Facing the social inequality

experiencies, strategies and actors in recent Argentina

Abstract

The book Argentina in Dispute: Classes, Actors, and Policies Facing Social Inequality (2025) was published in the heat of the effects of the policies implemented by Javier Milei as head of the Argentine State. While this might imply a lack of temporal distance—since the long-term effects of these policies have not yet been observed—“it is pertinent to rescue the value of reconstructing critical junctures contemporaneously, as it allows us to capture key details and particularities to measure the changes underway” (Barrera Insúa et al., 2025:419). It is through the analysis of this particular juncture, in turn related to long-standing structural characteristics, that the book provides us with key elements of the current period, marked by polarization and the return of neoliberal prescriptions. It does so from a class perspective, supported by original and diverse data, articulating productive structure, labor, well-being, principles of justice, and political alliances, in order to understand the dynamics of this dispute in the public sphere. In this sense, it offers a reading of the 2016-2024 period based on a three-part analysis—neoliberal restoration (2016-2019), the social and health crisis, and the post-pandemic—that serve as a prelude to the triumph of the radical far right at the end of 2023.

The analyzed production presents an articulation of content that serves as its backbone: the four-section design organizes the conflict from two complementary perspectives—"those above" (concentrated capital, corporate power, and the tax issue) and "those below" (transformations of labor, class perceptions, and collective action in unions and the popular economy)—offering a clear thread for understanding the dynamics and tensions inherent to the period.