The agrarian rent: A structural and centenary conflict in the Argentine politics (period 1995-2019)

Abstract

Argentina, is not only the eight largest territorial extension in the world, but its soils have a natural privilege shared only with other three regions of the planet. Argentina´s productivity in costs is mainly due to the exceptional fertility of its lands, the temperate climate and the rainfall regime that allowed it to accumulate nutrients for millennia.

Given the strongly agro-exports characteristics of our economy, the measurements of the agrarian rent becomes a determining fact. The agrarian rent conditions the price of raw material used in the goods consumed mostly by its population, establishes the food basket prices to reference the minimum wages and finally is integrated in the exported goods – being the agrarian sector around the 60% of the exports – the main source of foreign exchange in the country.  

This paper describes the early appropriation of the best rural lands carried out by the   Argentine oligarchy in the XIX century, makes an alternative calculation of amount represented by the agrarian rent and estimates the portion captured by the discontinued export taxes policies applied  during the period 1995- 2019 (Convertibility, Kirchnerism and Macrismo)

The Argentine landowning class, has consistently opposed leaving a portion its income in the hands of the state. The export taxes applied in different governments are the reason – explicit or not- of the bitterest confrontation for more than 100 years, between the owners of the lands and the political arc that periodically confronts them