Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0018/00185.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 22KB | 464 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00185}
$Pretitle{273}
$Title{Argentina
On Reform of the State and National Transformation}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dr. Carlos Saul Menem}
$Affiliation{President of Argentina}
$Subject{state
national
social
new
political
public
control
transformation
economic
participation}
$Date{1990}
$Log{}
Country:     Argentina
Book:        On Reform of the State and National Transformation
Author:      Dr. Carlos Saul Menem
Affiliation: President of Argentina
Date:        1990

On Reform of the State and National Transformation

     My Fellow Argentines: A year after my inauguration, Argentina should be
putting an end to the litany of recurrent crises and the causes of her
deterioration. We all know what they are. We all suffer them. We all know what
we are like and what our situation is.

     It is not enough for Argentina to talk about what has not been done and
what could not be done. We Argentines ought to talk about how to build a true
and possible future.

     We must, therefore, implement a national transformation, and I now call
upon all of you to undertake the task of reforming the state and of
participating in the productive revolution.

     Here, I will specifically refer to the state reform for national
transformation.

     I am asking you to carry out a national transformation based upon a
genuine change in our cultural concept of the state.

     I am inviting you to change the State so that we may to regain the
fundamental values of freedom and social justice.

     The reform of the State is the new blueprint for the country
within the framework of national transformation. This project requires
national unity, full commitment, and responsible participation from all
citizens.

     The protagonists of this project are those Argentines who build on
shared ideas. It belongs to those Argentines who forge their own destiny
and decide their own fate. National transformation is much more than the
reform of the state. State reform is much more than the privatization of
certain public companies. For national transformation, state reform
means nothing less than a behavioral change in the relationship between
the individual and the state. One that strengthens freedom and regains the
participation of man and the community.

     The goals of state reform are explained by the principles which are the
guiding force of this model of the future.

     For the Justicialist party, the principles of state reform are:
national unity, realism, planning, participation, popular market economy,
private initiative, fair and efficient public benefits, decentralization and
integrity. These constitute the guidelines along which the new state must be
built. Justicialism, while maintaining permanent political principles, updates
its proposals, adapting them to historical circumstances. It provides the
answers pertinent to any given moment, within a democratic political
framework, to achieve social justice and economic growth.

     National transformation is the result of my deep revolutionary
conviction. I am not proposing a revolution. We are already immersed in one.

     We are now working on a more effective and efficient implementation of
changes.

     This being the case, we must now:

1) Relocate the State.

     I declare here and now that the State did not fail. Statism is what
failed. To give the State its right place, means to give it a new and
different place in its relationship to the individual and society. To give
the State its right place, means to make it democratic, as our aim is to
achieve a social and democratic state in which the rule of law prevails.
The State remains valid as a political organization and a historical entity.
What is no longer valid, is its active involvement in business, production,
industry and commerce.

     The State is spent, not as a social political order, but as a state
enterprise.

     Excessive growth, an unbalanced relationship with the individual and
society, and the weakening of social participation, make it mandatory to place
the State in a new sphere enabling it to guarantee public freedom, individual
rights and collective interests which have, until today, been unprotected
by a crushing and inefficient state that broke the balance between authority
and freedom.

     Political action to relocate the State will extend to all areas. Once
the State has been relocated to its new position, it will evolve from one of
democratic representation to one of democratic participation.

2) Redistribute the economy.

     Under a new popular market system, we will achieve national economic
growth. When we talk of a popular market economy, we mean a system that
must be at the service of the people; it must be an ethical economy and
must lend dignity to the people.

     This economy consists of a popular and a market element.

     The first creates new work, guarantees social justice and makes it
possible for the State to intervene in defense of public welfare.

     The second recognizes and guarantees economic freedom.

     Redistribution pertains to reform in the economic sector. Reform imposes
new principles and rules on the economic process in order to recover freedom,
private initiative, competitiveness, investment, capital, production and work.

     Redistribution aims at making economic democracy become a reality.

     Redistribution implies economic decentralization of the State in favor
of other political units, such as provinces and municipalities, the community,
intermediate associations, individuals, the private sector and business.

     State sector concentration and the decline of the industrial and
commercial state compel us to redistribute the economy, enhancing the return
of private activities, until now under state intervention, to private
ownership. Redistribution also demands that we privatize what should be
private, abandon the protection of subsidies, and accept the challenges of
investment and risk.

     The operative or political measures of a new redistributed economy
require economic, decentralization, promotion of social property, economic
deregulation, recognition of cooperative enterprise, sectorial participation
in economic management, development of regional economies and
constitutionalization of the economic order.

3) Reorganize the government.

     Centralized administration requires a new structure and functions. We
have on the one hand, an executive administration which has become totally
denaturalized by its multiple structures, duplicated responsibilities, state
overdimension, bureaucratic proliferation, the loss of prestige in selecting
and administrative career, and the blind application of rules. While on the
other hand, the age old culture of the dossier, backbone and paradigm of the
bureaucratic culture; all of which make it mandatory for the higher echelons
of government to have a new organization.

     The reorganization of government must be global, encompassing
institutional, functional, personal and patrimonial needs.

     The government's functions will be determined by the role of the reformed
state in the areas of production, labor, services, domestic and foreign
policy, education, health, justice, defense and social action.

     The administrative structure must open the way to the exercise of power.
However, the new administrative structure should be the result of political
prudence, and not excessive rationalization. The general public, the tax
payer, the consumer must all participate in administrative management.

     We must upgrade the public function to a function of service. The
efficiency of the country's administration will depend entirely on the public
official's competence, skill, sense of responsibility, and professionalism.

4) Reconvert decentralization.

     The reconversion of the decentralized state and non-state public
administration, is also a consequence of this new position we give the State.

     To reconvert is to change things back to their ori