Estimating Economic Surplus in Argentina: The Neoliberal Strategy, Its Crisis and the Neo-Developmentalist Model (1991-2015)

Abstract

This chapter studies the evolution of Argentina’s political economy during the currency board regime (1991–2001) called convertibility, and the Kirchner governments that made part of the Latin American pink tide (2002–2015). In order to do so, this work revisits the analysis provided by the theory of economic surplus and offers instruments to measure it. The interest in this period arises from the existing controversies regarding the continuities and ruptures between the neoliberal model (of which convertibility was its “superior stage”) and the neo-developmental or populist strategy that was deployed during the Kirchner governments. The study not only investigates the evolution of social wealth and its distribution during both projects, but also aims to combine it with the concept of accumulation regime. As it will be discussed, economic stagnation and social crises (especially by the end of the 1990s but also between 2012 and 2015) emerged as a consequence of the impossibility of reproducing capital accumulation successfully, due to structural problems derived from the specific characteristics of the generation, appropriation and destination of economic surplus in each period. Different economic measures taken during both crises could be insightful to characterize the recent crisis and its emergencies after the Covid-19 pandemic.