Rudd turns back the clock....By 1910, at the centennial of the...

Rudd turns back the clock....

By 1910, at the centennial of the first National Government, Argentina was one of the foremost countries in the world. It was one of the most important grain and meat exporters. Its GDP represented 50 percent of the GDP of all Hispanic America, ranked 10th in the world economy, and its trade amounted to 7 perent of the world's total.

governments became more and more accustomed to intervening in the economy when it became convenient, despite the obvious legal and economic disadvantages in the long term. Perhaps beginning in 1907--when oil fields were discovered in Comodoro Rivadavia--government began to take a mercantilist approach to economic administration. At that time, a decree introduced significant change to economic policy, the Mining Code, and the spirit of the National Constitution, which preferred an economy with little state intervention. President Jose Figueroa Alcorta promulgated a decree by which he reserved for the state the hydrocarbons in the subsoil, effectively dispossessing the proprietors of the land in question. Later governments showed the same marked preference for interventionist tactics.