It's speculation but I wonder what would have happened had Massa won. Would inflation have reached current levels - or would it have taken longer to get there? How long could the status quo have been maintained? Mieli's plan is admittedly extreme and deeply painful. How long can people manage under these conditions? And what is the alternative? Regarding the article's comparison to communism, Communist regimes in places like the USSR actually valued culture and the arts. They heavily subsidized theatre, classical music, opera, ballet. These brought prestige to the nation and contributed to the well-being of the people. When it came to books, only those that were compatible with communism were published so Solzhenitsyn was only available through the underground market but one could easily get a copy of woks by authors like Theodore Dreiser.
I think Massa's roadmap toward Peso convertibility was clear enough, and he had already done most of the work in moving various economic sectors to an exchange rate close to the market and blue values. It was a messy, inelegant, patchwork exchange policy, but really all that was left was the consumer Dollar market. I don't think anyone expected the status-quo to continue, even with Massa.
Any other adjustment would have been slower (this is for certain), but with support from outside: the US, IMF, and China were all onside. Much less pain, no reason to suspect that inflation would have been as brutal as with this government; in no month of Massa's ministry was inflation as bad as in the 4 months of the new administration. The money inflows from the agricultural sector's planting under the previous government would still arrive (expected to be 50% more than last year), giving a major boost to the government's finances.
There would probably have been less enthusiastic pursuit of corruption, unfortunately. Fewer state employees dismissed, though the saving from this must be a drop in the ocean, really (and could be sharply reduced by courts finding in favour of the dismissed people).
There would have also been none of the incessant government trolling, culture-wars, Xitter-storms, voyages of self-discovery, all at the cost of actually governing the country. I expect we would also have a Dengue vaccination campaign and repellents, rather than the long-pants and homemade repellents recommended by the current lot.
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