Radical Economic Departures
The most radical new economic departures with the most brutal political repression have been in Latin America. It is there that the domestic market, worker income, consumer purchasing power, and local manufacturing sales have been most violently sacrificed to the new model of export promotion. Is a degree of political liberalization or even democratization in Latin America likely to effect the abandonment of this model? Or is the same economic model likely to be extended and refined through greater foreign investment attracted by the new political "stability"? And would greater domestic political support for this economic model be won by permitting wider bourgeois participation in its benefits — that is, profits — once the model has been made to operate more steadily? Our analysis of the political economy of export promotion today, and at least circumstantial evidence of who is promoting what changes in some of the countries of Latin America, suggest an answer to the second question: Forseeable political changes are not likely to replace, but to consolidate the present economic model. In Argentina, for instance, a spokesman for "democracy" has been Admiral Massera, whose navy has been the most hard-line representative of the interests of the landed oligarchy. A fundamental change of policy by Massera and those he represents would really be a case of the leopard changing his spots. President Videla may be able to keep the army hard liners at bay (though it is still quite possible that the hard line Viola faction will topple him). And he may, like President Llanusse before him, be able to arrange some sort of military-civilian coalition government. But the essential economic policy of the Argentine state is not like to change. We may agree with Latin American Political Report when it suggests that "the return to democracy will involve a civilian-military political structure in which ultimate control will rest with the military. The process will require a long period of transition. . . . The army is also seeking as a prior condition to implementation of its plan that there should be no major modification of the economic strategy of José Martinez de Hoz until 1980 at the earliest. This does not, however, mean that the minister himself must remain at his post."
