Re: Re: The legacy of Juan Perón

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

>As I said, a scissors crisis: in a mixed economy, the government
>should be used to redistribute income and the market used to allocate
>resources; to get things backward--as Peron did, using the government
>to allocate resources and regulating market prices to redistribute
>income--doesn't work.
>
>My complaint with Peron is not that he tried to introduce
>western-European-style social democracy to Argentina, but that he got
>the details *badly* wrong--and so produced long-run economic
>distaster.
>
>
>Brad DeLong

You are partially correct. In a mixed economy, there is a clash between the
needs of workers and the bourgeoisie. The workers need jobs, housing,
health care, recreation and education. Their bosses have more ambitious
needs. They need chauffeured limousines, 4 houses, servants and gold-plated
faucets. To support these more ambitious needs, they need sufficient
profits. If a state agency cuts into their profits, they might find it
preferable to let land lie fallow. Somebody like Fidel Castro would have
organized the agricultural work force to evict the bosses and declare the
ranches and farms public property. Then, the wheat, cattle, etc. would have
been exported and revenue would have continued to come in. That is what
this is about: profits versus human needs. Unfortunately Peron was no Fidel
Castro.

Some of us do not believe that people can live without those gold-plated
faucets. It is the desire for gold-plated faucets--you see--that motivates
people to make better mouse traps. Or at least that was what I was taught
in freshman economics in 1961. I no longer believe that. In any case,
people who are on an ideological mission to persuade the human race that
gold-plated faucets make the world go round should have the liberty to do
so. What I object to is torturing trade unionists and leftwing activists in
Latin America who have a different philosophy. Perhaps Nestor deserves to
be castigated because he would have supported Argentina's neutrality during
WWII. But what do we say about Operation Blowback, which brought over Nazi
murderers to work for the CIA? And what about America's Operation Condor,
which resulted in  the murder of thousands of trade unionists and activists
in Latin America during the Carter years? That the ends justify the means?
That you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet?

Louis Proyect

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