“The sacrifices that the nation requires”. Military business management of public firms. The Argentinian Navy at the Rio Santiago Shipyard (1953-1973)

Abstract

The management of public companies and the management of the industrial work force by the military regime will be studied in this article from the relevant observation. We propose to analyze the forms of corporate-military management in Astillero Rio Santiago (ARS) under the orbit of the Argentina Navy in order to observe some of the singularities in relation to other large state companies. In the ARS, the system of cooperation and simultaneous domain of the workers collective was founded on notions of industrial development and nationalism, both present in the military repertoires, displacing expressions like family. The discursive construction of business management articulated notions of autonomy, development, defense and industrialism, and equating both productive tasks as the sacrifice of men who built major works relevant to national destiny.