The Mighty Fallen: Argentina and the Great Depression | Hacker News Reader

The Mighty Fallen: Argentina and the Great Depression

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59 pointsThevet95 comments

As someone who comes from a very poor country, I feel like academics don’t do enough to help understand why some countries succeed and why some don’t. They blame “colonialism” or some such thing, but that doesn’t explain this. Argentina was rich in the early 20th century:

> Something has gone awry in what was the most successful of all the 19th-century liberal republics in Spanish America. In the early 20th century, Argentina’s per capita GDP ranked among the world’s top ten, on a par with Australia and Canada and ahead of France and Italy.

What explains the coups and political instability? If the GDP is the same, why is the government of Canada and Australia so much more stable than Argentina? This seems to be one of the biggest things holding back Latin America, but there seems to be no effort to understand what’s causing it.

> I feel like academics don’t do enough to help understand why some countries succeed and why some don’t

What have you read so far? Did you do any research? The field of philosophy and political science does not lack publications.

I can recommend "The Rise and Decline of Nations" by Mancur Olson. Further authors which I still have to go through, but seem relevant:

    Theodore Dalrymple
    René Girard
    Roger Scruton
    James Burnham

> but there seems to be no effort to understand what’s causing it.

I recommend "Why Nations Fail" by Acemoglu and Robinson, a thoughtful look at success/failure factors common across a number of countries.

Unlike the implication of the title itself, it's not a "one grand theory" but a set of factors that incrementally tip the scales in one direction or the other.

Sure, factors like colonialism certainly play a role, but terms like that are usually used as lazy tropes rather that thoughtful analysis. Acemoglu and Robinson don't focus on such broad factors except to the degree that they might encourage/discourage some more primary factors.

Yeah. The book has some great insights around institutions. My notes from the book https://ashishb.net/book-summary/book-summary-why-nations-fa...

Thanks for the notes, they made interesting reading on their own. Was there any discussion of military tradition? Something interesting I note in the major Anglosphere democracies is that the military just don't get overtly involved in politics.

Iirc there wasn't. I think it is mostly about strong institutions that keep military in check.

I'm not sure if this is a cause for successful democracy or rather a sign of a successful democracy.

Thank you.

The simple explanation is the timeline of the resolution of power struggle of the ruling classes in respective countries. Both Canada and Australia were Crown colonies and subsequently member states of the Commonwealth of the British Empire.

England experienced extreme violence during its period of power struggle between contending members of ruling classes. If you review the history of England from Henry VIII until the consolidation of the conflict in what they call "The Glorious Revolution", you will note the same volatility and frequent change of power, extreme violence, and vulnerability to external powers. Had England experienced its power consolidation period in modern times, and was vulnerable to external powers capable of projecting power and influence using modern means, it would be another Argentina. In England's case, a chance event of inclement weather neutralized the armada of the super power of the time (Spain), and it should be noted that another invading force (Dutch Orange) finally resolved the matter.

The Anglo-Empire (currently administered by the American cousins) enjoys relative concord among the ruling set and the subject classes are effectively propagandized to accept their station in life. (A cursory review of any English work of literature or film supports this assertion.)

Should Latin America, Far East, Middle East, or any other non-Anglo region ever enjoy a sufficiently long period unmolested by the Anglo-Empire, they too will pass through their period of contention among the ruling classes and arrive at a stable formula for exercising governance over a docile population.

>>> Should Latin America, Far East, Middle East, or any other non-Anglo region ever enjoy a sufficiently long period unmolested by the Anglo-Empire, they too will pass through their period of contention among the ruling classes and arrive at a stable formula for exercising governance over a docile population.

That stable formula may in turn be imperialist. Colonialism is not the sole province of the Anglosphere. China has already reached this kind of stability and freedom from foreign molestation, to the detriment of its neighbors and conquered peoples.

It's also worth noting that countries subjected to Anglo colonialism and Common Law have fared better than those colonized by Spain or France, in large part because British colonies were not organized as plantations run by a few wealthy landlords (at least, not nearly to the same extent). Most of Latin America still hasn't even experienced land reform, keeping large swaths of the population at the level of subsistence. Moreover the lack of property rights and security driven by the occasional socialist/populist uprisings result in a lack of credit or investment that would help build a middle class. The middle class is the group you refer to derogatively as "subject classes [...] propagandized to accept their station in life." That class in China and in the Anglosphere lives a materially much more comfortable existence than the subject classes of LatAm, Africa or South Asia. The material comfort, more than the propaganda, is the key to preventing populist uprising.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens#Social_comment...

I think English 19th century social critics would disagree regarding the material comfort of the subject classes. As I mentioned, my impression is that British subject classes have internalized the narrative of the inherent superiority of the ruling classes. How this was achieved fascinates me and remains an intriguing question. It is a unique phenomena afaik.

A degree of psychological "comfort" appears to be necessary for a minority to maintain stable generational power over the majority. In China's case, this psychological component is pride in national resurgence after the 'century of shame', for which achievement the Communist Party of China can reasonably, and most certainly does, claim credit.

I think there's a vast difference between the British narrative of inherited social hierarchy and the American narrative of upward mobility. It's not really accurate to lump them together. To the extent that they serve as social guidelines and even instruments of control, the former operates as a stick and the latter a carrot. They approach the individual in completely opposite ways, but they both make room for the individual, whereas China simply pretends the individual does not exist except as a threat to the state. China's approach seems remarkably stable ATM, but I suspect it's more brittle than it appears because it cannot accommodate any complaint. Anyone can say anything about the Queen or about American capitalism. National pride in a relatively healthy open society is largely premised on the right to complain. England was the first country to enshrine the rights of commoners, and do away with absolute monarchy. The decentralization of power is what allows for the psychological comfort - or stops a boiling pot from exploding.

Just having reread what you wrote, and realizing you're referring to subject colonial classes in the 19th C as opposed to internal domestic lower classes in Anglophone countries today... there's another explanation. The British Empire didn't have enough manpower to administrate its colonies. So it was very adept at creating civil service bureaucracies composed of and managed by colonials at all but the highest levels. This is what allowed such a small maritime country to control such a vast empire. To do this, they had to educate and Anglicize a layer of colonials to a certain degree sufficient to run the colony, and had to give them elevated privileges. The bureaucratic classes created by the British are still in control of most former British colonies today. Naturally enough, they still play Cricket, speak English, send their children to school in Britain, and run the armed forces; the structure is their source of power, and their place in it is backed by their proximity to and familiarity with British customs. What you perceive as a narrative of inherent superiority of the British is really a sense of superiority themselves, versus the uneducated masses they rule.

Doesn't Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto argue that property rights or the lack thereof are one of the main contributes to keeping people poor?

I've often questioned why some new world countries fared better than others.

In your opinion, what could have staved off the Anglo-empire meddling in Argentina's case? Had the governing class in Argentina joined (or succumbed to) the Anglo financial system early in the 20th century would the foreign powers that be have promoted stability rather than instability in that country?

Almost all Latin American countries are presidential republics. This is a system of government that basically guarantees instability. The separation of the executive and the legislature is supposed to provide greater accountability, but eventually leads to populist presidents quarrelling with intransigent representatives. The result is political logjam and either the president finally disposes of the legislature, or the military gets rid of both.

In contrast, Australia and Canada both have Westminster parliamentary systems, where the executive is drawn from the legislature. Thus, the prime minister is guaranteed a base of support there and populist candidates cannot entirely circumvent it. The system has its flaws, but it does seem to be more stable in the long run.

>Almost all Latin American countries are presidential republics. This is a system of government that basically guarantees instability

What about all the european presidential republics, and the US?

Jan 6

I'm sorry, you can consider Jan 6 to be many bad things, but none of those are a meaningful threat to American democracy.

I’m sure you can use your imagination to foresee a variety of concerning scenarios that result from a mob killing many of our federal politicians.

> (...) but none of those are a meaningful threat to American democracy.

Jam 6 was literally a coup attempt ordered by the president to disrupt the session in Congress that formalized the election results to avoid stepping down after losing the elections.

Exactly which part of this do you believe is not a threat to any democracy?

Neither was the beer hall putsch. It had no chance of overthrowing the government.

There aren't a lot of them in Europe, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_system_of... I can pick Belarus, Cyprus and Turkey.

According to this theory the USA should be a failed state then?

The United States has the world's longest running presidential system, and is the only exception to the rule so far.

Interesting, what might be the reason for its success despite being a presidential system?

The electoral system.

It ensures a two party system which makes the government lean center (on both sides) and be very stable.

I used to think the two party system was a major driver in polarization and resulting instability in the USA and UK, but I guess people can refuse to listen to each other in any system (Israel, Italy, Sweden).

Vast natural resources creating wealth for the entire population. (Before anyone says “there’s lots of poor people in America...they are not even close to poor by world standards). When the economy is almost always booming, jobs are plentiful, things are cheap, there’s no reason to overthrow a government. As the famous quote explains, “it’s the economy stupid”.

That also applies to Argentina.

It has nothing to do with resources. Per person, Argentina had more land and more natural wealth than the US. The reason our presidential system is less prone to upheaval is the Constitution, its separation of powers and its checks and balances which have, historically, provided for a relatively restrained power of the presidency in the US compared to other presidential systems. Also, the US has what are recently referred to as "norms", precedents set early in the Republic and reinforced through hundreds of years of peaceful transitions of power. These hold a great deal of weight, even now.

The political independence of the military, its culture of unwillingness to step into politics, and the taboo on the use of the military for policing on American soil, is another key component in American stability vs the rest of the Americas.

Whether this holds up for another 5 years is anyone's guess. My family is from Argentina, and having lived there myself I see the US sliding in that direction. One very telling thing is the increasing justification of political violence that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. However, America has been through periods of political violence before and has not degenerated into a dictatorship, although it's come close.

> the taboo on the use of the military for policing on American soil

Instead, the police militarized. Then there is the National Guard(?).

The National Guard are under state level control, and the police although "militarized" technologically, are nothing remotely resembling the US military - or even the Argentine military. I brought it up because in almost every country in LatAm the military has at one time or another overthrown the elected government. That hasn't happened in the US. That's a significant problem if a national military begins operating as a police force.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, just want to add that as a European who lived in the US around 2000 for a while, it feels like a police state from time to time.

In France, the Gendarmes patrol plazas and parks in full military attire and arms: fully automatic weapons and combat shotguns. The same in Spain and Italy with the Policia Nacional and the Carabineri. That’s unheard of in the US, outside of some spots in NYC or DC.

I lived outside the US from 2004, including in France and Spain from 2009-2014. It definitely feels much less militarized there than in the US. Returning to the US after ten years was absolutely shocking.

However, I also lived in countries in Asia and Latin America where the actual military plays a major role in policing and putting down protests. Now I live in Portland, where the militarized local police put down protests, and I can say that the qualitative difference between those situations is that the local police do not represent the government of the country. They still answer to the courts. They can't throw you in a black hole without legal representation. They don't have the true power of the state behind them. They may be fucked up as hell, but they aren't the army, in the sense that the actual military is sent in to suppress uprisings around the world.

That was my point about what allowed America to escape the tragic cycle of coups that has befallen most other presidential republics ... the taboo on the military engaging in domestic policing. No other country in Latin America has that taboo, and as a result the army in each county functions as a bludgeon by whoever takes absolute power -- usually fascists, but in odd cases (Venezuela, El Salvador), leftist totalitarians.

I definitely think we are in the first stages of decline.

Had the capital riots gone a little differently I could see a civil war starting that would destroy America.

>Had the capital riots gone a little differently I could see a civil war starting that would destroy America.

So what, they make it into the senate chambers, kill some politicians for being traitors, and then what? declare a coup and expect everyone to take them seriously?

And even if they flip the Capitol Police, what do they do when Maryland and Virginia roll their national guards through DC?

We’ve survived assassination of the President on multiple occasions. I have no idea what people think the January 6 rioters could have done to meaningfully affect the country. It was a very small populist uprising that was quickly put down. (We’ve dealt with those too—Whiskey Rebellion, etc.)

> what do they do when Maryland and Virginia roll their national guards through DC?

That’s literally the civil war the commenter was talking about.

Trump declaring martial law and increased powers under the pretense that our legislature would be incapacitated and the resulting shit storm of animosity between Democrats and Republicans. Many of his supporters and closest personal allies were waiting to seize an opportunity for this end.

Trump would have been happy to do that. He might have even thought it was possible on that day. In the end, he couldn't do it because he didn't have the key support necessary from the military or his own DOJ. Because that would be a step too far. The bureaucracy, even stacked with his own appointees, had no interest in seeing armed conflict. To be cynical, whatever he was offering just wasn't enough to take that bet.

> (...) He might have even thought it was possible on that day. In the end, he couldn't do it (...)

I don't see how claiming that you believe a few challenges would pop up along the way can refute the fact that Trump's goal was to overthrow the democratic process to force himself into staying in power in spite of the election results.

Quoting Mike Pence, on rejecting Trump's threats on Jan 6 insurrection:

> "There are those in our party who believed that in my position as presiding officer over the joint session that I possess the authority to reject or return electoral votes certified by the states," Pence said. "But the Constitution provides the vice president with no such authority."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pence-proud-his-jan-6-actio...

Huh? I said it was his goal.

Your edit with Pence is confirming my point. Trump wanted to overthrow the government and his own appointees wouldn't go along with it because he wasn't offering enough assurance they'd get away with it. Re-read what I wrote.

I don't think you were able to read or understand what I pointed out. It's immaterial what you thought was or was not possible.

The relevant part is that the president of the US of A, along with his political party, thought it was possible to overthrow the elections they lost to preserve themselves in power, and executed their plan to overthrow the elections. That's what the Vice President stated. Which part do you want to deny?

Even though the VP stated he intentionally rejected the president's plan, let's keep in mind that the president's plan also involved assassinating him along with members of Congress as part of his plan to overthrow the elections.

Which part exactly do you not accept?

What are you, looking for a fight? No one's disagreeing with you. I live in this country. I watched it on live TV. I have no doubt what his intentions were. There's no need to insult me and say I can't understand what you're talking about.

I think that this can be better qualified. Presidential republics make sense if you have a truly federalist system, formed by existing states that have unified under one government. The US for example does not have a centralized health care system, police force, banking system, legal system, and education system.

Some, though not all, countries that have copied the US presidential system are in actuality centralized with most power being invested in the federal government and by proxy, the president. It is a recipe that dictators like as they can pretend to be democratic leaders but not actually have to share power.

If your country is centralized parliament works best. If it is decentralized then any parliament is going to be toothless like the UN, entirely dominated by single strong internal powers like the EU, or incoherent like in Star Wars :)

The Federal Reserve is a pretty centralized banking system.

To your point, however, the US has had prosperous period of its history with free (I.e. no central/federal control) banking. See Rothbard's "The Mystery of Banking."

"If your country is centralized parliament works best. If it is decentralized then any parliament is going to be toothless like the UN"

The Australian example undermines this claim.

Australia is a true federation. Similar to the US, the constitutions of the six states predate the federation and remain in force. The federal constitution gives the federal gvt constrained powers (e.g. military, foreign affairs) with powers defaulting to the states (e.g. police, health).

The country is broadly decentralised due to its constitution and geography.

The federal parliament is a Westminster system - prime minister elected by members of the legislature, head of state that serves a largely symbolic role, distinct upper house designed as a house of review.

The Australian settlement routinely produces stable government, workable majorities in parliament, is a true multi-party system, and has shown itself to be capable of big-picture reform.

Admittedly, some of this is down to strong good microstructure. In particular, the preferential voting system.

The Westminster system is also an strong fit for centralised countries, as seen in the UK and New Zealand. If there is one criticism of it, it is that it can be difficult to get enough of a gene pool together to form an effective executive when the population of house members is too small. Smaller Australian states often struggle to produce competent executives. There are similar problems in the almost-Westminster Scottish, Welsh and NI parliaments. These problems are further compounded by proportional representation, which favours chest-thumpers (small parties) and political hacks (large parties), all of whom are very poorly suited to executive responsibilities.

That explanation wouldn't work for the era at the end of the 1800s when Venezuela adopted a USA type constitution that was meant to imitate the USA as closely as possible.

What did Venezuela change about their money in the 1970s? Follow the money.

I think a lot of it comes down to corruption. The recurring theme in Argentina is that the large landowners and right-wing politicians hoard the wealth of the country; although living standards rise slowly, most people are left behind. Then there's a socialist movement which nationalizes industry and promises reform. But they're just as corrupt, and use the levers of monetary policy to line their pockets. International investment reels in horror, the debt skyrockets, they print more money, inflation goes wild, then they default on the debt and there's a few years of depression. Finally, the right wing gets back into power, removes the currency controls, issues new currency - essentially wiping out ordinary savings but safeguarding land-based wealth - and privatizes everything again. Rinse and repeat.

How will voluntary bitcoin adoption affect this? In other words, once economic actors have a currency that can't be manipulated by government, want changes?

So basically the US today.

It's worth considering Argentina's political history in addition to its economic history. From independence, it quickly became a "feudal dictatorship" under Juan Manuel de Rosas, leading a confederation of largely autonomous provinces, from 1829-52. Then a "cold civil war" ensued from 1852-61 between the dominant province of Buenos Aires and the rest of the Confederation, with Buenos Aires eventually winning under Bartolome Mitre, who established a voice-voting faux-democracy that enshrined de facto one-party rule from 1862-1910.

This period of false democracy coincided with Argentina's miraculous economic rise, as well as the subjugation of its remaining autonomous indigenous peoples. The first free election in Argentina was held in 1916, and only fourteen years later the adolescent system was thrown into disarray by the Infamous Decade and half a century of periodic coups.

The past 38 years since the election of Raul Alfonsin in 1983 have been the longest continuous period of democracy and peace in Argentine history, by far. When we compare Canada's origin under the partially democratic English system or Japan's gradual adoption of Western values from 1868 to Argentina's eruption from an ossified Spanish Empire in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, we see more "anchors of stability" in the former two, in one case the tradition of English parliamentarianism and in the second the Japanese "flexible monarchy" that gradually relinquished power. But this is an unpleasant conclusion for those looking to change the fortunes of countries that lack such guideposts; traditions take a long time to build, and for every George Washington there are five Santa Annas.

Correlates with the number of Scottish people involved in establishing the country?

... why some countries succeed and why some don’t ...

Not for want of trying.

That's literally the topic of the foundational book of modern economics, Smith's An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. And there've been many, many, many subsequent attempts at answers. If there is a modern concensus, it's that there is no accepted answer or understanding.

There are several reasons. It's difficult to run controlled experiments. There are a limited number of examples to study. There is a phenomenally entangled set of factors. And many attempts are influenced by specific experiences, ignorance, or ideological alignment.

You'll find free-market fundamentalists, institutionalists, Keynesians (fiscal policy), monetarists, American School (National System, following a national policy), socialists, communists, neoliberal school, feudalists, physiocrats, cyberntics / systems theorists, complexity economists, biophysical economics, and numerous others.

Among texts I'd recommend:

Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations.

Lloyd Jeffrey Dumans, The Overburdened Econommy.

Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms. (The series this is part of contains numerous other explorations of economic history.)

Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation

Arnold Toynbee, Lectures on the Industrial Revolution.

Joe Studwell has written a book called "How Asia Works" that tries to tackle the question of what economic policies help countries get wealthy. You can read a review about it here [1]. But basically he boils down to 3 policies:

1. Land reform - Forcibly buy up farms and distribute it to farmers. This forces landlords into cities to develop more productive businesses.

2. Export discipline - Encourage companies to sell overseas rather than to the domestic market. This helps them become more competitive worldwide.

3. Financial control - Encourage banks to loan to companies that export instead of real estate companies.

[1] https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/what-studwell-got-wrong

I visited around 10 years ago and found it to be a truly interesting country, though indeed mired in recent controversy and historical bloodshed and all the political to-and-fro discussed in the article, but also full of delights and fascinating people and strong cultural elements (grilled meat! Late night dancing!), a clear cross between old Europe and the new world, more than any other perhaps. My anecdote on the finance system: the local street market had signs posted by the local government that mandated prices-in order to curb inflation. That was a first for me, seeing vendors unable to set their own prices.

There’s something sick about their economy. Quite a few economic dynamos emerged from the legacy of bloodshed and dictatorships. Argentina has natural resources. It has institutions. But perhaps it lacks vision and the will to carry out that vision.

We have a very crooked political caste. I'm giving this as an example; I don't want to get into a political discussion. But in the last government alone, we received around 50 billion dollars from the FMI also alone, that was entirely dilapidated.

Do you have a source on that? Most of the money was used to pay the debt from Kirchner's government

> Most of the money was used to pay the debt from Kirchner's government

Do _you_ have a source on _that_?

Anyway, here's a source [1] for you. It says in the month before the elections, the central bank of Argentina sold over 4 billion dollars to keep the dollar rate at bay (2.7 billion _just_ in the week prior..

Between the "PASO" (Elections where all candidates can postulate, but only those that get over a certain % of votes do make it to the primaries) and the primaries, more than 20 billion dollars were sold in the internal market:

> Desde las PASO las reservas cayeron USD 23.000 millones y los depósitos, unos USD 13.000 millones

(Im' quoting the article here). Where is YOUR source.

[1] https://www.infobae.com/economia/2019/10/31/el-banco-central...

Where's the dilapidation?

What is sick is the degree and extent of corruption in every level of society.

Corruption is quite bad in Argentina. This is not limited to politicians, it's at all levels of society.

> local street market had signs posted by the local government that mandated prices-in order to curb inflation. That was a first for me, seeing vendors unable to set their own prices

I'm sorry, could you be more specific about what it is what you saw?

There are no "government mandated prices" in this country, at least not like you make it sound(Apologies upfront if I miss understood you).

There is a government program where all big market have to carry products where their price is fixed by the government. The idea is that you can always have the chance to go for a cheap product if you are poor, but it's not for instance that all milk brands have to have the same price.

And milk can get pretty expensive pretty fast in this country: It always come in 1 litre recipients, and the cheapest one (The one that is within the mentioned program) is right now at ~70 pesos (Some 73 dollar cents at the official dollar price, 40 cents at the current rate for the dollar in the back market... but foreigners can hardly get this price for their dollars).

I don't know what the prices are in other countries, but I think tourists will find prices rather high compared to their countries once tourism starts again.

> And milk can get pretty expensive pretty fast in this country: It always come in 1 litre recipients, and the cheapest one (The one that is within the mentioned program) is right now at ~70 pesos (Some 73 dollar cents at the official dollar price, 40 cents at the current rate for the dollar in the back market... but foreigners can hardly get this price for their dollars).

That's actually extremely cheap by international standards, if this source[0] is to be trusted. Of course it seems expensive for most argentinians because wages are also terribly low.

[0] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_price_rankings...

Thanks for the link; This was something I wanted to see.

All in all, I doubt that number is entirely accurate. Argentina is a _very_ large country, and even the minimum price varies greatly depending on the region.

I have family in Patagonia, for instance, and they tell me it's impossible to get the cheap milk brand over there.

Yes, it was an outdoor farmer type market in a suburb of Buenos Aires, there were signs saying for example, butter costs 10 pesos a kilo(or whatever, sorry I can't recall the values). Maybe I misunderstood but it seemed to be a notice that the consumer shouldn't pay higher than that price, to keep inflation controlled. It was not a tourist market at all, everything in español.

It's difficult to be sure without a photo, but probably it was part of the program "precios cuidados". It was not 100% mandatory, and not 100% voluntary, it was something in between, so I don't blame you for being confused. The factory and the supermarket got some benefit in exchange of keeping some of the products in the list at a low price. For example, nobody fussed them if the premium brand increase the price.

Something similar happened with the Big Mac in McDonald's. At some point the price of the Big Mac was like 30% lower than the other similar hamburgers. Inside the restaurant, you had big advertisements of the other combos, hamburgers and premium hamburgers, but the Big Mac appeared only in the small list of prices in the corner. I found this link with more details https://www.pri.org/stories/2012-02-07/argentina-likely-mani...

> Speculators amass basic necessities and grocery stores were as empty if not emptier in December 2019 than any supermarkets in the UK at the height of the pandemic.

I don't remember that.

Me neither.

Yeah, I don't remember supermarkets here in Argentina being particularly empty in December 02019. On the other hand, it's hardly unusual for supermarkets here to have a noticeable amount of empty shelf space, especially Chinese supermarkets off main streets on Sundays; maybe in the UK that's what they looked like at the height of the pandemic?

I don't remember bars in Palermo being full of English-speakers at the time, either, just the occasional group.

Overall, though, I feel like the article is mostly accurate.

I was one of those English-speakers clogging the bars in Dec-Jan. I can assure you that on a Friday night at Trova, there was enough people to clog the footpath and part of the road.

However, the supermarkets seemed fine, not too expensive and reasonably well stocked.

More concerningly the blue rate went from 60s to 75+ while I was there. And the withrawl taxes added to the atms at the time (2k for 2.3k)

I went to bars there too, and yeah, there were lots of people, but the ones I saw were always mostly speaking Spanish. Or Portuguese. Maybe I didn't go at the right (wrong?) time.

> 02019

why not write that as 0002019 or 000002019?

Yeah, that didn't happen.

Two factors: Religion/culture and corruption

https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c22

PS: I grew up there

>Argentina did not pledge allegiance to the US in the Second World War and was officially neutral.

This is a weird way to put it. The US entered WW2 after more than two years of fighting. Did Stalin "pledge allegiance to the US"?

Vice versa, if anything, since Stalin was already fighting the Germans.

The whole article reads like a propaganda piece.

The first para throws shade on the Russian vaccine because someone who took it tested positive later. As if this doesn't happen with USA's vaccines.

Later, we encounter western-journalism's gold standard phrase: "Many Argentinians welcomed...". What does many mean? Any number greater than 1.

For the record, the US entered WW2 after more than four years of fighting- Japan was the proximate cause of US entry, and they had been engaged in their horrifying, semi-demi-hemi genocidal war in China since the Marco Polo bridge incident of 1937, two years before Hitler stared anything serious in Europe.

I suspect the authors point is that most countries in Central America were original members of the United Nations (signing the declaration in January 1942) and Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela all joined the war between 1943-5. Argentina was the last country in South America to join the war, at the end of March 1945- Hitler survived little more than a month of war with Argentina. And for those countries, it largely was about pressure from the US.

I think the article was being disingenuous juxtapositioning that the president had the sputnik vaccine, then mentioning they got coronavirus.

I'm sure the decision to use sputnik or moderna, Johnson etc. is not deterministic in getting COVID-19

People that received Pfizer algo caught it, so yes, it's not a particularly insightful comment.

I suspect centuries of colonialism and a literal fascist dictatorship didn't help.

South Korea was a fascist dictatorship until the 1980s and is now a global economic powerhouse.

China has been a literal dictatorship for decades and is now the world's largest economy.

It's probably not the dictatorship.

Interesting. Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, USA were all colonised. Now we can conclude it is not colonialism either.

I was hoping for an in depth historical treatment of Argentina's fall from the club of wealthy nations, but this article feels much more shallow. It's immediately clear that the author is neither an economist nor sociologist, and I would hazard to say has never lived in Argentina. While strictly true that the Macri administration's "neoliberal toolkit" failed, I feel like the article suggests that there is some inherent flaw in neoliberalism, whereas in reality Argentina is uniquely ungovernable. I'm reminded of the classic quote: "There are four types of nations- wealthy, poor, Japan, and Argentina". There is so much wealth in the county- you see these massive infrastructure projects everywhere: huge hydroelectric dams, well-constructed pristine highways in even the most remote parts of the country, beautiful parks... but for the most part, these projects are used to feed the corrupt state. The amount of corruption and bureaucracy is difficult to grasp as an outsider. I remember the first time I visited Chile by bus. At immigration before we got off the bus, they made an announcement that we should not try to bribe the Chilean police, as they wouldn't take kindly to it. They couched it in terms of the police being too proud to take a bribe, as though there were something abnormal about that. This illustrates the key sociological problem to me- beyond the normalization of bribery, there is a pervasive bureaucracy used for resource extraction by the political class, and I think it has too much momentum to end.

To return briefly to the economic side and why I think a bit of neoliberalism would be a breath of fresh air, I'm reminded of when the government banned beef exports. They wanted to lower the price of beef, and thought they could do this by banning exports. I don't think it's uncharitable to say that any moron could predict how this would play out with a bit of thinking. Ranchers stopped raising unprofitable cattle, switched to soy (which the government then also raised export tariffs on) and other crops. Argentina is rife with this type of economic magical thinking, not just in the political elite, but in the popular classes they pander to. Argentina has been poor since the advent of Peronism, and yet the average person- perhaps like how a fish might not be aware of what "water" is- continues to support the same policies that continue not working 80 years later.

In summary, I think that the author should take a more in depth look at the sociological and economic currents that make Argentina such a unique case of a poor country that by every right should be wealthy.

Edit: I feel like the above comes off as too negative, so I want to add that Argentina is a great place to live, especially if you are a person of means, and not tied to the Argentine Peso. There are a lot of world class software developers in Buenos Aires, and apparently Argentina is one of the top spots to buy 0day exploits. The culture, food, weather (you can choose anywhere from arctic to tropical depending on your preferences) are all perfect for me- I just can't stand the bureaucracy and corruption.

I’m from a much poorer country (Bangladesh) but I see the same thing. We squander a large fraction of what little we have to this sort of corruption.

> Argentina has been poor since the advent of Peronism, and yet the average person- perhaps like how a fish might not be aware of what "water" is- continues to support the same policies that continue not working 80 years later.

Much has been written on this very topic. Compelling logic, written by very smart people. Yet, it has become impossible to talk about. Such intellectual waste.

The government banned beef export again a month ago. It didn't work before, but this time...this time it won't either

"Argentina has been poor since the advent of Peronism"

This argument is quite short-sighted, as it doesn't even try to understand or explain October 17, 1945. It just brushes it away like a nuisance that breaks that idillic Argentina previous to the Great Depression with a wealthy working class that never was.

Sorry, I didn't intend to apply a causative relationship, and should have worded it better. What I mean is that the policies of modern Peronist ideology clearly aren't effective, but (outside of the failure of the centre-right Macri administration) I haven't seen any serious attempts at something new. It's always "More wealth distribution!", "More grandiose infrastructure projects!", "More involvement of the national government in the economy!", and things along those lines.

Edit: To clarify what I mean about Macri- no one has been able to marshal a national consensus to try something new. I still can't believe Macri got as far as he did. Most of my friends call Macri a far-right extremist, but I would say that the policies of the Macri administration were centre-right by the standards of most western democracies, and would be considered leftist by US standards.

Macri didn't do anything new. He cut back spending on stuff he couldn't see profit from like public education and healthcare, added more public employees, and took inordinate amounts of external debt. It's true that he'd be considered a leftist by US standars, but that's comparing oranges to apples.

It's so hard to pinpoint what you mean by the "policies of modern Peronist ideology" that I can't even begin to discuss it, as they're so varied over the last 30 years.

I hope the failure of Macri's government swings the pendulum all the way to the other side and breaks the cycle of going back to those policies from time to time, as the results are clear as day.

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