The generally accepted view of Latin America in the early twentieth century is one of “emergent middle sectors” and a shift in the locus of political power from the countryside to the city. The triumph in Argentina of popular suffrage and the Radical Party is usually cited as a case in point. The adequacy of this interpretation, already questioned, becomes increasingly dubious in the light of Peter H. Smith’s excellent study of polities and the beef industry in Argentina between 1900 and 1946.
Smith sets his study within the context of Argentine modernization, prefacing his account with a lucid synthetic essay on the subject. His book tests the thesis that this process was “typified by class-oriented urban-rural conflict” (p. 4), through an examination of the major conflicts that arose in a critical “issue-area”—the Argentine beef industry—from the entry of the Chicago meat trusts and the threat of Yankee dominance to the Roca-Runciman Treaty and the realignment of economic and political conflict under Perón. The author concludes that the city, with a middle-sectors leadership prone to cooptation, was not inherently opposed to the continued ascendancy of the countryside, and that the decades preceding Perón were characterized rather by intra-class conflicts in the rural sector. Only with the rise of Perón did a new phase begin; one of “urban-rural class conflict” and a redistribution of political power in favor of the urban masses.
Smith judiciously blends narrative with analysis, drawing on social science concepts and techniques where appropriate. The work is based upon an impressive range of primary sources and skillfully exploits the previously neglected legislative archives. His study is a pioneering one in that he takes his stand at the point where polities and economics intersect and examines their interrelation systematically and concretely. Particularly fine is Professor Smith’s account of the manipulation of economic ideology for political purposes, which exhibits his equal skill at content analysis and explication de texte. The result is a varied and original monograph, which demonstrates how an intelligent use of new concepts and methods can lead to conclusions whose significance transcends the immediate compass of the work.
While not disagreeing with either the author’s method or conclusions, I find the “urban-rural” categories in which they are couched a Procrustean Bed, which force him to define porteño packers and urban allies of ranchers as “rural,” (in terming the pre-Perón conflicts “intra-rural”), and to ignore the opposition of urban middle sectors to Perón (in defining the conflict of the 1940’s as “urban-rural”). An alternative might be to make a distinction between groups tied to the import-export economy and those receptive to a program of economic nationalism through import substitution. This would also enable the author to integrate in his interpretation the salient feature of Argentine urbanization before Peron—that it was not associated with domestic industrialization. Another question is whether Smith has improved our understanding of Argentine politics and society in the twentieth century by rejecting a theory of emergent middle sectors in 1914, only to offer in exchange one of an emergent working class in 1944.
This is a suggestive and provocative work, however, which inevitably raises more questions than it can be expected to answer. Smith concludes that the advent of universal male suffrage and Radical Party government led neither to the redistribution of political power in favor of the urban middle and lower sectors, nor to a promotion of their interests, but only to a disguised continuation of the ascendancy of the oligarquía. These findings raise forcefully the question: why didn’t the Saenz Peña Law lead to the political ascendancy of urban middle and lower class interests ? The author suggests that the Radical leadership was either not from these urban groups or else was coopted and thus not dedicated to representing their interests. Why then did these urban sectors continue to vote, through the 1920s, for leaders and parties that didn’t promote their interests? How did these groups perceive their interests and political opportunities? The answers to these questions will entail extensive research into political mobilization, consciousness, and organization at the local level.
Peter H. Smith has given us a most important study of twentieth-century Argentina. It deserves a wide audience and a careful reading.
