From: Carlos Gonzalia (gonzalia@cs.chalmers.se)
Date: Mon Jan 13 2003 - 02:22:15 MST
>In 1900, Argentina was the 6th wealthiest country in the world.
>What happened?
Practically every single thing that could go wrong or done badly,
did and was so starting from the 1920s or around, I guess.
My personal, and probably not completely objective opinion
(which I'm afraid I will not argue about due to lack of time
at the moment, and for the rest of the week): as the country
modernized, the power naturally tended to diffuse downwards
from the aristocratic classes that ruled since independence.
What the country failed miserably at was in properly integrating
the new power actors each time they appeared. In this, both
the previous dominant actors and the newly arrived at that
moment, are equally guilty. Everybody showed a remarkable
ability to carry on their power contests disregarding laws,
republican institutions, idea debate, and economic competition.
The way things have been solved since then has been by
coups, dictatorships, fraud, forced economic redistribution
(up to down, down to up, sideways, you name it), censorship,
and the gleeful application of violence in all its lovely ways.
And so here we are today, and still managing to get worse by
the week.
>Does anyone know of a book that chronicles all the bad moves
>made by that nation?
I think this one was pretty good, though admittedly it's been
many years since I read it:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0271021926/
As an Argentine myself, I tend to read more essays, opinion
pieces and news analysis than books that try to make sense of
the utter mess our history has been. The Economist has been
known, IMHO, to get regular articles on the past years about
our country, and usually pretty good.
>The latest mistake was apparently taking the peso off the
>dollar, which instantly cheated thousands of deep pockets
>out of 3/4 their wealth. And, more importantly, sent the
>message that capital that wished to survive had better
>flee the country.
Not quite so. The mistake wasn't actually in doing that,
but in how and when. Once more, the people who ended up in
charge of things after the shit hit the fan didn't address
any of the problems, but proceeded to another of our
lovely forced economic redistributions to keep things tied
up just enough for the country not to blow up. I recommend
you this paper, which addresses several myths, such as the "the
chaos was caused only by removing the peso currency peg":
http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/hanke-021017.pdf
>I heard also that the government had agreed to pick up
>the bill for any cosmetic surgery desired by a citizen.
>This is starting to sound like a case where the usual
>damage inflicted on an economy by socialist tendencies
>turned out to be too much, and killed it off. In other
>words, the government spent itself to death. And had
>to start printing pesos?
The Menem administration wasted all the money and structural
changes they managed to achieve during their first years when
they decided to go for reelection. The welfare spending that
ensued to catch the lower classes' vote, plus the cozy
kleptocracy/oligarchy dealings showered on many higher classes'
power actors to ensure their support did away both with the
money and with the structural changes. What resulted was
a bloated, perverted version of a welfare state administered
by political bosses that ensured the votes for the government
and the sweet deals for the government's bussinessmen friends.
The De La Rua administration completely failed to change
things and was devoured by the lower classes that now lacked
their easy welfare, and those of the upper classes that now
lacked their sweet deals and extended kleptocracy. The Duhalde
administration, as I mentioned before, did a huge redistribution
to make sure the boat wouldn't catch fire before sinking, and
then just sat on their asses yelling for the IMF to come stop
the sinking, all the while seeing how -their- particular
bussiness friends, political bosses and segments of the lower
classes could be put in charge of things after the rescue. It is
to be seen, this week if I recall right (last chance to a final
default being averted with their specific loans), if the IMF
will bite. Bunch of morons as they are, looks like they might...
(I'll try to address any comments next week when I'm back, but no
promises... Sorry! Blame work and all that.)
Carlos
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