Social Spending as a Control of the Unemployed Working Class during Kirchnerism and Chavism (2003-2010)

  • Tamara Seiffer Universidad de Buenos Aires
  • Juan Kornblihtt Universidad de Buenos Aires
  • Romina de Luca Universidad de Buenos Aires
Keywords: Social policies, Social spending, Surplus population (the Unemployed), Social welfare, Capital accumulation

Abstract

The last decade is marked by a strong rise in social spending in Latin America. This is particularly observed in Argentina and Venezuela, where this phenomenon was explained by the presence of so-called «national and popular» or «socialist» governments. Many authors maintain that we are facing a qualitative change from the neoliberal politics of the ‘90s. In this paper, we propose to discuss this consensus by showing that the strong rise of social spending does not express a qualitative change propelled by a turn to the left but rather to a quantitative expansion, following a prior trend of the State’s role in order to control the rising unemployed, or surplus, working class population for the capital that is being consolidated in both countries.

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Author Biographies

Tamara Seiffer, Universidad de Buenos Aires
Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani (IIGG)
Juan Kornblihtt, Universidad de Buenos Aires
Instituto de Estudios de América Latina y El Caribe (IEALC)
Romina de Luca, Universidad de Buenos Aires
Centro de Estudios e Investigación en Ciencias Sociales (CEICS)

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How to Cite
Seiffer T., Kornblihtt J. y de Luca R. (2012). Social Spending as a Control of the Unemployed Working Class during Kirchnerism and Chavism (2003-2010). Cuadernos de Trabajo Social, 25(1), 33-47. https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_CUTS.2012.v25.n1.38432