Argentina

Argentina: floods, production model and the use of public resources

Julio C. Gambina

06/04/2013

Opinión

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At this time everyone is talking about the storm that struck the Federal Capital, Greater Buenos Aires, and especially the City of La Plata, with some fifty avoidable deaths and thousands of people hit with consequences yet to be evaluated, not only economic ones, but also at the human, health and even cultural level. The best outcomes came from social solidarity. The worst from the fact that the public sector was totally unprepared for catastrophic events.

For many reasons, among others climate change, disaster situations are recurring, not only in Argentina, but in the whole world.

It is an imperative of our time that we analyze the consequences of climate change, foresee them, and what’s more, counter them.

This brings us to the hegemonic mode of production on a world scale that degrades nature and assaults it in many ways, with monoculture, industrialization accompanied by genetically modified organisms, all with the craving for growth to satisfy business profits, rather than attend to the food requirements of the population.

Because of this, a good part of what the earth produces is used to produce energy. Thus energy competes with food for the use of agrarian production. This greater production is fought over to feed either people or machines. The consequences for nature are serious, affecting natural metabolism and the ecological footprint, as we consume more of nature than can be reproduced.

This growth in profits is also employed in land transactions for speculation, without planning habitat for "good living" ("vivir bien") of the population as a whole. The process of urbanization comes as a result of the use of profits for construction, oriented more to safeguarding profits than to satisfying the housing needs of some five million people. What is curious is that there are as many vacant buildings, the result of increasing real estate values, as there are people wanting their own homes, without any possibility of access. Moreover, investment is being made not only in bricks, but also in vehicles, that overwhelm public space with concrete.

The floods and their social consequences are attributed to nature, and this is true, but we must also admit that nature is conditioned by the mode of production and the kind of development plans in force.

As always the question is "what is to be done?" It is obvious that we have to look to the State, as the entity that establishes the norms for the functioning of society.

Some people are surprised at the criticism of government by those affected by the floods, without noting the feeling of abandonment on the part of those directly hit. Their anger is directed at the absence of the State, of its public servants or representatives, on the ground, even though rare contingents of municipal, provincial or national aid can be seen, with police, army or gendarme personnel.

This is not enough. It is necessary to plan for the disposition of financial and personnel resources to deal with the logistics in the face of catastrophes, and this does not exist in Argentina.

The fact is that the State does not have as its principal purpose the satisfaction of this kind of social needs, but is rather simply an institution to maintain the capitalist order, especially as reformed in the 1990s to attend to the needs of more concentrated capital. Changes introduced in the question of state intervention in recent years have not reached the hard core of the regressive restructuring of the previous decade.

As an example, we may note that at the same time as the flood damage was being evaluated, more than three thousand billion dollars in international reserves were being assigned to pay off debt to international bodies. The paying off of public debt constitutes the most important expenditure for the country, more than the amount budgeted for health and education, and there was practically nothing budgeted for prevention of disasters such as that which just happened.

It is painful to make a comparison with countries such as Cuba, accustomed to hurricanes with well-known consequences for material goods, but with a detailed programme to save lives. It is an achievement planned over years, that simply does not exist in our country.

It is time to discuss the priorities of public expenditure. We can look at other societies and apply what we learn so that "never again" refers not only to dictatorial processes, but expresses new functions of the State, in all areas, to prioritize "good living" for the whole population above the goals of profit, accumulation and capitalist domination.

(Translation: Jordan Bishop)

April 5, 2013

-- Julio C. Gambina is a professor of Political Economy in the Faculty of Law of the National University of Rosario. He is president of the Foundation of Social and Political Research (FISYP) and a Member of the steering committee of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO). www.juliogambina.blogspot.com

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