History repeats itself | profile

The government led by Javier Milei, following the line and style of Donald Trump’s administration, announces that it will send to Congress a flood of projects, many of them extreme, probably in order to leave room for negotiations on part of their content.

This week the so-called Labor “modernization” project made its way to the Senate.

There isn’t much new. History repeats itself again. They are the four M’s as we analyzed before: Martínez de Hoz, Menem, Macri and now Milei. The goal is clear: eliminate rights and increase social inequality.

Back in the 1990s, Tato Bores said: “The solution that the government offers us is the labor reform law to reduce Argentine costs. Verses, the reform is not to reduce Argentine costs, but to increase the profit of the Argentine poor. And if you don’t look at the imported goods, they bring them for 2 and sell them for 35. The Argentine cost is that everyone gets rich in fifteen minutes without risking anything and pissing off his neighbors.” What they plan to do with it The reform, shouted one delegate, is to have weeks with ten working days and, if possible, days with 32 hours and that when someone cuts you, you kiss your hand and say thank you, master.

A note titled “The gap in global inequality is widening” in the newspaper El País states: “10% of the world’s population concentrates 75% of the wealth.” It adds: “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting richer. Today, the 0.001% of the world’s richest population, fewer than 60,000 billionaires, have three times more wealth than half of humanity. The wealth of this minority has grown by an average of 8% annually since the 1990s.”

Of course, income distribution in Argentina is also very unequal.

According to a report published by the newspaper La Nación, 5% of the population, defined as upper class, have an average household income of more than 12 million pesos; If we knew the income and wealth of 0.1% of the population, we would have the true level of concentration. The next group, 17%, is considered upper middle class and has an average household income of 5.2 million pesos; The 26% who follow him achieve an average family income of 2.4 million pesos; The next 28%, the upper lower class, have an average household income of 1.85 million pesos; and finally, 24% of the population, the so-called lower class, have a family income of an average of 750,000 pesos.

In this scenario, the reaction of the conformists is inevitable.

Returning to the labor reform project, the issue will not be limited to parliamentary debate: it is expected that a discussion will take place across society. A first step was the call by the CGT and the two CTAs for a mobilization in the Plaza de Mayo on the 18th.

Libertarian management has another problem: the governors and political sectors that negotiate support for the official bills demand a series of specific benefits in return. The positive reaction to this has an unacceptable effect for the government: the creation of a budget deficit, which is exacerbated by the abolition of already decided and planned taxes. Therefore, the ruling party finds itself in a trap: either it does not meet these requirements or it increases cuts on the public spending side, i.e. more adjustments.

The President recently said that the model we are moving towards privileges mining, fuels and the landscape. The industry is not included in their plans. This is consistent with the United States’ interest in our country: what it demands is not the development of industry, but the exploitation of natural resources.

A model like the one proposed will only worsen the social crisis. Aside from the fact that jobs will be created in some provinces, the costs that society as a whole will bear will be enormous. The provinces where the majority of Argentines live have neither mining nor fuel: if they remain without industrial development and the opening to imports continues, many jobs will inevitably be lost.

Today it is more important than ever to intervene in the culture war. No employee should support projects that, if approved, will make their lives significantly more difficult.

*President of the Solidarity Party.