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What happened to Argentina?

economix.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: What happened to Argentina?

#31

Post by tayssir »

jseliger wrote: post #6
confusedcitizen wrote: post #4

This is another economist trying to beat the capitalistic drum. Apart from Peron's protectionist policies (which some call a drive toward self-sustenance), one shouldn't forget contributing factors like the 1948 exclusion of Argentina exports from the Marshall Plan by the Truman administration. Peron might have been mistaken on many counts, but so many things are ignored behind the veil of apparently protectionist po…

"Apart from Peron's protectionist policies (which some call a drive toward self-sustenance)" Trade protection and autarky have long been defended by words like "self-sustenance," and the like, but such policies have never turned out well: just ask India and China before they modernized and liberalized their economies. "Peron might have been mistaken on many counts, but so many things are ignored behind the veil of ap…

Actually, Ha-Joon Chang pointed out that the economic powerhouses (US, UK, Japan, etc.) relied on enormous protectionism when they were developing. However, now that they're powerful, they "kick away the ladder" and push developing nations to struggle under the ineffective free-market principles that they knew to avoid. http://www.newamerica.net/events/2008/why_world_isnt_flat

Re: What happened to Argentina?

#32

Post by randallsquared »

foldr wrote: post #30
randallsquared wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that "increased the economic divide" sounds bad, but there's no way from that statement alone to know whether people are better off or worse off, on the whole. If the "economic divide" was broadened merely by making some people better off faster than others, as is usually the case in a freer market, then there's no problem. It's only when people actually get poorer in terms of what they can do and have that "inc…

> If the "economic divide" was broadened merely by making some people better off faster than others, as is usually the case in a freer market, then there's no problem. This seems a little optimistic. Having a large gap between the rich and the poor does in fact cause problems (e.g. social unrest).

It's unclear to me if this is human nature, or just cultural.

Re: What happened to Argentina?

#33

Post by diego »

diego_moita wrote: post #28
raphar wrote: post #13

In my opinion Argentina is cursed more for its lack of direction than a deficit in education. During the 20th century (and 21th) its has been a common practice to destroy or undo the previous administration efforts. Almost every group that had governed Argentina, gained power, rebuilt everything (laws, institutions, education...) until it got replaced or defeated. A century of this, has left the country walking in ci…

As a Brazilian I agree because I see it happening here. But I believe that it is also related to education. Uneducated people are the ones that elect the most corrupt/incompetent politicians and are the ones that never understand discussions about policies. Off-topic: hope you guys get to the Worl Cup ;-)

Argentina is (and has been) doing better than Brazil by pretty much any indicator of education, but Brazil has obviously done much better in terms of economic development.

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/ar-argentina/edu-educati... http://www.nationmaster.com/country/br-brazil/edu-education

Argentina's education was world-class for a significant part of the 20th century and is still pretty good. Unfortunately the article didn't provide any evidence or citations to back up its hypothesis.

"Uneducated people are the ones that elect the most corrupt/incompetent politicians and are the ones that never understand discussions about policies."

For starters, Argentina had many governments that were not elected by the people. Second, can you prove that educated people always make the choice that's best for the country? Third, there are abundant counterexamples of dictatorial countries that did great in terms of their economics and industrial development.

Like other people said, Argentina's problem is not education but the lack of coherent policies over the decades.

Re: What happened to Argentina?

#34

Post by joeyo »

diego_moita wrote: post #28
raphar wrote: post #13

In my opinion Argentina is cursed more for its lack of direction than a deficit in education. During the 20th century (and 21th) its has been a common practice to destroy or undo the previous administration efforts. Almost every group that had governed Argentina, gained power, rebuilt everything (laws, institutions, education...) until it got replaced or defeated. A century of this, has left the country walking in ci…

As a Brazilian I agree because I see it happening here. But I believe that it is also related to education. Uneducated people are the ones that elect the most corrupt/incompetent politicians and are the ones that never understand discussions about policies. Off-topic: hope you guys get to the Worl Cup ;-)

Education (alone) is not sufficient. Look at Uruguay.

(Uruguay had one of the highest rates of literacy and school enrollment in the Latin Americas.)

Re: What happened to Argentina?

#35

Post by joeyo »

ckinnan wrote: post #25

A better comparison than Chicago is Argentina's neighbor Chile, which is far less endowed than Argentina and has been poorer historically. Chile, however, has pursued market economics since the 1980s and now enjoys a living standard that is more than twice as high as Argentina. Indeed, Argentina's per capita income today is just $6,500, despite the nation's amazing cultural and natural gifts. Argentina is, in fact, h…

Market economics? Is that what Pinochet's regime is being called now?

Re: What happened to Argentina?

#36

Post by alecco »

philwelch wrote: post #26
alecco wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely myopic, indeed. Peron was an authoritarian and a demagogue, but he improved most social indicators of the country. Sure, GDP diminished but that was part of the cost to make Argentina an industrialized nation. Also the infrastructure of the country improved significantly. IMHO, it's quite hard to understand a right-leaning socialist government from the point of view of a US citizen. There's no reference.

"Sure, GDP diminished but that was part of the cost to make Argentina an industrialized nation." That sentence doesn't even make sense. The whole point of industrialization is to boost economic output. That's what it does almost by definition.

The nationalization had a major impact on outputs and in particular on agriculture exports. Go to Gapminder.org and check GDP during Peron's first presidency 1942-1955.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peron (not great but a good start.)

Re: What happened to Argentina?

#37

Post by diego »

petewarden wrote: post #15
confusedcitizen wrote: post #4

This is another economist trying to beat the capitalistic drum. Apart from Peron's protectionist policies (which some call a drive toward self-sustenance), one shouldn't forget contributing factors like the 1948 exclusion of Argentina exports from the Marshall Plan by the Truman administration. Peron might have been mistaken on many counts, but so many things are ignored behind the veil of apparently protectionist po…

What surprised me about the article was that I didn't see much 'capitalist drum-beating'. His argument is that the performance of Argentina versus the US can be entirely explained by education levels. Schools are typically provided by the government, and the idea of universal education was initially regarded as a radical one, often associated with early socialists. I'm not sure if I agree with the hypothesis, but I'd…

The problem with the argument is that it doesn't explain Argentina's performance when compared to all the countries with worse education levels (which are the majority).

Re: What happened to Argentina?

#38

Post by NathanKP »

From the article:

Long-run national success is built on human capital, both because of the link between schooling and technology and because of the link between education and well-functioning democracy.

That is a fairly profound statement when you consider the general state of the American educational system. I never fail to be amazed at how poorly US college and university systems are run. They are full of bureaucracy and little good teaching is done.

Re: What happened to Argentina?

#39

Post by bdotdub »

NathanKP wrote: post #38

From the article: Long-run national success is built on human capital, both because of the link between schooling and technology and because of the link between education and well-functioning democracy. That is a fairly profound statement when you consider the general state of the American educational system. I never fail to be amazed at how poorly US college and university systems are run. They are full of bureaucra…

While it's true that we can see how poorly the American system is run, how does it compare to the rest of the world?

I don't know much about the subject, so I'm hoping to get a bit more insight into this.

I suspect that even if our system isn't great and as good as it could be, it's still has a leg up on most education systems out there

Re: What happened to Argentina?

#40

Post by diego_moita »

diego wrote: post #33
diego_moita wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Brazilian I agree because I see it happening here. But I believe that it is also related to education. Uneducated people are the ones that elect the most corrupt/incompetent politicians and are the ones that never understand discussions about policies. Off-topic: hope you guys get to the Worl Cup ;-)

Argentina is (and has been) doing better than Brazil by pretty much any indicator of education, but Brazil has obviously done much better in terms of economic development. http://www.nationmaster.com/country/ar-argentina/edu-educati... http://www.nationmaster.com/country/br-brazil/edu-education Argentina's education was world-class for a significant part of the 20th century and is still pretty good. Unfortunately the…

> Argentina is (and has been) doing better than Brazil by pretty much any indicator of education, but Brazil has obviously done much better in terms of economic development

Well, first I never claimed and don't think that we're doing much better than you guys. Honestly, I am not bragging on anything. Now, I agree that Argentinian education is better than Brazilian. Your stats show it and I know it. But put it just like that is simply lying with stats. Argentina has 32 million habitants, Brazil has 180 million. Scale means a lot here; Brazil has almost six times more people. Similarly, India has a worse education than Brazil, but produces more knowledge and science simply because it is 5 times bigger.

> Argentina had many governments that were not elected by the people

I might accept that for a small part of the country's history, the military dictatorship. It is not valid for the whole period of Peronism and everything else since the 80's.

> Second, can you prove that educated people always make the choice that's best for the country

No I can't. And that's not my point. My point is that, in average, uneducated people make worst choices than educated people; not that educated people are infalible.

> Third, there are abundant counterexamples of dictatorial countries that did great in terms of their economics and industrial development.

Also not my point. I am not interested in seeing dictatorships working. I want to see democracies working.

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