Argentina: landowners withhold meat supplies from country’s population

The Argentine government has limited meat exports to a maximum of 45,000 tons a month (close to 70 percent of national production). The government measure is aimed at guaranteeing a regular supply of meat products within the country itself, controlling inflation and forestalling a drive by workers to raise wage levels. Beef is a basic foodstuff in Argentina, which boasts the highest per capita beef consumption in the world.

The government of President Nestor Kirchner has attempted to justify this economic policy with political demagoguery, claiming that it is a means of social support for Argentine workers and the people as a whole.

Despite its attempts to portray itself as above the conflict of class interests and governing on behalf of the Argentine people, the Peronist administration of Kirchner is clearly a bourgeois government that has made many concessions to the powerful rural elite. But it needs to balance between the conflicting interests of the diverse sectors of the country’s bourgeoisie. His aim in imposing controls to assure meat supplies for the national market is to uphold, on behalf of all of the country’s capitalist employers, lower consumer prices and in turn stabilize the price for labor power. In this way, the government acts to guarantee current rates of profit for all branches of production.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/arge-d20.shtml