ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to account for the role of ground rent and its courses of appropriation in the structuring of “resource-rich” economies based on the case of Argentina. The main argument is that, given its nature, ground rent constitutes a mass of social wealth susceptible to appropriation by social subjects other than landowners. However, the limits to direct taxation on this surplus results in the implementation of alternative public appropriation policies that end up blocking economic development. By examining the case of Argentina, this chapter provides an estimation of the ground rent appropriated by both the local landowning class and other social subjects between 1993 and 2020. The analysis of this data sheds new light on Argentina's economic performance in recent decades, the changes in the political orientation of successive administrations, and the main political conflicts that characterized them.
