Farmers Protests in Argentina

[YSR]

No Devrim, you are wrong these are not workers.

Huh? When did steelworkers stop being workers?

In a related note, massive farm worker protest in Argentina going on for the last two weeks.

[Zurdito]

In a related note, massive farm worker protest in Argentina going on for the last two weeks.

it's not a farm worker protest exactly, it is directed by the farm owners, protesting against paying taxes. the leaders of the process are millionaire oligarchs who would rather export to Europe and the US rather than have to redistribute some food to Argentina (the Argentine government rightly imposed price ocntrols and quotas for the domestic market).

some of the small producers on the protest have a point but they need to be broken from the right-wing leadership.

hmmm maybe someone could split this?

[Dean]

Huh? When did steelworkers stop being workers?

In a related note, massive farm worker protest in Argentina going on for the last two weeks.

Indeed. I hope that they can withstand the gov't, who claimed they would break up their protests...

[Dean]

it's not a farm worker protest exactly, it is directed by the farm owners, protesting against paying taxes. the leaders of the process are millionaire oligarchs who would rather export to Europe and the US rather than have to redistribute some food to Argentina (the Argentine government rightly imposed price ocntrols and quotas for the domestic market).

some of the small producers on the protest have a point but they need to be broken from the right-wing leadership.

hmmm maybe someone could split this?

source?

[Zurdito]

source?

I am the source. I read Argentine news, go to argentina, talk every day to my family and comrades there. that post was a synthesis of the many sources I have. If you really want to check another version of the story, google it or something.

[Luís Henrique]

I am the source. I read Argentine news, go to argentina, talk every day to my family and comrades there. that post was a synthesis of the many sources I have. If you really want to check another version of the story, google it or something.

Yep, you are right. While the Argentinian government is a bourgeois one, this movement is lead by the landed oligarchy. Nothing to do with the working class.

Luís Henrique

[Dean]

I am the source. I read Argentine news, go to argentina, talk every day to my family and comrades there. that post was a synthesis of the many sources I have. If you really want to check another version of the story, google it or something.

I read the story a couple days ago, and reread the AlJazeera article (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C8BAE9B4-1187-4C92-BF64-0989FA177650.htm) today. I don't see any distinct relationship between the protesters and corporate interests; not that you're wrong, just that I don't see where the story can be construed as a company-specific action.

[Zurdito]

I read the story a couple days ago, and reread the AlJazeera article (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C8BAE9B4-1187-4C92-BF64-0989FA177650.htm) today. I don't see any distinct relationship between the protesters and corporate interests; not that you're wrong, just that I don't see where the story can be construed as a company-specific action.

I don't know what you mean by "company specific".

Regarding "coprorate interests": since the devaluation of 2002, Argentine agro-exports became hugely "competitive" on the world market and therefore profitable.

As a result, Argentine producers sent all their products abroad, while no-one at home could afford them: peso's no longer compete with dollars and euros.

The populist Kirchner government imposed export quotas, forcing the exporters to keep a certain amount of produce for the home market. This tied in with price controls. They also significantly raised taxes on the agro-export industry.

Despite all this, agro-exporters as a whole are now making for themselves bigger profits than at any time in the past 50 years.

However, obviously many small farmers and rural workers are suffering, as wealth in the countryside becomes even more concentrated. They genuinely are suffering.

Unfortunately, they have expressed their anger through a protest and "strike" against taxes called by the large super-rich producers. The protest argues basically for more "free trade", and less tax/quotas/price limits. So they have stopped producing: effectively blackmailing the Argentine masses.

The protest was also hugely supported by the Argentine urban upper middle class. My comrades who attended the march (to propagandise amongst small producers and rural workers, against the oligarchs) reported that nearly everyone there was rich, and they were all chanting that "we don't want to be like cuba" and "there are Bolsheviks in the government". They were hugely insulted all through the march for their banners.

Finally: I apologise again for derailing the thread. Feel free to split. I thought the question deserved to be answered though.

[Devrim]

Yes, can we have a split? Also can someone change the x to y in the title, please?
Devrim

[Don't Change Your Name]

Zurdito's right. This is essentially an oligarchic protest, they are not "workers" (at least, most of them aren't). I find it amazing that some "leftists", using the "small producers" excuse, have tended towards supporting this lockout. They are traitors of the working class, who apparently wouldn't mind if the urban proletariate can't afford (or can't get, because if this goes on for long enough the country will starve) food
as long as they get the chance to 1) appear on TV with their stupid flags 2) complain about the government (and gain "revolutionary cred"). They might end up int he same side that the nazi party, which supports the lockout, accusing the government of "authoritarian" and "dictatorial" in their statement (OH, THE IRONY).

Most of those who went to protest in urban areas seem to be of the upper class, and they probably get excited imagining a coup. This is the same kind of people who supported each military dictatorship and, ironically, would complain about those pickets carried by the unemployed, but think this ones (who had such consequences as wasting tons of food in a country where people starve and a dead person who was supposedly being carried in an ambulance that couldn't get through, amongst others) are "peaceful" and fair and "good".

This is a bizarre situation that should get a bit more of attention in this forum because of its implications, and it's fucked up "class dynamics". It's also a complex situation involving such issues as soy replacing other products (and the consequences of it, as well as the supposed cases of indigenous populations being forced out of territories for it and forests being throw down), inflation in the local market in the prices of meat and other products, workers having an awful time there and being hired ilegally, etc.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Why haven't the agribusinesses stepped in and taken over the "market share" of the kulaks? :confused:

[Luís Henrique]

^^^ Why haven't the agribusinesses stepped in and taken over the "market share" of the kulaks? :confused:

I don't think there are many "kulaks" in Argentina.

Luís Henrique

[Die Neue Zeit]

it's not a farm worker protest exactly, it is directed by the farm owners, protesting against paying taxes. the leaders of the process are millionaire oligarchs who would rather export to Europe and the US rather than have to redistribute some food to Argentina (the Argentine government rightly imposed price controls and quotas for the domestic market).

some of the small producers on the protest have a point but they need to be broken from the right-wing leadership.

hmmm maybe someone could split this?

That sounds familiar in regards to Canadian oil... :crying:


I don't think there are many "kulaks" in Argentina.

Crap. I checked the wiki and found that I was using the "Marxist-Leninist" and Soviet pejorative. :(

[I still can't get that pejorative out of my head and fail to equate the "kulaks" with just the agribusinesses. :( ]

[Zurdito]

well to answer the "spirit of your question" Jacob, from what I know, I believe that many Argentine small and medium sized producers are cosntantly on the verge of bankrupcy and losing their market share, as we'd expect of the petty-bourgeoisie in a semi-colonial country. this would explain their anger, which they then misdirect in a cross-class bloc demanding to "defend the countryside".

This is not just stupidity. many small producers hate the big producers. however they've obviously seen their immediate interests as being best served right now by latching onto this immediate protest, hoping to win for themselves lower taxes. the petty-bourgeoisie can after all swing either way.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ These douchebags don't realize that only a process similar to ultra-sovkhozization (note the word) will prove to be a significant milestone on the path to socialist agriculture. :(