ABSTRACT
In 1976 the coexistence of urban guerrillas, an organised working class and a weak government with neither political nor economic goals, was viewed by the Armed Forces and the upper bourgeoisie as sufficient reason to, once again, install their form of 'order' in Argentina. The aim of the alliance was to subordinate and control the working class, to undermine its capacity to organise itself as a class and to express itself politically. This disciplinamiento social was achieved by both state terrorism and a structural economic reform. The objective of this chapter is to state the political and economic legacy of the military dictatorship, and to assess to what extent the economic reform produced an overwhelming increase in the external debt, a profound concentration of capital in the hands of a small group of national corporations (GEN) , and the impoverishment of the working class.
