Argentina’s learning disability

Moisés Naím / El País

Argentina has more psychologists per capita than any other country in the world. This fact came to mind when president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced the nationalization of Repsol YPF, the country’s main oil company. Argentina has a long and calamitous history of forced nationalizations and wasteful public sector management. And here it was, repeating the same mistakes, oblivious to history and experience.

Psychologists are often sought by individuals wanting to drop bad habits, or change behavior patterns that make them suffer. Freud used the term “repetition compulsion” for the urge to go on doing what is clearly not desirable. Despite its record number of psychologists Argentina seems to suffer from an acute form of “repetition compulsion.”

The nationalization has produced a salvo of criticism throughout the world. Except in Argentina, where a huge majority supports the move. This despite the fact that many of them have surely been the victims of the consequences of nationalizations that have only brought losses, corruption and ruin. Indeed, originally YPF was a public company, one that was very badly managed, and, like many others, was privatized. In fairness, it has to be stressed too, that few Argentinean privatizations have been successes. The corruption in the process of the sale to the private sector, and the impossible rules imposed on the firms once privatized, made many of these deals utter failures that — once again — benefitted only a few rich individuals and their accomplices in government and politics. By now Argentineans know, or ought to know, what happens when their government gets its hands on a company. In the past decade the Buenos Aires water company, the airline Aerolíneas Argentinas, and several water suppliers (now consolidated), which had all been privatized, were renationalized with arguments not unlike those now being used in connection with Repsol YPF. The results have been catastrophic. Their services and performance have declined; they register huge losses that are paid for by the taxpayer. Last year state subsidies to these three companies were 80 percent greater than spending on children’s welfare.

The Argentineans who applaud the move might learn not only from their own experience, but also from that of other countries. The cases of Pemex in Mexico and PDVSA in Venezuela are instructive. These two big oil firms have more in common than the fact of being public, or exercising a virtual monopoly on the oil and gas industry in countries rich in these hydrocarbons. Their most surprising similarity is that, though oil prices have been soaring, the two firms are in decline. Their production, reserves and potential are less than what they used to be; their performance far worse than what it might easily be.

Insufficient investment, poor management, sluggish access to new technologies, the harassment — or total rejection — of foreign partners, are some of the ills they share. These weaknesses are, of course, symptoms of the politicization that infects them. And political interference goes beyond clientelism, the jobs-for-the-boys approach that undermines the firms’ capacity for efficient performance. The governments impose taxes, regulations and price controls that undermine their proper functioning, and in some cases force them to get involved in activities far from their principal mission.

The experience of other countries is full of these failures, but there are successes worth examining. Until not long ago, Brazil and Colombia were importers of hydrocarbons. Now Brazil’s Petrobras is a global player, on the way to becoming one of the world’s biggest oil firms, while Colombian oil production has soared. In both cases, the government reserves a central role, but has created structures that protect the company management from political interference.

It is obvious that experience at home or abroad has counted for little in Cristina Fernández’s decision. The nationalization of Repsol YPF does not seem to form part of any development strategy, energy plan or wider view of her country’s future.

Perhaps Sigmund Freud may be more useful than Karl Marx when it comes to understanding the decisions of the Argentinean government. But to appeal to Freud means according great weight to behavior actuated by the unconscious. In this case, it is clear that Cristina Fernández is fully conscious of her motives. And I greatly doubt that these have to do with Marx, or with the interests of the Argentinean people.