Argentina has been trapped in neocolonial debt for 200 years | Hacker News Reader

Argentina has been trapped in neocolonial debt for 200 years

geopoliticaleconomy.com

42 pointshackandthink49 comments

I didn't make it to the end of the essay, but near the beginning I saw this which looked like it couldn't possibly be right:

> In 1824, only eight years after the declaration of independence from the Spanish empire, the union of provinces that would eventually become the Argentine Republic obtained a loan of £1 million pounds (a whopping £110 billion today, according to the Bank of England) from Barings Bank, a British private bank that also had lent money to the US government...It was only in 1904 that Argentina’s original debt was formally repaid. It had taken 80 years, more than three generations, and had cost about eight times the original value.

According to for example this calculator (https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/in...) 1 million pounds in 1824 is about 83 million pounds today, so it's off by a factor of 1000.

This distinction is obviously important to the narrative of "Argentina has been crippled by foreign debt" so I lost a lot of trust that the rest of the article was going to be accurate.

Also there is another issue. In around 1900 Argentina used to be one of the richest countries in the world.

I find it extremely odd that we discuss the settler-colonial societies in South America as victims of imperialism. They were colonial states setup for the benefit of the demographies that continue to rule these societies (mostly). These ex-Spanish colonies weren't very successful compare to the ex-anglo colonies given their emphasis on top-down economic and political structures. I don't accept the notion that the US or other western countries have particular obligation to these nations compared to those colonized and now liberated by the original native populations.

This reminds me of something I recently read (can't recall what) where I learned that much of Argentina's pre WWII policy was based on supporting their land owning agricultural class. This only grew during WWII since the world needed their food and raw goods. So yeah, they imported many finished products, and now this is in part a significant cause of their debt since many other corners of the world have significantly increased the economic efficiency of their agricultural industries. But you're right, it was the decisions of many of their ruling class who still are those in power there today.

Of course, this is all an over oversimplification of their problems.

At least they had more of the native population survive. and in some countries there it's up to almost 50% of the total.

Not Argentina. Less than 3% of Argentina’s population is indigenous. In terms of the fate of its indigenous people, Argentina is quite similar to the US or Australia.

"Debt: The First 5,000 Years" by David Graeber shows how debt is a unique tool in its ability to control people and, in this case, countries.

I'm excited to hear that Brazil and Argentina are working on a common currency, and I hope by getting away from the IMF and partnering instead with BRICS countries they can have a brighter future.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty was another great one for me. IIRC only like four countries have ever not defaulted on debt, ever.

BRICS is kind a myth cooked up by IMF and Davos types. India and China hate each other, Russia is a mess, Brazil is totally unlike the others, and no one knows why South Africa is even included.

I mean best of luck to Brazil and Argentina but I hope Brazil knows what they're getting themselves into.

Yeah it's weird to see BRICS still being referred today. It was sensible in the mid-2000s when Russia actually had some growth and potential and India was more democratic (or at least not so clearly hostile to critics in business and politics). South Africa's main political party wasn't so clearly incapable of long-term planning. (All of this based on my understanding anyway.)

Today it makes more sense to me to think about Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Vietnam, maybe Thailand and Philippines as the brightest emerging economies.

I would add Turkey to that too

Russia is a mess? Nabiullina deserves a Nobel Prize in economics regardless of people’s options on the war and Putin. Even the Russians themselves are surprised by how well the Ruble and Russian economy has performed in the last year. The Ruble is trading for 1:70 with the dollar today which is about the same as the end of 2021.

Yea structurally they are a huge mess and we’re before the war.

According to whom? Western “Russian Experts” with liberal arts degrees who can’t even speak Russian and have spent little to no time in that country? Not to mention have been wrong about nearly everything on both the economic and military fronts?

If there’s any take-away from current events, it’s how wrong so many “experts” have been on this topic. The easiest way to tell is by looking up the credentials of these journalists and other “experts”.

Matt Taibi, who speaks Russian and lived there for many years has a lot to say about it. I also work with and talk to Russians living in Russia, we’ll they’ve mostly left the country but I’m not sure that matters in this context.

It’s also straightforward to just look at data the Russian government publishes. Unemployment is chronically high, economic mobility is declining, life expectancy is declining, the economy is too reliant on oil, corruption is rampant. What isn’t a mess?

See, you’re just repeating western memes about Russia. This is exactly the problem that I keep bringing up. Not only are you wrong, you’re way off.

Russia not only has a consistently low unemployment rate, they are one of the top countries for migrants workers. In fact, there’s a chronic labor shortage there which is actually a problem for the war effort.

And both life expectancy and the population rate have stabilized if not reversed due to well thought out efforts at the federal level (ignoring the current wartime situation).

I hate to break it to you but it’s no longer 1998 in Russia. Sources:

- https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/unemployment-rate

- https://citizenpath.com/countries-with-the-most-immigrants/

- https://youtu.be/oK5kLBlphsI (if you don’t speak Russian, turn on auto translate)

- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10680-017-9451-3

- https://archive.ph/th2tK

And one just for fun:

- https://youtu.be/L0WzkkFrox4

- https://youtu.be/l7fBhPOQ5PE

A random video using street view time lapse to show how much things have improved over the past decade. There’s many like this. And compare these to scenes in America.

I'm not trying to say Russia hasn't improved in the last 20 years, it clearly has but there are obvious structural problems. There are fair criticisms of every government, my own especially, there's no need to deny it.

Yeah, great unemployment is below 6% for the first time since 1992 in the last year. Youth unemployment is still nearly 17% which is comparable to France but still awful.

The immigration numbers, and I'm sure you know this, represent a lot of ethnic Russians in neighboring former soviet satellites moving to Russia so I'm not sure it's particularly impressive as a stat by itself and he Russian government is encouraging it because it has a birth rate of 10.7 which is quite low.

Your article on mortality cuts off at 2014 and the rate has shot up to 16.7 again, and life expectancy lags behind Serbia and Bulgaria.

An all of this still ignores the fact that the Russian economy is utterly dependent on oil exports, accounting for 21% of GDP before the sanctions.

Moreover Russia ranks 137 out of 180 countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International.

It’s a literal organization. They (BRIC at the time) formed at the UN’s 61st General Assembly and later had their first summit in 2009.

South Africa is hosting their summit this year.

We’ll it’s like any one of those random international forums but they don’t do anything or really even have strong ties otherwise.

Not exactly.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3209003/who...

It was a term invented by a Wall Street analyst that had no meaning except to identify some emerging market countries. That it somehow got turned into a weird idea of a political block for a set of countries which have very little in common politically or socially and survives to this day is kind of hilarious.

I actually bought _Debt: The First 5,000 Years_ recently, but it's a really big book, and I'm not sure I'm going to get the time to read it through. I'd love to read just the best parts. What chapters would you recommend for me to read – i.e. which chapters gave you the most insight into how the world economic system works both presently and historically?

It's well worth reading the whole thing. I don't think it's really possible to start reading from the middle. You should just start from the beginning where some of the main themes are outlined.

Brazil and Argentina are not working on a common currency.

https://www.dw.com/en/the-sur-argentina-brazil-walk-back-the...

In the early 20th century, Argentina and Australia were about equally rich-both European settler societies founded on expropriation of indigenous land, with economies dominated by export-oriented primary industries (agriculture and mining). But after that, they diverged-Australia’s economy just went up and up and up, Argentina’s went up and down and sideways. Why?

I think this article gets it wrong. Yes, Argentina owed lots of money to foreign bankers - but at some points in its history, Australia has too, and that debt became a burden (the 1932 NSW constitutional crisis in which the Governor dismissed Premier Jack Lang because he proposed not to repay the banks).

I think a major factor was Australia’s much greater political stability, which in turn could be due to a different political system. Many political scientists believe that a British-style parliamentary system [0] leads to greater political stability than the presidential system found in the US and most of Latin America. Leaders in parliamentary systems are forced to lead collegially, which makes the emergence of strongmen with personality cults (whether Peron or Trump) much less likely. I think the US is maybe somewhat of an exception-it has got so many other advantages, they make up for its deficient political system-much of Latin America, Argentina included, has never been so lucky.

[0] which doesn’t require a constitutional monarchy, you can have a figurehead President with little real power instead, like Ireland does

Perhaps also because Australia is an island, so it has no borders with countries that can easily interfere

Well, there are no good options for a proxy government for white / western powers in southeast asia to Australia.

Argentina? There a half dozen different political states being played off against one another in South America, all with varying historical ties to European powers. The article shows it: Argentina and Brazil were fighting a war.

Interesting aside here in that claiming that the malvinas are colonised.

I mean, in a sense yes, yes they are, you could say the same thing about Taiwan or Gibraltar, Ceuta or Alaska. Sure the other country claims that it's theirs, but the population living there is less convinced.

There is some deep glossing over here, Argentina is not some ex-french colony saddled with huge debts/currency obligations. There are some hints as to where some of this debt problem comes from:

> Although politically unstable and dominated by a backward landlord and comprador class, the South American nation’s rapid growth, large immigration flows, and incipient industrialization created the conditions that could challenge the colonial status quo.

Perón made a good go of equality, thats great. But he pissed off the church, the USA and combined with drought, that caused economic havok. But, Perón managed to pay off a whole bunch of debt and nationalise loads of infra.

He fell from grace, and the landlord class fucked shit up.

Don't get me wrong, the CIA trying its best to "influence" things didn't help.

How can Argentina proceed and get out of the trap?

If the great decoupling continues Argentina can default the IMF loans and start getting into the Chinese trap.

Waiting for:

"Part two of this article will detail the attempts by the Alberto Fernández administration to renegotiate Argentina’s debt with the IMF and private creditors."

This article is basically propaganda, blaming the US for all Argentina's problems (particularly overthrowing the Peron government), while somehow attempting to endorse the Peron governments -- who were Nazi Allies and Fascists. If you want the rest of the world to trade with you, and be friendly, don't be a fascist.

Sidestepping from the topic of Argentina a bit. Isn't debt always some form of trap, for people or government? I do get the idea of borrowing to generate more income (eg a port) but too often doesn't that income just go to borrowing more? Gradually committing more and more gdp/income into non-productive repayments?

> Isn't debt always some form of trap, for people or government?

Always ? I don’t think so

For example fixed rate mortgages don’t feel like a trap

A socialist country with a history of multiple dictators and an unsuccessful war of aggression against Britain [1] is having trouble paying its bills.

I’m shocked.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War

The article would argue that, rather than being the aggressor, Argentina is attempting to liberate a colonially oppressed region that rightfully belongs to Argentina.

Have you seen pictures of the Falklands? It looks British, they speak English, and has been under the Crown since 1841.

At what point does “liberation” become “taking over?” What happened in 1841 is no excuse for invading your neighbor today.

Wow, I didn’t realize the scale of these things.

There are fewer than 4000 people living on the islands.

When there was a referendum about whether to keep the current association with the UK, 3, three people voted no.

One, who cares about a tiny amount of land and a few thousand people, it should not be a big international issue.

Two, self determination of a population should be important. When 99.8% of the population votes for keeping the status quo, maybe just let them.

exactly, its not actually worth anything. Its like Britain trying to claim the Faroe islands, or France trying to get Sark or Alderney back.

That’s not really true - while the islands proper are pretty much just pastures, there’s oil & gas in the boundaries.

That's the argument for almost every sea border dispute around the world. And has been for decades. In most cases, no one has seen a single drop of oil.

The junta needed a distraction from their domestic problems. They thought the British would just give in and they’d be able to sell it as a great victory to the public-instead it turned into an immense national humiliation. And once humiliated, can’t let that hurt go, have to dwell on it.

The British didn’t actually care that much about the Falklands - the British government had spent most of the 1970s trying to give them to Argentina, but the islanders opposed it, and they stirred up opinion against it in the UK and in Parliament, and the government’s plans were stymied. But when Argentina attacked-if the UK didn’t fight back, it would be open season on all their other territories around the world, including others they were less willing to cede. And the war destroyed all political prospects of the UK public ever agreeing to support a peaceful transfer.

I wasn’t taking a stance personally, just explaining how the article was already arguing from a framework that viewed all European land acquisition as “original sins” and illegitimate.

> The article would argue that, rather than being the aggressor

I doubt the article would be able to argue that logically. One doesn't invade a place who's entire population has been attached to a country for greater than three generations.

I think given the article writer would realise that this would be the same argument that justifies the 2014 crimean invasion, or the trouble in Sudan(both of them), or indeed the troubles in Northern Ireland.

It’s the inevitable conclusion of the historical framework the article utilized.

I agree it doesn’t make much sense in a large number of contemporary cases.

That was quite the biased opinion piece, with statements like Juan Guaidó being a US "regime-change operation".

the CIA has a great history of implying that they did regieme change, when they only really managed to do it once in Iran. The rest of the time they were just spaffing money at anyone angry.

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