By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Apr 26 1997 (IPS)

“The young people of this country no longer struggle to change the system — they want only to rejoin it and to work at the jobs the system used to provide.”

These were among the last words spoken by Christian Democrat politician Carlos Auyero during a TV debate earlier this month. Sonn afterwood he suffered a heart attack and died.

His parting observation, which has been taken up in a widespread social debate, referred to an event in Cutral Có in Neuquen province when a group of young peole blocked a main highway and demanded their be givemn jobs. His views provided one side of the TV debate while others sided with the official youths’ action was subversive,

Auyero argued that the Cutral Có youngsters had no intention of subverting public order, as in the 1970’s when rebel youths sought to change the socio-political structures, “they only wanted decent jobs.”

His words crystallized the growing concern in academic circles over what is happening to those Argentineans left out of the so- called economic miracle. The issue involves people who don’t belong to any organization, and who don’t rebel against the system because — until recently — the system embraced them. What’s more, many inhabitants of Cutral Có say they don’t want a new economic model, or a new government; they only want to be able to work again.

Cutral Co is one of many ghost towns that have formed in Argentina since funds for government-sponsored “works programmes” or local resource projects suddenly dried up. The privatization of Argentina’s state-held oil company — YPF — eliminated jobs that not long ago seemed so abundant that they could support anyone who wantd to work. While YPF was in state hands, the residents of Cutral Có had a reason to live in that harsh environment where incessant winds cut to the bone.

Graciela Montalban, a teacher in Cutral Co for 44 years, offers this commentary: “I used to be envious of those who worked for YPF. They were their own caste. They had automobiles. They even took vacations abroad. Now they’re worse off than I am”.

Economist Juan Villareal, author of the book “Social Exclusion”, says that the free market reforms adopted by Argentina in the early 1990’s were “authoritarian, unbalanced, exclusive and prone to concentrate wealth”. He points to the feisty Cutral Có youngsters — and the growing number of ghost towns — as victims of the new System.

Villareal says that “30 years ago, Argentine society was divided between topdog and underdog. Now the division is between insiders and outsiders. Those who are outside include the poor, the young, the unemployed, the elderly, the sick and anyone who lives in a ghost town like Cutral Có.” According to a recent report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Carribean, Argentina is the country with the highest unemployment rate (17.4 percent) in the region. It is also the country where poverty and unequal resource allocation have expanded most in recent years.

Until a litle more than a decade ago, Argentina was beset by serious public finance problems and suffered very high rates of inflation. Nevertheless, the nation continued to be one of the most egalitarian societies in Latin America with a large middle class that buffered the two socio-economic extremes. But now, negative social indicators are the backdrop to a dwindling number of people who enjoy stable prices and sustained economic growth.

This situation does not provide Villareal with much encouragement. The economist points out that “not all neo-liberal economic models are like Argentina’s. The Argentine model concentrates wealth and exludes the disenfranchised in such a way that highly tauted economic growth and stability generate practically no spillover into the society at large”.

Villareal also contends that production advances based on science and technology have created a markedly exclusive character since newly automated jobs have displaced many workers. Villareal criticizes leaders who say that these technological enhancements of production are not political issues.

As Villareal sees it, opposition parties as well as the governing Justicialista Party are searching for alternatives to the new reforms imposed by President Carlos Menem in 1990.

“They realize they’re heading down a dead-end street,” he says. “The exclusive character of the new economic model must change or there will be increasing conflict”.

If this happens, the resulting explosions will not take place in well-defined social or political sectors — or even within unions — which is what would have happened when society used to integrate its diverse membership into fixed institutional structures, Villreal says.

Now, social conflict arises within a heterogeneous group of people who are outside the social structure altogether, who have watched their connections with society break down, who are totally fragmented. Without any social role to play they may well engage in spontaneous — and therefore unpredictable — eruptions.

Villareal says that marginalized individuals have many different identities and values but that they are united by a common thread. As Auyero pointed out just before he died, they want to be returned to a system that forceably cut them off.

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