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ECONOMICS IN HISTORY: THE APOLOGETIC SCIENCE IN ARGENTINA, 1913-1953 _______ A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston ______________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________ by Guillermo Emilio Nakhlé, B.A.; M.A. December, 2015 ECONOMICS IN HISTORY: THE APOLOGETIC SCIENCE IN ARGENTINA, 1913-1953 _______________ An Abstract of a Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston _______________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________ by Guillermo Emilio Nakhlé, B.A.; M.A. December, 2015 ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the emergence and development of a distinctive professional group: economists in Argentina between 1913 and 1953. This group arose in the context of the rise of state interventionism and the new challenge for Latin American economies in the interwar period. The thesis focuses primarily on the University of Buenos Aires, where the first Faculty of Economic Sciences in Latin America was created in 1913. The dissertation examines the evolution of this institution, as well as the debates it provoked over economic policy, intervention and non-intervention and the nature and scope of economics as a science. It also examines the figures of Alejandro Bunge, Federico Pinedo and Raúl Prebisch. The ultimate goal of this work is to define the scientific spirit of students and professors who were impelled by a new and promising discipline: economics as the most rigorous social science devoted to solve structural problems. The thesis is located at the intersection of the subfields of intellectual history and the history of political economy. It argues that the scientific status of economics was achieved through a set of apologetic procedures that had to do with discourses and scholarly ceremonials driven by the aspiration of establishing economics alongside hard sciences as physics. It concludes that these three figures played a key role in the construction and consolidation of the professional economist profile, and at the same time they gave rise to a new way to understand the state bureaucracy and the need to demand the expertise of this new professionals. iii Acknowledgments This Dissertation is the result of numerous years of research and academic exchange in Argentina as well as in the United States. While in Buenos Aires, I could establish contact and talk to Dr. Andrés López, head of the Economics Department at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and to Dr. Ricardo Crespo, professor at the IAE Business School and a distinguished philosopher of economics. I also interviewed Dr. Federico Pinedo, Congressman and grandson of the influential economist that is part of my research. I am grateful to the staff from the archives that remained anonymous to me; librarians such as Laura Cabral (Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas Públicas) and the staff from the University of Buenos Aires (Archivo Histórico and Facultad de Ciencias Económicas). Their silent and efficient work helped me throughout the research process. Many thanks to my dissertation committee and to the Department of History Graduate Program at the University of Houston (UH), which has been very generous with its funding and with its teaching opportunities. The Murray Miller scholarship funds at UH were also important to conduct my archival research during the fall of 2013 and the summer of 2014. The Dissertation Completion Fellowship granted by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences for the 2014- 2015 academic year allowed me to complete the program in a timely fashion. John M. Hart’s enthusiastic encouragement; Susan Kellogg’s permanent support and iv Natalia Milanesio’s deep insights challenged me to keep my research active and search for new historiographical grounds. Overall, I am grateful for receiving financial support from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Buenos Aires, Argentina) to complete my M.A. in 2011. The most influential scholars up to that point were Fernando A. Rocchi and Mariano B. Plotkin. In Houston, I was very lucky to have Thomas F. O’Brien as academic advisor. This work is dedicated to my parents, for a lifetime of support and exemplary behavior, and to my love, Guillermina. My dear brother Miguel and his family helped me to overcome the hardships of being an international student with a small budget. Friends and colleagues played a role in this Dissertation’s completion as well. The responsibility for any faults or weaknesses lies with me. v Table of Contents Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………….... 1 Argentina in Context …….............................................................................. 6 Commercial Education in the Nineteenth Century …................................ 13 Literature and Sources Review…................................................................ 18 Chapter Outline ………................................................................................. 26 1. Economics in the Search for Meaning as a Social Science ………………….……… 32 Social Sciences at the Turn of the Century ................................................ 33 Economics in the Scientific World ............................................................ 39 Searching for Meaning in Latin America .................................................. 42 2. A New Epistemic Community in Buenos Aires? ……………………..………………… 58 Small yet Passionate .................................................................................. 64 The Curriculum Debate .............................................................................. 77 Exploring New Methods ............................................................................. 81 The Reform of 1918 ………………………………………………………………………… 90 Postwar Social Unrest ……………………………………………………………..……… 96 3. Looking Abroad and Prestige Devices …………………………………………………… 102 International Gravitation on Porteños ……………….................................. 103 Recognition of Peers ................................................................................ 130 The Liturgy of Honor ................................................................................ 135 vi More Faculties outside Buenos Aires ………………………………………..…….. 145 4. Science in Action …………………….…………………………………………………………… 149 Bunge’s Diagnosis ..................................................................................... 151 The Rise of Raúl Prebisch ......................................................................... 159 The Meat Debate …………………………………………………………………………… 172 Prebisch and Pinedo: The Brain Trust .................................................... 180 From Banking Studies to the Central Bank ……………………………………... 189 University Life and Peronism ………………………………………………………… 198 5. Economics as an Apologetic Science ………………………………………..…………… 202 The Normative Side of Economics ………………………............................... 203 The Scientific Character of Economics ..................................................... 211 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 226 References ……………............................................................................................ 237 Vita ...................................................................................................................... 252 vii List of Tables Table 1. School of Commerce (FES Annex); courses and staff (1919) …………..…. 67 Table 2. UBA faculty at different schools (1924, 1929 and 1932) …………………... 68 Table 3. UBA students in different Faculties and Schools (1922-1931) ….……….. 68 Table 4. Strikes and strikers in Buenos Aires (1919-1923) ….…….………………….. 98 Table 5. Journals and newspapers held by the FES library (1928) …..………..…. 114 Table 6. Evolution of the cost of living (1917-1923; 1913=100) …………………….. 134 Table 7. Quotas for cold storage plants by country of origin (1911-1932) ………. 174 Table 8. Meat exports to Great Britain as percentage of the total (1930-1938) ..179 List of Figures Figure 1. FES, student population (1914-1955) ……..………………………………….…. 69 Figure 2. UBA budget in pesos (m$n) (1913-1936) ………………………………………. 74 Figure 3. Former Dean José León Suárez ……………………………………………..…... 139 Figure 4. Tribute to Víctor M. Molina ………………………………………….……………. 140 Figure 5. Destination of the meat production (1927-1938) …………………….……. 179 Figure 6. Raúl Prebisch at the Central Bank ………………………………………………. 194 Figure 7. Federico Pinedo and the Conversion Office …………………………………. 195 viii Introduction Economics, then, can be seen as an instance of literary culture. That it can also be seen as an instance of scientific culture is no contradiction. It shows merely how the official rhetoric of science narrows the field, demanding that it honor the one and spurn the other. The unofficial, workaday rhetoric takes a broader view, and a more persuasive one.1 In the last decades of the twentieth century, economists constituted true grantors of legitimacy for numerous political practices in Latin America. Both the recognition and the public questioning of these new professionals in Argentina was the result of a historical process that took place in the first half of the twentieth century. The relationship between the state, a university medium under permanent scrutiny and a group of young professionals opened up a space from which the economic ups and downs of the interwar period were addressed. This is the history of the professionalization