Matias,
The government should work for the people. The people should not work for the government.
I think you wrote someplace that your degree is sociology. It seems to me that the Argentine culture is very parochial. The people tend to wait for the government to tell them what to do. It is the same with employees - they generally sit and wait for the boss to tell them what they should do.
I was speaking with an Argentine friend of mine last night at dinner about the cult of personality in government here. Argentines seem to like big personalities as leaders (Perón, Evita, CFK) who they think will finally fix the country. They do not put their trust in the actual system of government. He looked at me and said, "You are right! ... I wonder who can save us from that?"
LOL. Do you think this is accurate?
Agree.
There is a big difference with Europe and the US, regarding institutions in politics. We dont have the same isntitutions here, we are not ruled 100% by them, instead we have personalismos, you know, like Russia, or like the arab countries. Its not better or worse, just different, it is another way of understanding politics. Sarmiento, an argentine hero, wrote of argentine caudillos instead of institutions, of leaning in the irrational, on the emotions (charismatic leaders and not a bureaucratic relationship) rather than in a rational institution.
His famous book is called "civilizacion o barbarie", translated something like "civilization or brutality".
It comes from colonial times I think, from catholic, parrochial and delayed Spain, as oposed to modern England & France.
This paternalistic relationship has to do also with EL CAMPO, like the owner of the land, the chief and its relationships with the gauchos giving them some protection, like owning them. The men in the campo are the ignorant, uneducated, the undomesticated that solve every problem by shooting, also savage, wild... that is "el hombre de campo"... irrational. And that, says Sarmiento, prevails in politics, in the figure of the caudillo, as oposed to the city, well informed people, refined sophistication, control of emotions, education, institutions, etc
Peronismo, for instance, is totally irrational. In fact, their social base came from el campo
So Argentina has this fight between the rationalism of its institutions and the relationship with its leaders, more personal, what lots of analysts say, is that this rational order failed.
