Argentina: The Superpower that Never Was (& Why the US Ascended)

Examples abound of countries who have pursued more liberal economic policies like that of the US who have done tremendously better than those who took routes similar to Argentina (e.g. take Hernando De Soto's work on property rights for example or any myriad of economic/regulatory indicators used by the World Bank/Economic freedom index). If you want to see countries whose people and economies were truly destroyed, look at those who sided with and aligned their economic views with the rivals of the US (e.g. Soviet republics) or Peronists like Argentina.

You give the impression that you only started paying attention to what your government does in the last few months. These things have gone on for decades (at the very least).

And Great Britain seemed to do acceptably well with fewer than 40-50 million people during its empire period.

Besides, during the defining interval, 1800-1920 or so, Argentina could have made up the difference by being a better place to immigrate, which is in part what the article covers.

However, the extent of the U.S. land mass is bounded in the west by the Rockies and the deserts of the Great Basin, so in reality, the amount of arable land that both countries started out with is comparable. The arable Argentinian Pampas is closer to the coast than are the plains of the U.S. Just as importantly, the rivers in Argentina flow East-West, whereas the U.S. have the Appalachians between the East coast starting point and the breadbasket. This gives Argentina a STRONG head start in terms of being able to easily populate and exploit the arable interior.

In this light, Argentina should have had a higher initial population than the U.S. did. Argentinian farmers didn't have to clear fields for rocks as did the farmers of New England. They didn't have to cross the Cumberland gap or clear trees for farms in NY.

I think part of the argument here is that concentrating property rights into the hands of the few rather than the many, especially if the few control the government, makes corruption much more likely. International comparisons (mentioned in other comments in this thread) tend to show that countries with lots of private ownership of the means of production and minimal role of central government in operating the economy tend to have less corruption.

Self referential systems are not only prone to failure, but are doomed on the long-run due to missing independent guiding points.

"Any community with only one dominant power is always a dangerous one and provokes reactions." (Jacques Chirac, 2003)