The currency controls aren't arbitrary. They are in place so the central bank has dollar reserves to pay for energy imports and make debt obligations that are due in dollars. If there weren't any controls it would be a free for all and the central bank would have no dollar reserves.
In this case the currency controls are the equivalent of giving a cancer patient a tylenol when the patient needs chemo-therapy. Maybe they'll alleviate the pain temporarily and buy some time, but more serious problems are ahead unless some significant structural changes are put into place.
Any type of forced control is arbitrary, is the definition. Is not a recommendation, is an obligation. When you enter into another country, you need to pass a security checkpoint. Is not
"oh, yes, you can skip this because we are cool with you, you seem like a cool guy", no, it's a restriction.
In your analogy, the doctor is not doing anything to give you chemo-therapy. They are saying that chemo-therapy is not important, that alternative medicines won't work either but..
he is not doing anything! The cancer is still spreading and him, the patient, is unable to do anything to fix it on his own. As the official doctor isn't giving him any sort of treatment, he is going to an underground facility run by a veterinary who is giving him illegal pills that he wants.
True, the patient can't heal his own cancer. We cannot heal the economy by buying dollars. The government won't fix anything by selling dollars to the public. But you know what? The doctor, or the government, is the one that needs to fix our health, our economy. We cannot fix the exchange rate, nor the devaluation, nor the inflation. The only thing we know, is that our doctor is in the back screwing a nurse, stealing supplies for his home, saying we are fine, doing nothing.. only telling us that our sick is temporal due to the weather.
Either you die, or you go to another doctor for another sort of treatment because this one is clearly not working.
