Generation of '80
In 1880, General Julio Argentino Roca, leader of the Conquest of the Desert and framer of the Generation and its model of government, launched his candidacy for president.
The politicians of the Generation of '80 held economically liberal and socially conservative positions, as well as believing in positivism,[1] symbolizing their ideology with Auguste Comte's motto, "Order and Progress."
In particular, they inherited the cultural and racial prejudices from Juan Bautista Alberdi's Gobernar es poblar, the rejection of traditions from Esteban Echeverría's Tradiciones retrógada que nos subordinan al antiguo régimen, and the confrontation between civilization and barbarianism from Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's Civilización y barbarie.
[6] The positivist ideas of the Generation of '80 were notably influenced by the thinking of Herbert Spencer, who adapted Charles Darwin's principles of evolution to the functioning of modern societies.
They put forth a liberal economic policy of agricultural exportation, which was compatible with the new international division of labor introduced by British merchants,[10] The country concentrated its economic activity in the region of the Pampas with its center in the port city of Buenos Aires, with the goal of producing meat (from sheep and cattle), leather, wool, and grains (wheat, corn, and flax), primarily to the British market, in exchange for importing industrial goods.
During his visit, Roca synthesized the relationship between Argentina and Great Britain with the following words:I am perhaps the first former president from South America to have been the object in London of such a reception of gentlemen.
[13] The model of agricultural exportation was implemented and maintained primarily by the ranchers in the Province of Buenos Aires (called estancieros), who organized in the Rural Society of Argentina, the first worker's union in the country's history, founded in 1868.
the estancieros were able to block President Sarmiento's plan to hand over lands to immigrants with the goal of establishing a system of farmers' colonies worked by their owners.
Argentina's generous and broad policy based on liberal ideas allowed for a suitable promotion of immigration, complying with the provisions contained in the Argentine Constitution.
A quarter-century later, thanks to the public policies implemented by the Generation of '80, the wave of immigration would lead to a phenomenal social movement and that would bring radicalism to power.
Facing growing demands of the middle class, constant strikes, and criticism from the press and Congress, the Generation of '80, at the time led by the modernist line of the National Autonomist Party, found it necessary to respond to the new reality and extended political participation with the passing of the Sáenz Peña Law in 1912, establishing secret, universal, and mandatory suffrage for males over 18.
Finally, in two articles appearing in the newspaper La Nación at the end of the 1930s, Manuel Mujica Lainez mentions the "Generation of '80" with its current meaning, though limited to the literary world.
In El desarrollo de las ideas en la Argentina del siglo XX, José Luis Romero spoke of the Generation of '80 as though it was already a well-known concept by the reader.
Identifying the Generation of '80 as the broad period occurring between 1880 and 1916 would include the younger leaders and intellectuals from the early 20th Century, who demonstrated a clearly different orientation to that of their predecessors.
