Argentina's New Social Protagonists
James A. Donald
On Thu, 12 Dec 2002 00:43:13 -0800, Dan Clore
<cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
> Those who work in these places are the same people who,
> wearing masks or not, set up roadblocks or set bonfires to
> block access to the capital. The only money the piqueteros
> receive is the welfare payments they fight to get from the
> government. They are supposed to live off this 150 pesos
> (US$41) a month. And pay their monthly 3 peso quota to
> finance their organization’s expenses—including the leaders’
> cell phones—and buy food for the kitchens. They have to
> pledge to be at the action centers four hours per day, Monday
> to Friday. Here roll is called, and those who do not show up
> have their names taken off the welfare lists.
Or, in other words, the piqueteros are paid by the government
to protest against capitalism and free markets. Of course
they do lots of useful work for the poor as well, but they are
primarily political organizations, with political paymasters,
from which we should conclude major reason for their existence
is to provide political power for their paymasters. We should
conclude that he who pays the piper calls the tune, and the
tune they sing is "smash capitalism".
This casts an interesting light on politics in Argentina.
Recall the major reason that the Argentinean government went
bankrupt was that the government payroll was padded with large
numbers of public servants that did no useful work, and did not
turn up except to collect pay, but were kept on for political
reasons.
The same thing has been happening in the USA, with certain
political factions receiving large amounts of government
funding, and continuing to receive that funding despite their
hostility to the republican majority that controls both houses
and the presidency. For example the NCSC is ninety six
percent federally funded, was in reality wholly a creation of
the federal government, and exists largely to lobby for various
expansions of the federal government.
Institutions of this form, where the government lobbies itself
for more government, lead to the kind of economic collapse we
saw in Argentina. The fundamental mechanism of the Argentinean
collapse was that people began to realize that their money in
the bank was not safe, their money in the mattress was not
safe, their farms and factories were not safe, but a
government job or a government handout was safe -- that
political power was the only valuable form of property.
The only way to reverse this crisis is to create a separation
between politics and state funding. Organizations like the
NCSC and the two NEAs have to be defunded. Political diversity
must be made a requirement for federal funding of universities.
Without such measures, one gets caught, like Argentina, in a
positive feedback loop. When too much wealth is politically
allocated, democracy cannot function -- it destroys the
economy, as it did in Argentina, requiring a fascist or
communist dictatorship, to operate the already fascist or
communist economic order.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
T+MBhLaLm5R4G1YHl7a8ZryDQV/6+TuFI2cYBK0F
4HiKFfNciDZqP6HfcFO0EOq+6bXeaLdJr9cL7AXL8
Constantinople
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>For example the NCSC is ninety six
>percent federally funded,
Which organization do you mean? I am not familiar with it, and a
Google search turned up a lot of organizations with that acronym.
James A. Donald
Here is a set of demands put by Argentinean protestors who are
required to support the protest, or lose their welfare cheques.
: : * No payment of the foreign debt
: :
: : * Re-nationalization of the pension system
: :
: : * Re-nationalization of privatized companies (telephone,
: : gas, power) under worker control
: :
: : * Real jobs, not just $120 a month "planes trabajar"
: : which are either not paid at all, or else paid in
: : funny-money government script.
: :
: : * Assemblies in every neighborhood, town, city, province
: : to democratically elect delegates and to discuss the
: : situation
: : * This Thursday and Friday coordinated national road
: : blocks to end Friday with a march to Plaza de Mayo in
: : conjunction with public sector employees; national
: : strike against 15% wage cuts
: :
: : * September 21-22: Coordinated roadblocks (which really
: : hold up rush-hour traffic) all over the country, with a
: : view towards a general strike (commission chosen to
: : visit the three main trade union delegations to demand
: : this)
: : * Some of the roadblocks will now be held in front of
: : factory gates and industrial complexes, demanding jobs.
"No payment of foreign debt" is of course trivial, since the
Argentinean government is broke. This merely provides support
to what the government has to do regardless. The rest of it,
the demands that are actually significant, is a demand for the
government to provide more government jobs, even though many
perhaps most people in Argentina with government jobs do not do
any work, which was of course the fundamental cause of the
economic crisis, and a demand for the government to intervene
in private employment, compelling private employers to hire --
effectively putting government jobs on the private employer's
expense, which will of course continue the destruction of
genuinely private jobs where people actually produce something
useful.
Thus what we have here is the ultimate in self referential
government self agitation. The government is pressuring itself
to expand the lobby group that depends on the government for a
living, which will of course result in increased pressure.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
hHgZ4RB+tA67ielXgD1XPwfrXf2zJB2HNZLWv5nB
4K/Ddg4l6/lLte2P8AVTiUe0VsWJuvrZDmTMS/ZNs
James A. Donald
James A. Donald
> > For example the NCSC is ninety six percent federally
> > funded,
Constantinople
> Which organization do you mean?
National Council of Senior Citizens
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
v8MwUKya+S2fThvNtDdxRXagghXIOOJqVjqe9RNz
4X8otCGe03byyTgtUT+c2pPoX0W8heMhuSDc7izQq
eas...@absamail.co.za
> ...[snip details]
>
> Without such measures, one gets caught, like Argentina, in a
> positive feedback loop. When too much wealth is politically
> allocated, democracy cannot function -- it destroys the
> economy, as it did in Argentina, requiring a fascist or
> communist dictatorship, to operate the already fascist or
> communist economic order.
>
OK, I accept this analyses, because I know that's exactly how the
whole of africa works.
-- Chris Glur.