Generation of '80

The Generation of '80 (Spanish: Generación del '80) was the governing elite in Argentina from 1880 to 1916. Members of the oligarchy of the provinces and the country's capital, they first joined the League of Governors (Liga de Gobernadores), and then the National Autonomist Party. They filled the highest public political, economical, military and religious positions, staying in power through electoral fraud.

In spite of the growing opposition politically centred on the Radical Civic Union (Unión Cívica Radical, UCR), and anarchist and socialist groups workers formed mainly by immigrant workers, the Generation of '80 managed to stay in power until the sanction of the Sáenz Peña Law of secret, universal, and obligatory male suffrage.

The project of the Generation of '80 consisted of keeping the country free of any kind of unrest, with harsh responses towards any kind of revolts, to maintain a stability that would attract foreign investment, while centering the economy of the country in the production of primary food products to support the import of the needed manufactured goods.

On the social level, the concept of progress was linked to the creation of public, free and compulsory primary education, and the incentive of European immigration.

The positive international balance of trade of the country was not re-invested in modernization and industrialisation of the basic production of the country, but expended by the richest groups with luxury items and imposing constructions.

European immigration brought not only educated people (in comparison with the uneducated gauchos and Native Americans, as seen by Domingo Sarmiento), but also several political ideologies that were rising in Europe: socialism and anarchism, which clashed with the liberal position of the governing elite.

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