Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-21T20:53:30.131Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Entrepreneurship in Public Enterprise: General Enrique Mosconi and the Argentine Petroleum Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Carl E. Solberg
Carl E. Solberg
Affiliation:
Professor of History, University of Washington
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The economic history of Latin America offers an unusual paradox. For much of the twentieth century, nationalist governments have fostered the growth of state enterprise, but for the most part the proponents of such policies have received little attention. The Argentine petroleum industry is a case in point. While the state oil company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (or YPF) grew from relatively modest origins into the largest firm in the country, its most important architect, General Enrique Mosconi, has remained a little-known figure. In this article, however, Dr. Solberg takes note of Mosconi's career. He examines the forces that shaped it and that shaped his policies as the Director General of YPF. Mosconi's story, however, is not that of just another nationalist-turned-public servant, for his ideas and policies had far-reaching ramifications not only in the political economy of Argentina but also in that of other nations of Latin America.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1982 , pp. 380 - 399
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Baer, Werner, Newfarmer, Richard, and Trebat, Thomas, On State Capitalism in Brazil: Some New Issues and Questions (Austin, Texas, 1976), 2, 7–8, 37, 46Google Scholar; “Public Enterprises: Their Present Significance and Their Potential in Development,” Economic Bulletin for Latin America, 16 (January-June, 1971), 7, 9. Fitzgerald, E.V.K., The State and Economic Development: Peru Since 1968 (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; Edelberg, Guillermo S., “Management Resource Development in Argentina,” in Rehder, Robert R., Latin American Management: Development and Performance (Reading, Massachusetts, 1968), 71.Google Scholar

2 Kilby, Peter, “Hunting the Heffalump,” in Kilby, Peter, ed., Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (New York, 1971) 6.Google Scholar Also see Lewis, Eugene, Public Entrepreneurship: Toward a Theory of Bureaucratic Political Power (Bloomington, Indiana, 1980), 243.Google Scholar

3 Bradley, J.B., “Argentine Fuel and Power and the International Coal Trade,” Comments on Argentine Trade, 9 (May, 1930), 48Google Scholar; Dorfman, Adolfo, Evolución industrial argentina (Buenos Aires, 1942), 142.Google Scholar

4 Kaplan, Marcos, “La primera fase de la política petrolera argentina (1907–1916),” Desarrollo Económico, 13 (January-March, 1974), 775–810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Government appropriations for the state oil industry amounted to 8,700,000 Argentina paper pesos between 1910 and 1916 or about U.S. $3,800,000 at exchange rates of that time. Frondizi, Arturo, Petróleo y política, Second edition (Buenos Aires, 1955), 68.Google Scholar For details on Yrigoyen's oil policies between 1916 and 1922, see Kaplan, Marcos, “Política del petróleo en la primera presidencia de Hipólito Yrigoyen (1916–1922),” Desarrollo Económico, 12 (April-June, 1972), 3, 24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Bunge presented his arguments in a series of articles in the Revista de Economía Argentina, a prestigious journal that he founded in 1918 and edited until his death in 1943. Two notable articles of this series are “Nueva orientación de la política económica argentina,” Revista de Economía Argentina, 6 (June, 1921), 449–479; and “Desequilibrio económico nacional,” Ibid., 15 (October, 1925), 265–285. For a summary of his economic thought, see Bunge, Alejandro E., Una nueva Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1940)Google Scholar especially 230–233. A valuable overview of Bunge's remarkable careeer is de Imaz, José Luis, “Alejandro E. Bunge, economista y sociólogo,” Desarrollo Económico, 25 (October-December, 1974), 547–555.Google Scholar

7 See, for example, Vicat, Luis A., “Combustibles y defensa nacional,” Revista Millitar, 23 (September, 1923), 347–349Google Scholar; and Baldrich, Alonso, El petróleo: Su importancia comercial, industrial y militar. Legislación petrolera (Buenos Aires, 1927), 14–20.Google Scholarde Imaz, José Luis, Los Que Mandan (Those Who Rule), trans. Astiz, C.A. (Albany, 1970), 71Google Scholar, For analysis of another Latin American army as “strategic state elite,” see Stepan, Alfred, The State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective (Princeton, 1978), 139–144.Google Scholar One of the first writers to point to the military background of Latin American public entrepreneurs was Johnson, John J., The Military and Society in Latin America (Stanford, 1964), 130–132.Google Scholar On Mexico, see Bermúdez, Antonio J., The Mexican National Petroleum Industry: A Case Study in Nationalization (Stanford, 1963), 21, 120–123Google Scholar; on Brazil, see Baer, Newfarmer, and Trebat, On State Capitalism in Brazil, 23–24.

8 There are two biographies of Mosconi; both are brief and impressionistic, Labal, Carlos Guevara, El General Ingeniero Enrique Mosconi: Una vida consagrada a la patria (Buenos Aires, 1941)Google Scholar; and Larra, Raul, Mosconi: General del petróleo (Buenos Aires, 1957).Google Scholar Mosconi's papers have never been made available, but his published speeches and writings provide insight into his early career; see the collection in Dichos y hechos, 1904–1938 (Buenos Aires, 1938), 34, 94–95. Buenos Aires Standard, February 7, 1923; United States, Department of State, Records of the Department of State, Decimal File M-514, 835.6363/187, November 21, 1922, Riddle (Buenos Aires) to Secretary of State. (Hereafter this source will be cited as SD. ).

9 Schumpeter, Joseph A., The Theory of Economic Development (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1934), 92.Google ScholarMosconi, Enrique, El petróleo argentino, 1922–1930 y la ruptura de los trusts pertrolíferos ingleés y norteamericano el 1° de agosto de 1929 (Buenos Aires, 1936), 35–50Google Scholar; “Coronel Enrique Mosconi,” Petróleo y Minas, 2 (November 15, 1922), 6.

10 For Alvear's decree, see The Review of the River Plate, 59 (April 20, 1923), 973.

* The value of the Argentine paper peso was about 42 U.S. cents in the 1920s.

11 Argentine Republic, Ministerio de Agricultura de la Nación, Dirección General de Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, Presupuesto general del año 1924 y plan financiero para los años 1924–1927 (Buenos Aires, 1924), 32–48, 64–70; Mosconi, El petróleo argentino. 57–62, 82, 116. Larra, Mosconi, 78; Mosconi, El petróleo argentino, 117. Alvear's decrees on the refinery question are in Argentine Republic, Ministerio de Agricultura de la Nación, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, Recoplilación de leyes, decretos y resoluciones sobre materia petrolífera (1907–1933) (Buenos Aires, 1938), 138–142, 192–193.Google Scholar

12 Mosconi, El petróleo argentino, 15. Larra, Mosconi, 44; Craviotto, José A., “La minería y el petróleo (1962–1930),” in Argentine Republic, Academia Nacional de la Historia, Historia argentina contemporánea, 1862–1930, 4 vols. (Buenos Aires, 1965–1967), III, 555Google Scholar; Argentine Republic, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, Desarrollo de la industria petrolífera fiscal, 1907–1932 (Buenos Aires, 1932), 365.Google Scholar

13 Desarollo, 365–374, 379; Argentine Republic, Ministerio de Agricultura de la Nación, Dirección General de Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, Memoria de la Dirección General de Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales correspondiente al año 1925 (Buenos Aires, 1926), 8–9Google Scholar; Argentine Republic, Dirección General de Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, Antecedentes y desarrollo de la industria del petróleo en la República Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1931), 21.Google Scholar

14 Statistics on the number of wells in production are found in Argentine Republic, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, Desarrollo de la industria petrolífera fiscal, 1907–1932, 213. On YPF's slow pace of exploration in Patagonia, see Serghiesco, Traían T., Líneas generales sobre los Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales desde el punto de vista técnico-geológico y económico (Buenos Aires, 1930), 8–13Google Scholar; “El petróleo nacional,” Petróleo y Minas, 9 (April 1, 1929), 8. Reviews of YPF's financial position during the 1920s may be found in Argentine Republic, Ministerio de Agricultura de la Nación, Dirección General de Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, Memoria de la Dirección General de Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales correspondients al año 1928 (Buenos Aires, 1929), 16–20, 36–37Google Scholar; Argentine Republic, Ministerio de Agricultura de la Nación, Dirección General de Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, Memoria de la Dirección General de Yacimientos Petrolíferos fiscales, año 1929 (Buenos Aires, 1920), 26.Google Scholar

15 Mosconi discussed his priorities in testimony to the Chamber of Deputies' Committee on Industry and Commerce in 1926. Argentine Republic, Cámara de Diputados, Sesiones ordinarias 1926, Orden del día, Num. 66, Comisión de Industrias y Comercio, 49–57.

16 Argentine Republic, Recopilación de leyes, 145–151; The Review of the River Plate, 61 (January 18, 1924), 171; 61 (May 2, 1924), 1005. Hollander, Frederick Alexander, “Oligarchy and the Politics of Petroleum in Argentina: The Case of the Salta Oligarchy and Standard Oil, 1918–1933,” (Ph. D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1976), 151–172 and 312–339Google Scholar discusses Salta's oil policy. The only period during the 1920s when Salta refused to co-operate with Standard was between 1922 and 1925, when the Radical Party held the provincial government.

17 Mosconi made this comment in congressional testimony. See Argentine Republic, Cámara de Diputados, Orden del día Num. 66, 56. For the Windhausen quote, see his article, “Apuntes sobre la zona petrolífera de la Patagonia meridional,” in the Buenos Aires daily La Epoca, October 18, 1920. He presented a technical analysis of his research in “Cambios en el concepto de las condiciones geológicas del yacimiento petrolífero de Comodoro Rivadavia (comunicación preliminar),” Boletín de la Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Córdoba, 27 (1923), 1–8. I would like to thank his grandson, Rodolfo Windhausen, for calling my attention to these publications and to the scientific controversy that Mosconi confronted. Fossa-Mancini, Enrico, “Faults in Comodoro Rivadavia Oil Field, Argentina,” Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, 16 (June, 1932), 561, 575Google Scholar; Fossa-Mancini, Enrico, “Geophysics as an Aid in the Search for Oil-Bearing Structures in the Argentine,” World Petroleum Congress, July 19th-25th, 1933; Proceedings, 2 vols, (London, 1934), I, 177.Google Scholar Interview with Rodolfo Windhausen, New York City, September 4–5, 1980. Recent studies of Patagonian oil reserves estimate them as larger than the North Sea fields and as high as 31 billion cubic meters. “Argentina Looks Abroad for Off-shore Oil Expertise,” Latin America Economic Report, 4 (February 6, 1976), 23; Croll, Donald O., “Oil Nationalism Modified,” The Review of the River Plate, 161 (April 29, 1977), 552.Google Scholar

18 For Mosconi's views on relationships between the state oil industry and Argentine industrialization, see Dichos y hechos, 127–129, 136–138, 198, 209–210. Also see Mosconi, Enrique, La batalla del petróleo: YPF y las empresas extrajeras (Buenos Aires, 1957), 116–117.Google Scholar Mosconi, El petróleo argentino, 181–182; Mosconi, Dichos y hechos, 217; Mosconi, Enrique, “Prólogo,” in El petróleo del norte argentino: Comentarios del diario “El Intransigente” de la ciudad de Salta (Salta, 1928), xxx.Google Scholar For Mosconi's comments on Standard and Shell, see Gibb, George Sweet and Knowlton, Evelyn H., The Resurgent Years, 1911–1927 (New York, 1956), 382.Google Scholar

19 Enrique Mosconi, letter to Ricardo Oneto, June 27, 1929, in Oneto, Ricardo, El petróleo argentino y la soberanía nacional (Buenos Aires, 1929), xviGoogle Scholar; Palacios, Alfredo L., Petróleo, monopolios y latifundios, Second edition (Buenos Aires; 1957), 100Google Scholar; SD, 835.6363/333, October 7, 1929, Bliss (Buenos Aires) to Secretary of State. Mosconi, Dichos y hechos, 137.

20 Tyler, William G., “Comment,” in Geithman, David T., ed., Fiscal Policy for Industrialization and Development in Latin America (Gainesville, Florida, 1974), 290Google Scholar; Cochran, Thomas C. and Reina, Ruben E., Entrepreneurship in Argentine Culture: Torcuato de Tella and S.I.A.M. (Philadelphia, 1962), 54–59, 80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 “Foreign Oil Producers in Argentina Facing Uncertain Government Policy,” Oil Weekly, 55 (December 13, 1929), 73. For background on the international oil situation at this time, see Sampson, Anthony, The Seven Sisters: The Great Oil Companies and the World They Made (New York, 1975), 70–73Google Scholar; and Penrose, Edith T., The Large International Firm in Developing Countries: The International Petroleum Industry (Cambridge, Mass. 1968), 179–182.Google Scholar For the Soviet imports, see SD, 835.00/375, Jauary 14, 1926, Jay (Buenos Aires) to Secretary of State; Larra, Mosconi, 124; and Frondizi, Petróleo y política, 251.

22 The real value of Argentine industrial production rose 54 per cent between 1935 and 1945. See Wynia, Gary W., Argentina in the Postwar Era: Politics and Economic Policy Making in a Divided Society (Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1978), 29.Google Scholar Also see Mosconi, El petróleo argentino, 159; and Casella, Albert T. and Clara, Alejandro, Petróleo, soberanía y paz (Buenos Aires, 1963), 17.Google Scholar

23 Rock, David, Politics in Argentina, 1890–1930: The Rise and Fall o f Radicalism (London, 1975), 232–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 For provincial reaction, see Cornejo, Atilio, “La Cuestión del petróleo,” Revista Argentina de Ciencias Políticas, 33 (October, 1926), 99–105.Google Scholar Also see Sorondo, Matías G. Sánchez, La palabra de un patriota sobre el problema de la legislación delpetróleo (Buenos Aires, 1927), 65–77.Google ScholarArgentine Republic, Cámara de Diputados de la Nación, Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, sesiones ordinarias, IV (September 8, 1929), 478.Google Scholar

25 For detailed analysis, see Solberg, Carl E., Oil and Nationalism in Argentina: A History (Stanford, 1979), 128–129, 142–143.Google Scholar

26 On the interventions, see Sommariva, J.O., La república federal, 1912–1936 (La Plata, 1955), 231–233, 238Google Scholar; Great Britain, Foreign Office, General Correspondence: Political, 1920–1930, 371/14196, May 24, 1930, Millington-Drake (Buenos Aires) to Foreign Office. Also see Sánchez Sorondo, La palabra de un patriota, 77; and Smith, Peter H., Argentina and the Failure of Democracy: Conflict Among Political Elites, 1904–1955 (Madison, Wisconsin, 1974), 90–97.Google Scholar

27 Phelps, Vernon L., The International Economic Position of Argentina (Philadelphia, 1938), 91–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rock, Politics in Argentina, 242–243.

28 A recent and thorough analysis of the 1930 coup and its relationship to oil politics, Mayo, Carlos A., Andino, Osvaldo R., and Molina, Fernando García, Diplomacia, política y petróleo en la Argentina (1927–1930) (Buenos Aires, 1976), 191Google Scholar, concludes that no evidence exists of a conspiracy between the military and the oil companies.

29 Larra, Mosconi, 155–156, 169–184.

30 On Uruguay, see Mosconi, El petróleo argentino, 231–233. On Brazil, Wirth, John D., The Politics of Brazilian Development, 1930–1954 (Stanford, 1940), 136–171.Google Scholar On Bolivia, Klein, Herbert S., “American Oil Companies in Latin America: The Bolivian Experience”, Inter-American Economic Affairs, 18 (Autumn, 1964), 47–72.Google Scholar

31 Potash, Robert A., The Army & Politics in Argentina, 1945–1962; Perón to Frondizi (Stanford), 1980)Google Scholar, analyzes the oil policies of Perón and Frondizi within the economic context of the period. See especially 178–180, 283–285.

32 “Latin America: After the Oil Crisis,” Bank of London and South America Review, 13 (December, 1979), 706–707.