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In-Depth Information
of the oligarchy itself. This separation of state and oligarchy would
become apparent in due time. In general, the unprecedented era of
political peace was underwritten by a vibrant and expanding economy.
Technological Change and Economic Growth
The Argentine economy of the liberal age absorbed new technologies in
its most dynamic sectors. In terms of foreign investment, railway build-
ing, trade with the industrialized nations, and peopling of the prairies,
this period appeared to fulfill the dreams of Juan Bautista Alberdi, the
Argentine economist and jurist who died in 1884. Agricultural exports
boomed, and old industries in the interior provinces, such as wine in
Mendoza and sugar in Tucumán, experienced significant expansion.
The country did not industrialize during this time of economic trans-
formation, yet manufacturing did expand.
Some Argentines have seen the lack of industrialization in the period
before 1930 as having created a long-term problem for Argentina.
While it did grow, they argue, the country nevertheless remained
“underdeveloped” because the Generation of Eighty failed to gener-
ate the “self-sustained” economic growth that industrialization would
have provided. Critics have developed a variety of explanations that
emphasize the discrepancies and pathologies in export growth: control
of capital and commercial assets by a landowning elite little interested
Indicators of Economic Growth in Argentina, 1880-1914
(Expressed as annual rates of growth)
Population 3.5%
Urbanization 5.4%
Railroad trackage 10.6%
Value of exports 15.2%
Value of imports 6.8%
Manufacturing 9.3%
Gross Domestic Product 5.0%
Sources: Comisión Nacional de Censos.
Tercercensonacional,1914
. 10 vols. (Buenos Aires:
L. J. Rossi, 1916-19), Vol. 1, 119; Vol. 8, 16; Vol. 10, 406-407;
Censoindustrialycomercio.
Boletín no. 17 (Buenos Aires: Oficina Meterológica Argentina, 1913), p. 9; Comisión Directiva
del Censo.
SegundocensodelaRepúblicaArgentina,1895
. 3 vols. (Buenos Aires: Taller de la
Penitenciaría Nacional, 1898), Vol. 3, 271; Díaz Alejandro, Carlos F.
EssaysontheEconomic
HistoryoftheArgentineRepublic
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1970), p. 3.
