Between April 1976 and March 1981 the Government of Argentina tried a series of stabilisation policies based upon monetarist principles involving control of wages, tight money supply, floating exchange rates and indicative devaluation. Inflation was never brought under control, global output was cyclical and foreign financial capital profited. However, the basic target over this five‐year period was not just the reduction of inflation and the achievement of external equilibrium. The programme also sought drastic structural changes. This article discusses the global meaning of the strategy and its implementation, examines why it did not represent an economically viable (and socially acceptable) way of overcoming the constraints that have been arresting Argentina's economic growth since the mid‐1950s.