Imperialism in the Neoliberal Era: Argentina’s Reprieve and Crisis

Abstract

The Argentinean crisis in the late 1990s and early 2000s was another manifestation of various “neoliberal crises” that struck Latin America, Asia, Turkey, and Russia. During the 1990s, Argentina underwent typical neoliberal reforms: further opening of trade, liberalization of capital movements, convertibility, pension funds, and so on in the general context of large public and external debt rendered unbearable by interest rates’ rise in 1979. As in other countries, these trends were the expression of this new social order’s strong bias to the advantage of central and peripheral ruling classes. The Argentinean crisis also owes much to the stand taken by its ruling classes in their attempt to insert themselves under favorable conditions within the new configuration of imperialism. The national economy was sold to international transnational corporations and financial interests, while national ruling classes finance accumulation in the United States. Postcrisis trends manifest the difficulty to define a new strategy.