Is Argentina being sabotaged from abroad?

[Redpossum]

Alby, in another thread, invited/challenged me to expand upon my earlier statement -

A few weeks ago Redpossum in another threat said his/her studies indicated there is a conspiracy from the outside to sabotage Argentina (and all of Latin America). S/he said this forum wasn't the place to have the discussion, but why ever not? The subject is fascinating. I'd be very interested to hear the theory. Redpossum is an English teacher, and should therefore be able to put it succinctly.

Well, I teach EFL, which is a limited version of being an English teacher. At university I studied Political Science and International Relations, rather than English or Education. But you want succinct, I'll try.

The Third World is two things to the First World. First, a source of cheap raw materials and cheap labor. Second, a market for manufactured goods. If a 3rd world country becomes developed, and has its own industries, it stops being both of those things. The raw materials are used within the country, and the manufactured goods are made within the country, from those same raw materials. Therefore, the great powers, and the great corporations which, in a capitalist system, control their governments, have a very strong incentive to prevent nations of the 3rd world from developing.

Argentina has, at various times, had some interesting nascent manufacturing efforts. The Rastrojero was one example, manufactured by the now defunct IAME along with the Justicialista. But in 1979, the dictatorship shut down IAME and its offshoots. Why? No valid reason was given.

Fabrica Militar used to make many non-military things, including rolling stock for the subway. Today it only makes small arms, ammo, and reloading supplies, along with a small amount of TNT. According to the wiki page linked just above, "En diciembre de 2017 se decidió no renovar contrato a más de 200 trabajadores de FANAZUL en precariedad. Esto podría significar el cierre de la única fábrica capaz de producir explosivos TNT en toda América Latina" or "In 2017 it was decided not to renew the contract of more than 200 employees of FANAZUL. This may signify the closure of the only factory in Latin America capable of producing the explosive TNT." FANAZUL is the factory in the city of Azul (Buenos Aires province).

Argentina once had a surprisingly robust shipbuilding industry, but now just buys second-hand ships, which are mysteriously offered on amazingly attractive terms. This PDF document is a very detailed comparison of shipbuilding in Argentina and Brazil, also showing US figures as a baseline in some graphs. Basically shipbuilding in Argentina has been flatlined since 1980.

None of the above constitutes proof of anything, much less any grand conspiracy. It is just a partial catalogue of part of what makes me suspect such conspiracy. Think of it as a prologue. I was asked to be succinct, after all.

I will stop here for tonight, and if there is interest, perhaps I will write more later.

 

[Redpossum]

One brief addendum, because the time to edit has expired. For those who are skeptical about the very basis of what I am saying, the book "New Confessions of an Economic Hitman" available at Amazon, including in Kindle version, should answer any doubt that actions are indeed taken to keep undeveloped countries from developing.

And in the Editorial Reviews section, you will find this-

“When I read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, I could not have known that, some years later, I would be on the receiving end of the type of ‘economic hit’ that Perkins so vividly narrated. The New Confessions resonates with my experiences of the brutish methods and gross economic irrationality guiding powerful institutions in their bid to undermine democratic control over economic power. Perkins has, once again, made a substantial contribution to a world that needs whistle-blowers to open its eyes to the true sources of political, social, and economic power.”
—Yanis Varoufakis, former Minister of Finance, Greece

 

[Sequoia1321]

Conspiracy I think involves a coordinated action by multiple people, and not just one. That maybe makes it hard to prove, but it does happen. But if you believe in the existence of a collective consciousness, you can argue that all actions involve a state of multiple minds and group thinking, and that bad actors are in it together at all times due the the nature of consciousness and the decisions that consciousness produces being a collective, multi-minded experience. But more to the point of what I think you’re referring to, I would say there’s definitely an evil culture in the world, whether you are in a 1st world or 3rd world, and this evil is going to do bad things to others, and in the international realm, a different country is an other. Evil could be predatoriness/parasiticness, and it has deep roots, even deeper than human society, going back to the animal kingdom and the existence of predators or parasites, and the animals from which we evolved from, and then the human hunters of animals which we were, and even predators to other human tribes, which then turned to nations, and we continued to prey on those others to this day. We don’t share directly eachothers sensory systems, so someone else’s pain isn’t going to be felt as bad, which makes it easier to do harm to others.

The kinds of bad that you speak of that you say is happening to Argentina seems to be a predatory and parasitic type. I think there’s truth to this statement that Argentina has been preyed upon. After all, that’s a major aspect of human and animal nature, and I don’t agree with it personally and think it should be changed, even though it’s deeply rooted in us. Humans, not all, but a great many, are not good, and much of the niceness and civility that we see is due to the force of law and not due to the person’s inner beliefs. If you take force of law away, like after a major natural disaster where the police isn’t present, people I think start to do their true selves which often is very bad. A powerful country, or a powerful person, let’s say a police officer, judge, president, etc., if they’re a bad person, which I believe a great many are, then naturally their power or the way they tend to interpret the laws and rules will be influenced by that bad psychology. These sort of predatory interactions are happening across various entities, like the entities of person to person, corporate to corporate, corporate to person, person to government, and government to government. At the root of all these entities is the person or persons who are the actors, and as mentioned, these persons have evolved from predators if I understand, and had historically often had a predatory side, and still do to a great extent. For example, I recently had a conversation with someone about whether there is manipulation and other bad actions in the financial markets, and I believe that because there are so many bad actors in humanity, that there must be a high amount of these types of things if they can get away with it. Similarly, there must be these sort of bad predatory actions happening on an international level, and it’s not just hypothesis but there’s lots of evidence and history of it happening generally, though I’m not familiar with Argentinian history.

Regarding the keeping other countries down however, I wouldn’t say necessarily it’s 1st world countries preying on 3rd world countries, because many 3rd world countries have lots of bad culture, ignorance, corruption, predatoriness, i.e. evil behavior, and they tend to not have as much resources like education to gain knowlege and alleviate those issues. But at the same time, the reasons why there are 3rd world countries is sometimes because they got preyed upon by a stronger power, which made them weak, and as a result of poverty and lack of education, their cultures deteriorated.

However, some 1st world countries, like the USA for example, seem to have a exceptionally high amount of a culture of predatoriness and evil. I get a similar vibe from Australia but never actually been there. Not all of course, but there seems to be lots of those types in the USA that seem to be quite predatory and even genocidal, and they tend to be the ultra right wing or racist type. In other words, that confederate, racist type who have been terrorizing blacks and such in the USA for generations also I believe happen to be the same type of people who are doing similar crimes on an international level as well, for example, commiting war crimes in Vietnam, Iraq, etc., or keeping other countries down in different ways. This culture is actually, from my experience, very strong in the USA, as it showed its face under the Trump administration, and I think they have the potential to do some Hitler/Nazi type of things and it scars me of what might happen here and internationally. Many non minorities seem to not realize this, I think because they’re sort of immuned to that threat due to their race/ethnicity not being on the menu of these predators, similar for example to someone who is young or otherwise resistant to COVID 19 and not feeling that threat as much. But again, not all of USA is the same and there are very good people in it as well. When my parents fled Iran ultimately for the USA, at first I thought it was a purely Iran situation. That the problem was all about the mullahs, and maybe Saddam Hussein. But as I learned more about history and human nature, I realized actually indeed, Iran, and I think many other countries, have to a great extent been kept down, by the same country which my parents fled to. But that racist, Trump type of evil is one aspect of evil, which can come in various forms and even be non-racist, soft, and timid. Anyways, that’s my 2 dollars. I couldn’t do 2 cents due to inflation.

 

[Wade K.]

I was born and raised in the southeastern US. Have traveled all over. Quite discouraging to be the embodiment of all that is evil in the world. Have had folks from other parts of the US tell me so as if it was gospel. They never seem to grasp that people from all over the country and the world have moved into the Southeast. What I often notice about people who blame others for their own negative situation is that they often don't take personal responsibility for their actions. It's always someone else doing them wrong. Too easy to stereotype. As for countries being held down, pretty difficult to sell goods to the impoverished of Africa and Latin America. You'd think the rich countries would want to develop markets, not hinder them. I've read Argentina is one of the few countries that has everything it needs to be self sustaining. Consider Japan. Rising up from the ash heap of WWII to become an economic powerhouse with limited natural resources. A country, a culture, a people succeed because of desire, drive, and ambition. Some countries may not have those attributes but could be attractive in other ways. But if envy of successful countries leads to conspiracy theories to explain their own failures chances are that country won't succeed. Some people within it might do well, but the rest will drag it down. But hey, money isn't everything, the dog eat dog world of some countries isn't for everyone, there's more to life than being the richest person living in the biggest house driving the sharpest car. But getting the masses out of poverty takes hard work and incentives to succeed. Without that the current crisis is going to last a long time.

 

[toongeorges]

I think Argentina is sabotaged in the first place by Argentines.

I think if Argentina would ever solve that problem, they could change their focus to adressing sabotage from abroad. Before, Argentines have to learn to take a good look at themselves and figure out how they could improve the politics in this country to the benefit of all Argentines.

 

[antipodean]

Some initial questions:

• Natural resources. What % of Argentine mining companies and concessions are foreign owned or majority controlled?
• Cheap Labour. What % of Argentine jobs are employed by foreign owned or majority controlled companies?
• Arms and shipbuilding industry. What % of exports did and do these industries account for and how many jobs did and do these industries provide?
• Local Industry. What are the key imports of Argentina and what are they used for?
• Local Industry. What are Argentina’s biggest export earners and why?
• First world/ Third world. Argentina used to be the epitome of “first world”. What other resource rich former “first world” countries have been “sabotaged” in the way you suggest or transformed over time to “third world” countries?
  
  Now some secondary questions:
• What is it that Argentina has a niche in?
• What makes Argentine products more or less competitive in global markets than foreign rivals? For example what makes a Samsung TV made in Tierra del Fuego more or less competitive than a Samsung TV made in China, Slovenia, Romania, Mexico or Korea?
• Who are the richest business owners in Argentina? Are they rich because of their own innovation? Or are they rich by virtue of having monopolies on certain products or state protection limiting foreign competition?
• Is it only the US and “rich” countries you would accuse of “sabotaging” Latin American economies? For example, in Venezuela the gold produced by child labour is pouring out to Iran and Turkey. Expropriated real estate and hotels is being handed over to Turkish and Russian developers. When there was an industry, much of its oil was being handed over to Cuba to be re-sold on international markets. There it is not US expats buying factory new Ferrari’s in Caracas, splashing out $500 on a sushi dinner or snapping up $5m mansions in Puerto Cruz while 70%+ of the population lives in poverty.

 

[toast]

The Third World is two things to the First World. First, a source of cheap raw materials and cheap labor. Second, a market for manufactured goods. If a 3rd world country becomes developed, and has its own industries, it stops being both of those things. The raw materials are used within the country, and the manufactured goods are made within the country, from those same raw materials. Therefore, the great powers, and the great corporations which, in a capitalist system, control their governments, have a very strong incentive to prevent nations of the 3rd world from developing.

Other posters note comparative advantage. The largest trade partners of the US are Canada, Mexico, and China. I would argue that 1st world nations have a keen desire to encourage the development of 3rd world nations, so the poor of the 3rd world engage in building a better future in their native land, rather than risk their lives to migrate to 1st world nations where they are not welcome.
Observe the congestion in Retiro, with containers on trailers funneled into a traffic tangle. Or the signs in Jujuy proclaiming a new rail line, near the washed out remnants of yesteryear. Infrastructure in ARG is inadequate, and it is costly to move things around. Ag products in 2021 are modest relative to manufactured items that require huge investment, scale, and world class execution. Argentina does not have a presence in those areas, South Korea, Taiwan, China do. They insist on educational rigor, and make stuff other nations are willing to pay for.
I will concede your point on cheap labor, that is why garments sold in the USA are made in Bangladesh, or Guatemala, not Argentina.
When a nation becomes developed, it becomes more of a market for manufactured goods.

 

[Somewhereinba]

Argentina's problems are all internal, trying to shift blame to outside forces is the behaviour of a child. You only need to spend time here to see why things are the way they are - there is no conspiracy my friend.

 

[Dougie]

I acknowledge interference in Latam affairs now and in the past by outside forces such as the USG, corporations, and now China in their own way. There are many examples you can cite.

It's also a very convenient excuse, especially for the peronists, that it's not their decades of poor leadership that has caused Argentina to languish, but outside shadowy forces. The majority of Argentina's problems are because of their governance and cultural elements that influence governance.

Your bring up examples such as a crappy truck that Argentina used to make and suggest no one knows why it stopped manufacturing them. I would guess that it had more to due with ISI policies then yankee sabotage. Countries all over the soviet union had manufactured cars, but none of them were very good. ISI makes manufactured products uncompetitive and low quality over the long term.

Antipodean has the right idea. You need to think about these issues from first principles.

Why was shipbuilding in Argentina once robust? What changed during the time that it went from robust to losing ground to nonexistent? Where there changes in the marketplace? Were there government policies that prevented manufactures to update their equipment or import materials? Who were their customers? Why did those customers drop off? ETC.

 

[Somewhereinba]

It's one of the most common tactics of socialist systems to divert attention to outside - purely to avoid people looking in the mirror. If you can convince the population you have a common enemy then you can control them as you wish in the name of patriotism and us vs evil.