As newspapers from all over the world have discussed, Argentina has faced a terrible train tragedy last week resulting in 50 deaths and 600 people injured. Obviously, accidents happen, a normal reaction would be to investigate what caused it (material or human failings) and make sure such tragedy does not happen again. In this particular case, it is more complicated since the punctual cause matters less than the structural issues related to argentinian trains. Such accident was to be expected (since 2009, 70 persons have died in train accidents) and many actors had warned public opinion and authorities of the poor state of Buenos Aires communal trains – many of them dating from the 1950s.
As so many problems in Argentina, they are better understood from an economic point of view. All trains still in function in the country were put in place by the state after the second-world war and its union became one of the strongest, very close to the peronist party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peronism). Under President Carlos Menem government (1989-1999), Argentina followed neoliberal precepts to implement radical reforms. Which meant privatizing most public companies such as trains, water distribution, electricity, phone, etc. So trains were acquired by private enterprises, paying little for the infrastructure and to this day getting subsidies to maintain tickets price relatively low. Government officials has been in charge of controlling security and services provided. In the case that interest us, TBA acquired its trains in 1994.
What is the problem then? Shouldn’t private companies be more efficient than the government to run things? When circumstances are right, it might be so. It is definitely not the case here. The whole argument behind private advantage over public is based on competition. Any company will try to offer the best services at the lowest price possible to get more customers and ultimately more profits. However, communal trains rarely face real competition. |In Buenos Aires, customers have little or no alternatives, since having a car is very expensive, impossible for most Argentinians using trains to go to work. In any case, traffic jams also represent a real problem in Buenos Aires. Furthermore, TBA, as most privatized services, enjoys a virtual monopole. It got the trains in the 90s and since then are cashing in, squizing every penny out of their “investment”. In this context, the enterprise has no incentive to invest in security measures, renew its trains or even offer a comfortable travelling experience. Trains are full, people do not have any other option, so every dollar invested means a dollar less of profit. One could, in many aspects should, blame negligent behaviour of the company, union collusion, and incompetent state control, however, as horrible as it sounds, TBA is acting according to capitalist principles. It maximizes its profits…
In my opinion, public transport is structurally organized in Buenos Aires to produce bad and even dangerous services. For example, buses are in the same situation, every line is “owned” by a different private company… Therefore, the most logical solution would be to go back to state own public transport. Nonetheless, some things can be done within the actual flawed system. The situation is quite complex, since it reflects many common “argentinian” problems. For example, the head of TBA is very close to Kirchner’s government and has allegedly participated actively in fund raising activities for the actual President. Some claim that explains why state control was so deficient. One can also point out the difficult re-professionalization of state agencies, after decade of destruction. The other issue is “terciarización” or outsourcing. The company hires third parties to perform activities such as maintenance, pays union leaders to look the other way, and get cheaper workers. This issue has engendered a few violent confrontations between different unions. These corruption problems could probably be addressed with some political will.
Last week accident goes way beyond a punctual accident – even if it represents a terrible tragedy – it speaks to us about the legacy of the 90s neoliberal reforms. It is important to put in context this tragedy in a time when many countries are facing similar situations to what Argentina has experienced 20 years ago. Greece and Spain might wake up in a decade or so with the kind of headaches Argentina is having today…
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Masthead photo courtesy of born1945