Neoliberalism and labour in Argentina: the Macrista experience in a governmental perspective

Abstract

Based on documentary material, we describe the beginnings of Mauricio Macri’s government in Argentina in relation to his interventions in the labour sphere, with the aim of understanding how neoliberal thought proposes to manage labour. Our perspective of analysis inscribes neoliberalism as a governmentality, that is, following Michel Foucault’s definition, as a way of conducting the behaviour of human beings. We will show that neoliberalism does not only imply the implementation of an economic programme, but develops a general project of transformation of labour behaviours; to this end, management becomes a management tool complementary to neoliberal principles. A key support for neoliberal thinking can be identified in Ludwig Mises and Frederick Hayek, central exponents of the Austrian School of economics. These authors manifest an interest in linking their scientific findings to a political programme that promotes their concrete application. As we shall see, we can find in Argentina’s recent past the echo of both Mises’ praxeological perspective and Hayek’s price system. In this sense, we will think of the Macrista experience as a neoliberal governmentality, arguing that from the national government and through the state, an attempt was made to restructure the labour sphere along two axes: the first sought to implement new rules of the game, which devalue labour and attempt to increase productivity and take away labour rights; a second axis promoted a business-type model of the subject, which must acquire new patterns of individual responsibility. In the final considerations, we will conclude that recent Argentine neoliberalism generated a labour market of greater competition and greater socio-economic deterioration, and we warn about possible links of this policy with the figure of Javier Milei, a rising presidential candidate in Argentina, disseminator of the neoliberal thinking developed here.