Economic Development, Political Development, and Inequality

IN 1912, FEARING LABOR UNREST, the Argentine government enacted the Sáenz Peña Law, establishing universal male suffrage by secret ballot. In 1930, the military took power in a coup, followed by a series of fraudulent elections, with another coup in 1943. In 1946, Juan Domingo Perón, initially a member of the military junta, won the presidency on a pro-labor populist platform. In 1955, another coup deposed Perón, soon followed by a nominally civilian government, which lasted from 1958 until yet another coup in 1966. After substantial unrest on the part of workers, students, and the urban poor, as well as