Plan of the Investigation
The investigation addresses the following question: To what extent was Juan Domingo Perón successful in achieving his economic aims? Perón’s major economic goals included economic independence for Argentina, an increase in employment and growth in industry, and a decrease in the gap between the wealthy and poor. In order to assess the extent to which he fulfilled these economic goals, the investigation will examine his short- and long- term effects of his industrial reforms and policies, his five-year plan to industrialize Argentina, and his nationalization of the economy, which were all methods he employed to carry out his goals. This investigation will also examine the main obstacles to his success, which included the United States’ and Britain’s reluctance to allowing Argentina be independent, and the negative effects of Perón’s five year plan. To do so, The Twenty Truths of the Justicialist Movement speech will be considered, because it shows Perón’s economic goals, and some of the methods he used to put his economic policies into effect. Robert D. Crassweller’s Perón and the Enigmas of Argentina was selected to give an explanation on the results of Perón’s policies, which can be used to evaluate if he was successful in achieving his economic aims.
Summary of Evidence
To understand why Perón had the economic aims that he did, first the Argentinean economy before Perón’s rule needs to be examined. Prior to the Great Depression, Argentina depended mainly on beef and grain exports, but when other countries reduced their trade with Argentina because of the worldwide economic recession, its economy faced a huge blow. This resulted in the devaluation of Argentinean currency, and the prices of consumer...
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...nsuccessful in achieving his economic aims.
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In Mañana Es San Perón: A Cultural History of Perón’s Argentina, Mariano Ben Plotkin - an emeritus professor and doctor in history and writer of Peronist Argentinean history at the university of California, Berkeley, addresses one of the first populist movement in the region of South America: el peronismo. After offering an important contextualizing “Introduction,” Plotkin organized his book into four main parts composing the book, each containing two chapters, resulting in a total of eight. Consequently, the author also offers, after the main four parts, Notes, a selected bibliography, and an index. The author concludes this book with an interesting and polemic conclusion where he discusses if Peronism was totalitarian. Plotkin, in Manana es San Perón, attempts to give a historical account about Perón’s Argentina through a cultural perspective.
The depression in the 1930’s in the country of Argentina was one of the most devastating internationally. In 1929, Argentina had the fourth highest gross domestic product; however a few short months later, this would no longer be considered the case. Considering that the economy heavily depended on foreign trade for daily essential produces, the economy was deficient of vital goods and thus lacked important industry. Mainly dependent on the foreign capital from Great Britain at the time, domestic industry was severely affected by the market crash due to the halt of British domestic capital investment. Through the Domino Effect, mass and widespread unemployment was a major and constant theme in the Argentinian culture at the time. This further affected the government revenue dropped significantly as the export of the country faulted investment and imports were decreased exponentially due to the international depression. As a result of the decline in national revenue, grand deficits began to appear. To repair the shortage of the countries’ profits, the government began to borrow mo...
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Before the 1960s, four thousand six hundred nine miles southeast of Texas, Chile was known as a stable country compared other Latin American countries until 1962, when the Cold War took effect on this enormous country and Chile became a part of the Alliance for Progress. The Alliance for Progress was created to keep socialistic revolutions out of Latin American countries. In the 1960s, the president of Chile, Eduardo Frei was endorsed by the Johnson administration. Frei was required to pass a radical reform but with Chile becoming more industrialized, Labor Unions requested for higher and reasonable wages. In the end, the Labor Unions were not pleased with the wages that they were receiving which, lead to inflation and higher prices for man made items and labor. With an economic change occurring, the Chilean youth adopted a Leftist view and began to protest against the government with the labor unions. Both ...
Juan Perón was a charismatic and inviting ex-military politician. He was the smiling face and sharp brain Argentina had been searching for. His involvement with the labor unions was the reason for his rise to power. Juan Perón’s leadership from 1943 to 1955 greatly affected labor unions in Argentina by granting the unions power in the political world, giving the unions someone they could trust, and by implementing complete control over the unions and the rest of Argentina during his presidency.
After the revolution of 1943 Juan Perón shared control of the Argentinean government. Under Pedro Ramirez, Perón held three cabinet positions. With that he saw an opportunity. He did many reform programs and won a lot of the support of labor unio...
At home he was impressed by the Spanish Civil War refugees and by the long series of political crises in Argentina. These culminated in the ‘Left Fascist’ dictatorship of Juan Peron, to whom the Guevara de la Sernas were opposed. These events and influences implanted ideas of contempt for the charade of parliamentary democracy, a hatred of military politicians and the army, the capitalist oligarchy, and, above all, U.S. imperialism. Although his parents, most notably his mother, were anti-Peronist activists, he did not take participate in revolutionary student movements and showed little interest in politics at Buenos Aires University (1947) where he studied medicine. He focused on understanding his own disease, and later became more interested in leprosy.
Neoliberalism is a form of economic liberalism that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade, and relatively open markets. Neoliberals seek to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the political/economic priorities of the world and are generally supporters of economic globalization. During the 1930s and the late 1970s most Latin American countries used the import substitution industrialization model to build industry and reduce dependency on imports from foreign countries. The result of the model in these c...
At this time there was a military coup that ended the rule of the middle class during the Great Depression in 1929. People were panicking and were looking for change. This began the rise of the labor movement. He ran as the labor minister and gained much support from the working class of Argentina. He was seen as a huge threat to United States interests. He eventually is arrested in 1945 because of the “trouble” he caused by all the support he gained, and on October 17, 1945, workers rally in Buenos Aires to have Peron released. Not too long after, Peron is elected president of Argentina. The United States becomes increasingly nervous. Peron was a populist and he enacted many social reforms. He stood for everything the United States was against at this time and feared; bottom-up revolution and
Jorge Videla was the leader of the military-run government. At the time, it was very easy for Videla to seize power because of the highly unstable condition that Argentina was in, and had been in for decades. In September of 1955 all three branches of the military revolted and forced the president, Juan Perón, into exile. Eleven years later, in 1966, a new leader, Juan Carlos Ongania, imposed the military rule again only to have the former president, Perón, return in 1973, and ...
Rock, D. (1987). Argentina, 1516-1987: From Spanish Colonization to Alphonsín. Berkley: University of California Press.
...aring, S. and Shugart, M. (1997) “Juan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy: A Critical Appraisal”, Comparative Politics, vol.29, no.4, pp. 449-471.
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