The expansion “by default” of the state owner. The policy economic and the industry crisis in Argentina, 1960–1976

Abstract

In the sixties a set of industrial companies, many of them with a long trajectory in the markets in which they operated, experienced financial and production problems. In order to solve these problems and in some cases “save” the companies from bankruptcy, successive governments designed a set of measures, basically financial (such as special credit support, tax tolerance and moratoriums). Finally, in the second half of that decade, an aid scheme known as the “company rehabilitation” scheme, which was soon complemented with other legal measures, was sanctioned. Many of these companies were declared bankrupt years later; in the meanwhile they had state financial support to continue their production and to avoid social conflicts; a major political problem for these successive governments that followed one another into power. The article analyzes the particular form adopted by decision making in relation to industrial policies, and the way it originated from the pressure exerted by industrialists and the sociopolitical context of Argentina in those years.