The Ghost of Peronism: Why Argentina Keeps Making the Same Mistakes

[Redpossum]

Peronism is one of the reasons Argentina is a mess, but it's by far not the only one.

That being said, Epoch Times is literally the official English language newspaper of the Falun Gong/Dafa cult, the same group which has gone full Qanon/COVID vaccines kill you/Trump won 2020 crazy in the US and supporting far-right politicians in Europe like Marine Le Pen of AfD in Germany.

There's better critical analyses of contemporary Argentine political economy, economics, and Peronism than a Chinese cult's version of the Daily Mail...

Marine Le Pen is a French politician.

And AfD is not really far-right. That's just the line used to slander them in corporate-owned media.

 

[Quilombo]

Marine Le Pen is a French politician.

And AfD is not really far-right. That's just the line used to slander them in corporate-owned media.

Sorry, typo, Marine Le Pen and AfD in Germany

 

[sts7049]

Speaking of which, did you know that Nestor K was elected Presidente in 2003 with just 22% of the popular vote? In the first round!

Apparently, the country was such a Charlie Foxtrot in 2003 that nobody wanted the job except Menem, and he dropped out of the race because the polls showed him losing by a landslide, and he didn't want to suffer a humiliating defeat.

pretty crazy that 22% of the population helped screw the country for decades to come

 

[Sybille]

Marine Le Pen is a French politician.

And AfD is not really far-right. That's just the line used to slander them in corporate-owned media.

Are you being ironic?

 

[Redpossum]

Are you being ironic?

No, and I'd be happy to have that conversation with you, but this isn't the venue for it.

I would just note that "far" left or right is a matter of perception and opinion.

 

[Wade K.]

Whether Left or Right, or how well intentioned, isn't it true that spending more than you take in eventually leads to failure? And in this regard Argentina went from very prosperous to very much struggling? Not knocking Italians, but isn't it a fair assessment if you look at Italy that they take a socialist approach and Argentina did the same after a huge surge in Italian immigrants? I'm fine with social programs if you can afford them. But taking a huge bailout and then defaulting, the latest in a long string of defaults, suggests the Argentine government refuses to consider the harsher realities of capitalism. But then again this is my 14th country and so far have to say I've never met a better group of people. Maybe they don't want the harsher realities of capitalism. I'll return to the dog eat dog world of the U.S. in two months and in spite of access to better goods, and manicured looks, can't say I look forward to it. Warts and all if it weren't for family obligations I'd stay here.

 

[Ries]

Whether Left or Right, or how well intentioned, isn't it true that spending more than you take in eventually leads to failure? And in this regard Argentina went from very prosperous to very much struggling? Not knocking Italians, but isn't it a fair assessment if you look at Italy that they take a socialist approach and Argentina did the same after a huge surge in Italian immigrants? I'm fine with social programs if you can afford them. But taking a huge bailout and then defaulting, the latest in a long string of defaults, suggests the Argentine government refuses to consider the harsher realities of capitalism. But then again this is my 14th country and so far have to say I've never met a better group of people. Maybe they don't want the harsher realities of capitalism. I'll return to the dog eat dog world of the U.S. in two months and in spite of access to better goods, and manicured looks, can't say I look forward to it. Warts and all if it weren't for family obligations I'd stay here.

While its true that Italy does have a communist party that sometimes gets up to 2% of the votes, there is no doubt than, now, and historically, the actual fascists have run Italy much more, in the last hundred years, than the "socialists". The current government of Italy is 43% extremely right wing.
So I dont think you can blame liberals in Argentina on the Italians.
And Peron, himself, was a lifelong military officer, and not the kind of miltary officer that Che was.
He was an ardent admirer of Mussolini, and his initial step into the limelight was when he was commanding an army unit that was shooting and beating socialist and anarchist strikers during the semana tragica. fer instance- "The soldiers opened fire on the workers, obeying orders from their superior, Lieutenant Juan Domingo Perón".

Peron did build workers housing, and nationalized some businesses, but that doesnt make him a socialist.
Current "Peronistas" are very different in many ways from Peron himself, and most of the leftist initiatives are relatively recent, with politicians of all kinds of ethnic heritages enacting them. Menem was of syrian muslim extraction...
As for "spending more than you take in", this is a flexible equation based on tax rates vs spending.
Neither exists in a vacuum. Certainly in Argentina, there are plenty of non-socialists who lobby heavily both for and against taxes, and spending.

 

[Quilombo]

While its true that Italy does have a communist party that sometimes gets up to 2% of the votes, there is no doubt than, now, and historically, the actual fascists have run Italy much more, in the last hundred years, than the "socialists". The current government of Italy is 43% extremely right wing.

Couldn't agree more, and perhaps what is so frustrating, my own being ethnically Italian bias aside, is that the communist partisans were the people fighting domestically to liberate Italy from both Mussolini and the 3rd Reich's client state, The Italian Social Republic.

Post WW2, every time Italy thought about going even slightly left wing, NATO, Uncle Sam, and those ghouls the Dulles Brothers made sure that didn't happen by repurposing literal SS officers and fascists to either assault and firebomb leftists/their offices, or straight up murder them as part of Operation Gladio.

Even when they tried to win democratically they were black balled, along with anyone who dared to cooperate with them, such as PM Aldo Moro, who was politically threatened by the US and the rest of Europe if he worked with the Communist Party in 1976, as covered in this NY Times piece, and apparently he was personally threatened too, in the sense that he could wind up dead. Moro would live for only 2 years after this article, at which point he was kidnapped and murdered, with people believing the Brigate Rosse were as responsible for his death as Lee Harvey Oswald for JFK's.

Another fun fact about the clusterfuck that was Italy during the Anni di piombo (Years of Lead) was that there was a giant through line of international fascists, the Catholic Church, and Argentine Peronists/fascists working together via what is commonly known as the P2 Masonic Lodge, whose members included former Italian PM Berlusconi, bankers, newspaper owners, the former Argentine President Raul Alberto Lastiri, junta members/Dirty War war criminals Emilio Massera and Guillermo Mason, and Minister of Social Welfare/Isabel's personal Rasputin, Jose Lopez Rega. The lodge was commonly seen as Italy's deep state like the ISI is in Pakistan today.

The idea that Peron/OG Peronists were remotely communist would be hilarious if it weren't so naive, and even now you can't call the Ks socialist or communist, this fails the basic smell test as socialism is the foundation laid to create a classless, dictatorship of the proletariat with the workers controlling the means of production, and the Ks have not come even close to this; hell, the minimum wage and pensions were higher under Macri than Alberto, does that make him comrade Mauricio now?

But I digress; corporate media, the wealthy, and their stooges (Javier Milei and the "libertarian" gang) have contrived to convince people that socialism/communism is the source of all evil here when we've never even had a socialist president, and at present have only 4 leftist members of Congress and 0 Senators. I'll finish off by saying Menem's administration was one of the most financially irresponsible in human history, but does anyone, even Milei think he was a commie? No, instead he calls Domingo Cavallo (Menem's Finance Minister) an "Argentine Patriot" lol. That should tell you all you need to know about their anti-socialist/communist grift.

 

[Wade K.]

Couldn't agree more, and perhaps what is so frustrating, my own being ethnically Italian bias aside, is that the communist partisans were the people fighting domestically to liberate Italy from both Mussolini and the 3rd Reich's client state, The Italian Social Republic.

Post WW2, every time Italy thought about going even slightly left wing, NATO, Uncle Sam, and those ghouls the Dulles Brothers made sure that didn't happen by repurposing literal SS officers and fascists to either assault and firebomb leftists/their offices, or straight up murder them as part of Operation Gladio.

Even when they tried to win democratically they were black balled, along with anyone who dared to cooperate with them, such as PM Aldo Moro, who was politically threatened by the US and the rest of Europe if he worked with the Communist Party in 1976, as covered in this NY Times piece, and apparently he was personally threatened too, in the sense that he could wind up dead. Moro would live for only 2 years after this article, at which point he was kidnapped and murdered, with people believing the Brigate Rosse were as responsible for his death as Lee Harvey Oswald for JFK's.

Another fun fact about the clusterfuck that was Italy during the Anni di piombo (Years of Lead) was that there was a giant through line of international fascists, the Catholic Church, and Argentine Peronists/fascists working together via what is commonly known as the P2 Masonic Lodge, whose members included former Italian PM Berlusconi, bankers, newspaper owners, the former Argentine President Raul Alberto Lastiri, junta members/Dirty War war criminals Emilio Massera and Guillermo Mason, and Minister of Social Welfare/Isabel's personal Rasputin, Jose Lopez Rega. The lodge was commonly seen as Italy's deep state like the ISI is in Pakistan today.

The idea that Peron/OG Peronists were remotely communist would be hilarious if it weren't so naive, and even now you can't call the Ks socialist or communist, this fails the basic smell test as socialism is the foundation laid to create a classless, dictatorship of the proletariat with the workers controlling the means of production, and the Ks have not come even close to this; hell, the minimum wage and pensions were higher under Macri than Alberto, does that make him comrade Mauricio now?

But I digress; corporate media, the wealthy, and their stooges (Javier Milei and the "libertarian" gang) have contrived to convince people that socialism/communism is the source of all evil here when we've never even had a socialist president, and at present have only 4 leftist members of Congress and 0 Senators. I'll finish off by saying Menem's administration was one of the most financially irresponsible in human history, but does anyone, even Milei think he was a commie? No, instead he calls Domingo Cavallo (Menem's Finance Minister) an "Argentine Patriot" lol. That should tell you all you need to know about their anti-socialist/communist grift.

I think you may be equating communism with European style socialism. Fact is southern Europe is heavy on the social programs and are in near collapse economically because of it. Someone mentioned in another thread that Argentina has free healthcare. That's great if it can be pulled off but judging by Argentina's finances they aren't. If labor unions have undue influence then a country is leaning socialist. Capitalism tends to work well until people get tired of the exploitation. But go too far in the other direction and things start falling apart. Socialism is simply more government control over the economy. Bureaucrats tend to muck things up. A competitive marketplace with consequences for failure and limited government input tends to run more smoothly. A country has to decide whether it can live with that or not. If a country's culture is much more laid back such as an afternoon siesta being a priority then American style capitalism isn't likely to work. But debt default after debt default says what's going on here isn't working either.

 

[Redpossum]

I think you may be equating communism with European style socialism. Fact is southern Europe is heavy on the social programs and are in near collapse economically because of it. Someone mentioned in another thread that Argentina has free healthcare. That's great if it can be pulled off but judging by Argentina's finances they aren't. If labor unions have undue influence then a country is leaning socialist. Capitalism tends to work well until people get tired of the exploitation. But go too far in the other direction and things start falling apart. Socialism is simply more government control over the economy. Bureaucrats tend to muck things up. A competitive marketplace with consequences for failure and limited government input tends to run more smoothly. A country has to decide whether it can live with that or not. If a country's culture is much more laid back such as an afternoon siesta being a priority then American style capitalism isn't likely to work. But debt default after debt default says what's going on here isn't working either.

Posts like this make me remember my long-standing wish that we had a thumbs down button here.