT’s political strength has increased unionization
6. CGT’s strength has also allowed it to be relatively undemocratic
1. internal pressures for more rank and file participation have been weak
7. reunification of CGT (58-60)
4. The Alfonsín initiatives
1. unions historically not very democratic (61)
2. in 1980s an increase in union democracy
3. measures to force union democracy defeated by Perónist controlled Senate in 1984 (61)
4. Austral Plan was really hard on workers (63)
5. CGT Responses
1. hard to respond to Radicals, since they were democratically elected and had legitimacy (62)
2. 13 general strikes between 1983 and 1987 (63)
3. CGT took positions but had few concrete proposals
1. 1985 “26 points”, called for debt moratorium (64)
6. CGT leadership split and continue to conflict over confrontational versus conciliatory tactics (65)
7. CGT emerged from Proceso very weak
8. workers’ choice is between “bourgeois democracy” and “bourgeois authoritarianism”
5. Chapter 4: A portrait of 7 contracts
1. 7 different contracts in this chapter, all for unions of interviewees
2. “Argentine workers’ self-confidence about their role in society allows them to speak freely.  Their belief that the CGT is a major social player translates into a sense of self-worth.” (69)
3. textiles and autos having trouble in 1980s (70-75)
4. autoworkers have lots of perks, responsibility (74-75)
5. also members of UOM not doing well
6. SEGBA (electricity and power for BA) allows children of workers preferential hiring (81)
7. Teachers’ union is decentralized (86)
8. workers all shared, to some degree, inhertiance of solid social benefits and protections which dated back to Perón era (88)
6. Chapter 5: The Rank and File Worker
1. self-employed sector acts as a stabilizing mechanism, a safety valve for ARgentine economy (95)
2. 70% of sample said they had trouble making ends meet (98)
3. desire of most laborers is that their children have better jobs than they had, move up in the world (100-101)
4. work is necessary, outside-work life is the focus of their world (101)
5. many noted dislike of bureaucratic treatment of workers )104-105), liked being treated like part of the family by their superiors (105)
6. “laborers in the private sector were tangibly more content than their public employee and labor counterparts” (106)
7. 69.1% of workers did not see themselves as being exploited (107)
1. some felt exploited by international economy or the state of the country re: debt obligations, inflation (109)
8. Union is coopted, paralyzed, weak (110)
9. 56.8% noted some reservations about their union leaders (111)
10. yet say 69.8% had participated in a strike (112)
11. some workers thought worker involvement in unions should be strengthened, but many also saw no need for this (113-114)
12. most workers wanted better communication with management, impact on management decisions (114)
7. Chapter 6: Workers as Citizens
1. half blue collar workers supported peronism (116)
2. workers are not usually active party members
3. employees (middle management) more active in both unions and in political parties than workers (117)
4. in 1983 Alfonsín won with a majority of working class support (118)
5. but the Intransigent Party (PI) also won a lot of votes for its overtly anti-military stance
6. Women were more likely to identify with further left and further right parties (119), most people view themselves as centrists (117-119)
7. Workers generally distanced themselves from left parties, like the Communists (121)
1. Communist party not trusted because it was anti-Perón and divided working class
8. Juan and Eva Perón and Alfonsín most often noted as three public figures admired by people (123)
9. most workers did not see the worth in a party focused solely on working class interests (125)
10. Argentines not in favor of communism (126)
11. debt crisis was the fault of:
1. 38%  poor political and economic leadership
2. 30.8% singled out the proceso dictatorship (127)
3. 9% blamed meddling of IMF and international banks\
12. 71% thought privatizing industries was a good thing, but (129)
1. many wanted state to keep “critical” industries (which industries were critical depending on who answered question)
2. those in state-owned industries not always in favor of privatization.  “Privatize them, they need it”
3. belief that private enterprise was more efficient than public (130)
13. Workers generally said unions had a positive role in society (132)
1. but many noted they are poorly run
14. workers responded harshly to Argentine businessmen, saying they had negative feelings toward them (133)
15. foreign companies actually received positive response from 62>7% of workers (133)
1. they create jobs (134), paid better and on time (135)
16. argentina’s landowners viewed with suspicion (135)
17. military also not liked
1. stems rom dirty war (137)
2. though some are equivocal about need/use of military’s tactisc during dirty war (137-140)
3. many reasons why some semi-supported repression
1. subversion = TERRIBLE, akin to rape or another despicable thing
2. maybe disappeared deserved it
3. many disappeared just left the country,
4. etc etc
5. ME: disinformation? some don’t know the extent?
18. Malvinas war was a mistake (140-141)
1. but this is, of course, after the fact (MY comment)
8. Chapter 7: Class Ideology Among Argentine Workers
1. “a Peronist outlook among Argentine workers was translated into a series of ideolgoical convictions that did not conform to the tupical left-right political spectrum” (143)
2. laborers split between identifying themselves as middle and lower class (workingn class term not offered as an option, 144)
3. class distinctions usually associated with material comfort (145-147)
4. virtually all workers felt it was impossible to move into the upper class (149)
5. rigid class structure separated workingn class and upper class (150)
6. “the idea of class struggle was almost totally absent from all reponses.” (150-151)
7. class differences were not a collective matter but a barrier to social mobility, again relating to material distinctions, not social identity distinctions (152)
8. Everyone wants democracy over any other type of government (152)
9. people are equal in a human rights sense, but after that there are differences in everyone and equality is not a goal to be achieved (155-157)
1. workers see themselves, at times, better than others in society (156)
2. people are OK with rewarding those with more education, higher skill (158)
10. laborers took a benign view to foreign industrialists
11. perception is that landowners have lots of power! (161)
1. those who have too much power, top 4:
1. large landowners            44.5%
2. military                    32.7
3. Catholic church                20
4. Large industrialists (NON-foreign)    15.5
12. workers have strongly rooted respect for fair-play and civil liberties (162)
13. “Class consciousness among the Argentine working class as largely expressed in survey responses as demands for improving the lot of laborers and employers under more benign forms of welfare capitalism” (164)
9. Chapter 8: Argentine Workers and the Question of Class Consciousness
1. Long theoretical discussion of class consciousness
2. “the Argentine working class can translate consumption into autonomy, recreation, and the pursuit of what it is to be human.” (175)
3. The argentine case calls into question Marx’s denial of supraclass sentiments like nationalism and ethnic pride among the working class (176)
1. around the world we have seen that “working-class struggles are often expressed politically as nationalism” (177)
4. working class has usually joined revolutionary left not to abolish wage system, but when they think post-revolution they will be able to regain material income denied them by capitalists and capitalism (177)
5. Historically “Argentine working-class agitation has been anti-elitist and antiestablishment rather than anticapitalist” (178)
1. because the target was elitism and not capitalism, worker discontent was channeled through the party and the union ito Peronism, not the left (178)
2. Argentine workers have managed to make real gains by joining the electoral process (179)
6. Ubaldini, leader of CGT, cultivated political consciousness, not simple trade unionism or revolutionary consciousness...goal combined day-to-day interests with fundamental interests of the working class (180)
1. “Workers in Argentina have seemed to understand their role in society as crucial without believing that they are capable of fomenting alternative versions of society” (180-181)
2. the multiclass lessons of early Peronism are still part and parcel of contemporary working-class values” (181)
7. Argentine workers do not see themselves in homogeneous of monolithic terms but conciliatory to other sectors...they expect to share power, not to monopolize it (181)
8. feelings of alienation in workers comes from routinization, repetition, boredom, lack of autonomy (185)
10. Chapter 9: Workers and Democratic Political Culture
1. class differences are not readily definable by factors other than schooling and income (190)
1. cultural mechanism have produced broad social coherence
2. Rosa Luxemburg underestimated how appealing democracy would be to workers (192)
3. note how Lula lost election in 1989 because he highlighted his difficult, poor background....that wasn’t what workers wanted to see/to strive for (193)
4. Striving to own one’s own business seems to be more indicative of a drive for democratic autonomy than for capital accumulation (194)
5. workers are commodified, but fair compensation at least allows them some control over their own lives (195)
1. private lives become the havens of workers, they work to have a comfortable life outside work (196)
2. “the reification of personal and home life has become a major means for softening the rigors of modern work life” (197)
3. alienated work, paradoxically, often leads workers to derive a lot fo satisfaction from consumption, leisure, and cultural pursuits
6. most workers interpret democracy as a guarantee of practical autonomy, attribute the stability and freedom under Alfonsín to democracy, not to Alfonsín (198)
7. Perónism thus faces a challenge, since it historically wasn’t the most democratic of systems
1. Perónism was an authentic movement against a liberal democracy that, in fact, excluded large numbers of people (199)
2. Perónist populism has historically combined two essential concepts of Argentine political culture: social justice and freedom (199)
3. elsewhere in the world, socialist regimes represented LESS democracy, not more (203)
11. Chapter 10: Post-Alfonsín Peronism
1. Menems’ policies brought out (OR CREATED?) existing inconsistencies in Peronism, especially with the militant wing of the CGT (209)
2. Surveyed workers were not in favor of populism (210)
3. Menem has focused exclusively on boosting productivity and national income, not on distributing it (210)
1. as Menem has put it, if Peronism doesn’t change it will disappear like communism
4. Law of Economic Emergency Menem got the right to privatize public-sector enterprises outright in 1989 (211)
1. in October 1990 Menem instituted another emergency measure that limited the right to strike in the public service sector (211)
2. then National Law of employment liberalized labor contract
5. privatization of ENTEL (telephones) and Argentina Airlines was supported by majority in opinion polls (213)
6. abrupt shift toward neoliberalism was accepted much more peacefully by laborers than most expected (214)
1. Menem government continued to receive support from CGT
1. though split in CGT, where Ubaldini faction was more militant but lost control of confederation (214-215)
2. not a single general strike against menem rom 1989-1991 (215)
3. most CGT leaders with Menem
7. there is no real electoral threat from the Left now (218)
8. Belief that workers will still resist rapid modernization if it threatens historical gains in rights at the workplace, job security, and health and vacation benefits (220)
12. Chapter 11: Conclusion
1. “modern democratic systems have offered worker-citizens the chance to bring about redistributive justice through representative channels...” (224)
2. when conditions for workers have worsened, the CGT has moved into the opposition regardless of governmental party (227)