Le « Gas Argentine » Revisite: De L'utopie Libérale Au Retour De La Politique…

Argentina constitutes a revealing textbook case of the link between the liberal utopia of an auto-regulated market, commodity fetishism and economists' theories. How does economic liberalisation, backed by a law on currency convertibility, resolve the crisis of political representation affecting the country since the emergence of Peronism, the «voice of the voiceless», in the 1940s? The liberal utopia of markets' auto-regulation associates taking root in social life with having money, by means of what Marx called the «vulgar economy». From this viewpoint, the monetary crisis of 2001, a real social tragedy, illustrates Polanyi's thesis: liberal utopia's stumbling blocks force societies to give markets roots which have political and social dimensions. But, conveyed by economic thought, commodity fetishism continues to play an active role in exiting a crisis. The political position is perilous and based on a scientific approach that makes people believe that social reality can be completely manipulated. (English)