The tremendous recipe against inflation in Argentina

• The monopolistic or oligopolistic price formation (large companies that dominate the production of goods and services) originated in the large economic groups – price makers (who have real power in the market to determine them, and that is not the case of the tens of thousands of micro, small and medium-sized companies that do not set any price: sales, purchase, wages, electricity, gas, fuel, foreign currency, tax rates and public services , or interest rates),
• A increase in demand (consumption, investment, government spending, exports) without an increase in the production of goods (supply),
• A devaluation of our currency in relation to the dollar that increases the price in pesos of the goods that we import and is transferred to internal prices due to the increase in costs of imported inputs and, on the export side, an increase in the internal price since when charging in more expensive dollars the same amount of goods that are exported, this increase is transferred to the prices in the domestic market (assuming that there are no export duties that set a ceiling (withholdings),
• A increase in the international price which implies an increase in the price in dollars of the goods that we export and import with the same consequences of a devaluation (transfer to domestic prices).
• The tariff adjustmentselectricity, gas, rates, (tariffs)
• The increases of the value of gasoline, gas oil, CNG, (transport -> freight)
• The productive imbalances(international division of labor – agro-export specialization, with less added value, non-industrialized, and under a relationship of economic, commercial, financial, and technological dependency)
• The interest rates in the world, (the interest on public external debt increases -> public spending increases – the fiscal deficit increases)
• The business cycles(in times of economic growth, prices rise, and in times of recession they do not fall, and a situation of stagnation with inflation (stagflation) may occur).
• The seasonality (seasonal price variations)
• The expectations(of future increases that are incorporated in the contracts)
• The distributive bid (between capitalists and wage earners), because the wage increases that are achieved to recompose the lost purchasing power (lower real wages) are transferred to prices and this reduces the rate of profit for the capitalists. Inflation, as an additional means of redistributing national income, represents at the economic level, the expression of the confrontation of the powerful against the people, as an instrument used to counteract the historically determined tendency to lower the rate of profit or return on capital.
• The monetary issue (when it is carried out without compensation in the new generation of goods). The monetary issue is an instrument of economic policy, and, like any instrument, it is neither good nor bad in itself, but depends under what conditions it is issued, since if the level of economic activity increases, the transactions, the GDP, not only that it can be issued but also that it must be issued so that there is a greater amount of money in circulation that enables collections and payments in economic activity)

Therefore, the root causes of inflation (as well as unemployment, poverty and indigence, technological backwardness, unequal distribution of income and wealth, fiscal deficit, etc. etc.) must be sought in the type of economic-social modelhistorically determined and implemented in the country.

These problems cannot be solved unless the causes that originate them are removed, through a profound change in the current economic and social structure based on a new model of economic, social, political and cultural development.

This leads us to the need to conquer the power of national decision for a planned, independent, democratic, inclusive, and environmentally friendly development.

Some conjunctural and substantive measures proposed in an enunciative form are:

• Factual agreements and/or control, and audits, on food prices set by oligopolistic groups, with the participation of social organizations, internal commissions, consumer defense and trade unions.
• Nationalize banking, foreign trade and privatized strategic companies. State intervention in agri-food exports, either through withholdings and/or export quotas, to decouple domestic prices from rising international prices.
• Organization of a system that implies control over exports, under-invoicing, smuggling and currency leakage.
• Progressive tax policy, basing the highest collection on direct taxes (earnings, personal assets, wealth and extraordinary earnings).
• Comprehensive agrarian restructuring, which tends to enable access, exploitation and rational use of the land for those who work it, and progress towards agro-ecological forms of production, against the current concentrating and predatory model of common goods, and towards a diversification of agricultural production and exports. A national industrial development policy (state, mixed or private) that adds value to our natural resources (oil, gas, lithium).
• Creation (or recreation) of a national (flag) merchant marine for transportation and tight control over the exploitation of our maritime wealth, against the depredation carried out by foreign-flagged ships within our Atlantic platform).
• Regional integration, Alba, Unasur, Mercosur, Celac, BS.
• Arbitrate all the means that are necessary to not allow foreign military bases – installed or to be installed – (Malvinas, Triple Frontier area, Ushuaia, Vaca Muerta, Northern Argentina).
• Development of the internal market, recomposing internal demand by means of salary increases, pensions, pensions and social subsidies.
• Non-payment of the illegitimate part of the external debt.
• A determined fight against poverty (not against the poor).

Public Accountant, Professor of Economics, UTN-UNER-UADER-ISFD