r/geography • u/MontroseRoyal Urban Geography • 17d ago

Argentina is the most British country in Latin America. Why? Discussion

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I would like to expand upon the title. I believe that Argentina is not only the most ‘British’ country in Latin America, but the most ‘British’ country that was never formally colonized by the British themselves. I firmly believe this and will elaborate.

Let’s start with town names. In the Buenos Aires metro area alone; English & Irish town and neighborhood names are commonplace. Such as Hurlingham, Canning, Billinghurst, Wilde, Temperley, Ranelagh, Hudson, Claypole, Coghlan, Banfield, and even Victoria (yes, purposefully named after the Queen).

One of the two biggest football clubs in the capital has an English name, River Plate. And the sport was brought by some English immigrants. Curiously, Rugby and Polo are also very popular Argentina, unlike surrounding countries. For a long time, the only Harrods outside the UK operated in Buenos Aires too. Many Argentines are of partial English descent. When the English community was stronger, they built a prominent brick monument called “Tower of the English”. After the Falklands, it was renamed to “Tower of the Malvinas” by the government out of spite.

In Patagonia, in the Chubut province particularly, there is obviously the Welsh community with town names like Trelew, Eawson, and Puerto Madryn. Patagonian Welsh is a unique variety of the language that developed more or less independently for a few years with no further influence from English. Although the community and speakers now number little, Welsh traditions are a major tourist factor for Chubut.

There is a notable diaspora community of Scottish and their descendants as well. I remember once randomly walking into a large Scottish festival near Plaza de Mayo where there were many artisan vendors selling celtic merchandise with a couple of traditional Scottish dancers on a stage.

Chile has some British/Irish influence (who can forget Bernardo O’Higgins?), but seemingly not nearly to the same extent. The English community was rather small, so it doesn’t make much sense to me how they can have such a large impact. I guess my question is why Argentina? Of all places

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u/gustavmahler01 17d ago

Well, at one time it was the *richest* country in South America. I remember my Argentine friends in grad school used to tell me that Argentina used to be the United States of South America. But then they always added the qualifier that that is no longer the case.

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u/JerrytheK 17d ago

In 1913, Argentina was one of the ten wealthiest countries per capita in the world, ahead of France, Germany, and Italy. Source: Council on Foreign Relations

First country ever to regress to developing from developed.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/argentinas-struggle-stability#:~:text=Between%201860%20and%201930%2C%20it,France%2C%20Germany%2C%20and%20Italy.

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u/belortik 17d ago

Oof, what a sad thing to stand out for.

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u/contextual_somebody 17d ago

TBF they've always made terrible choices when it comes to voting. Hey. Maybe the U.S. will someday be the Argentina of North America

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u/Wildwilly54 16d ago edited 16d ago

Canada’s doing a good job of going backwards right now

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u/backgamemon 16d ago

I currently live in Canada and idk man we gotta long way to go if we really want to compete with South America

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u/Wildwilly54 16d ago edited 16d ago

Oh of course. I was just replying to someone saying that someday the US could go that route. At this current point in time, Canada is the one on the downward trajectory. But no, it will never get that bad.

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u/conners_captures 16d ago

But no, it will never get that bad.

that's what argentina thought lol

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u/backgamemon 16d ago

Look I’m not saying Canada is in a better financial position than the us, not by a long shot, but Canada still has a higher life expectancy, social net, better education, lower poverty, lower crime rate, much more equal distribution of wealth and all people on the internet seem to care about is that the US has a huge concentration of global corporations. All I’m saying is I’m tiered of people pretending that Canada is some failing disfunctional hell hole one step away from poverty, when in reality it’s largest problem is that it shares a border with a nation that essentially has a global currency backed by the entire fucking world economy.

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u/Throwaway98796895975 15d ago

Dude, Toronto police told people to keep their car keys by the door so that the car thieves don’t have to become home invaders.

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u/parararalle 16d ago

What you say is true but GDP per capita is declining in the last 6 quarters. It's not a good thing. People are feeling that and that's why they come in the Internet saying such things too. Government about to announce some larger deficit spending numbers and unemployment is up. There wouldn't even be a positive overall GDP if it were not for government spending. Good possibility this decrease in GDP per capita trend will continue. The trend is troubling

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u/Upset-Safe-2934 15d ago

Hahaha your out Hat. Send regards to the Governor!

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u/Smartyunderpants 14d ago

Too much social spending is what happened to Argentina

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u/PEE_GOO 16d ago

just adopt the dollar then duh

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u/LupineChemist 16d ago

Argentina is way richer now than it was when it was one of the richest countries in the world.

Not caring about economic growth is one of those things that you can get away with for a couple years, but that shit compounds hard after a few decades. It's sort of why Canada and the US have been diverging in the last decade or so since US is still with very solid growth.

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u/hissboombah 12d ago

Slowly at first, then all at once

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u/allanrjensenz 16d ago

Not really, I’d say Uruguay is doing better than you guys for example.

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u/backgamemon 16d ago

No offence to Uruguay but name a single way it’s doing better

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u/allanrjensenz 16d ago edited 15d ago

Their healthcare system isn’t oversaturated (unlike Canada’s), is also completely free, and also considered one of the best in the world. The cost of living is considerably lower even considering local income as well (compared to Canada). Also leads in support for democracy and renewable energy (98% renewable). The GINI coefficient is also fairly close to Canada’s. Uruguay’s poverty level is 9.2% compared to Canada’s 9.9%

Can’t really put South America as a single entity, the countries are vastly different.

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u/Dr_N00B 16d ago

When people say Canada will become Venezuela, I say no. We will become Argentina of course

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u/Fake-Podcast-Ad 16d ago

Only going to get worse with PP and provincial morons lining their pockets further.

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u/Wildwilly54 16d ago edited 16d ago

I lived in Toronto before Covid, but work for a Canadian company in the States. Every time I go back to the Toronto office I got at least 15 people asking me if I can get them a job. It’s pretty bleak at the moment. Don’t think Poilievre can do much worse than Trudeau.

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u/Attainted 16d ago

pp will bend over for Trump.

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u/Wildwilly54 16d ago

Trump called Trudeau, and the next day he flew down to Florida. Now he’s publically calling him the governor of Canada. Justin’s already spreading em wide and he’s not even in office yet…. Got a much better chance with PP, I wouldn’t trust Trudeau to negotiate a purchase at a garage sale.

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u/ToughPlatypus 16d ago

He flew down because Canada doesn’t allow US felons in their country.

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u/Attainted 16d ago

Ah, okay then.

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u/ThomasBay 16d ago

You know it’s the provinces that are causing these problems right? It’s not the Feds

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u/Rand_University81 16d ago

The feds aren’t the ones allowing record immigration during a housing crisis?

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u/ThomasBay 16d ago

That’s barely the cause of the housing crisis. You know thenFord government is building houses at a record low pace. Also housing the responsibility of the Province

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u/Cozywarmthcoffee 14d ago

Canada only ever looked good on paper. It was never as first world as they try to make it appear. Cost of living to income has always been off in Canada. But it is stable and light years ahead of South  America. 

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u/Himera71 16d ago

The millions of low skilled immigrants, that the government has allowed to overrun the country are going to feel right at home.

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u/Jlx_27 16d ago

Still a lot better than the US, but for howlong remains to be seen.

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u/MysteriousAdvice1840 16d ago

Your economy is only doing worse and worse by the year relative to the US. Meanwhile you guys have a worse housing problem than the US as well

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u/bobnla14 17d ago

Give us 2 years and done!!/s

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u/FucknAright 16d ago

Yea, in about 3 years

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u/AKsNcarTassels 16d ago

It’s Canada right now. Cost of living (corporate greed) has lowered the living standards substantially and both the provincial and federal levels of governments are majorly corrupted. Government is staffed with friends of no qualifications except grifting.

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u/Long-Astronaut-3363 16d ago

So it’s like the USA now?

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u/Mcipark 14d ago

Someone posted on another post that Canada has 50% more unemployment than the US (3.63% in US compared to 5.37%) and that Canadians have to pay a carbon tax even though their trees eliminate 110% of their carbon production each year

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u/AKsNcarTassels 14d ago

I won’t speculate on what the trees do or do not compared to our output. I’m not a fan of the carbon tax when a lot of people are struggling to get by because of the increased cost of living as it does absolutely nothing to help with that, in fact it hurts us more

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u/piney 16d ago

Maybe someday in January

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u/ComfortableYak2071 17d ago

Milei is making genuine improvements, their economy has surged quite dramatically since he’s implemented his plans

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u/Vegabern 17d ago

I just read a headline that he's reducing taxes by 90% not 5 minutes ago.

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u/FlygonSA 16d ago

There is a subtlety about that, he is going to reduce 90% the number of taxes, nowadays there is something like +200 different taxes but only 10 of those taxes represent 91% of tax revenue, so he is planing on simplifying the tax structure by removing those smaller taxes that don't bring a lot of money to the government

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/CaterpillarLoud8071 16d ago

If a tax isn't for revenue, it's for another purpose. Often you'll have a tax hitting a very niche area to prevent it being used as a tax loophole for a big tax. Otherwise, it's likely to be behavioural, like a tax on sugar in food.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/MysteriousAdvice1840 16d ago

Headline was misleading on purpose and worked effectively on you

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u/davetn37 17d ago

When you drastically reduce wasteful government spending you can also drastically reduce taxes. Funny thing, that

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u/sukabot_lepson 17d ago

Most of taxes are paid by companies, not by regular people. So basically he reduced budget income that is used for social needs and let American and other foreign companies earn more, by spending less. In the end it's a victory for private capital, not regular citizens.

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u/berlinscotlandfan 17d ago

This isn't a serious point. Nobody with a rudimentary understanding of how any of this works can think you can pay for a 90% tax cut through government efficiency savings.

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u/davetn37 17d ago

Outside of one article by a questionable Chinese news site I'm not seeing anybody saying they're cutting taxes so drastically. Could you point me to a site or article?

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u/berlinscotlandfan 17d ago

I don't need to. You replied to a comment saying taxes were being cut by 90% with an argument that this would be okay because of cutting wasteful government. I replied to say that your argument (for why that figure was okay) is nonsense. Lol maybe you should have found a source before you commented.

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u/Beginning_Ad_4449 17d ago

The Berliner-Scotsman can't comprehend economic growth reforms, color me surprised

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u/berlinscotlandfan 17d ago

Lol nice bait m8.

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u/CaterpillarLoud8071 16d ago

It's immaterial. I could reduce the tax burden and government spending by 90% on a technicality by taking pensions, healthcare, education & welfare out of government spending and turning taxes into mandatory insurance. It doesn't really matter who's paying and who's providing services, it matters whether the services are cost effective and functional.

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u/hyakinthosofmacedon 16d ago

I thought that was infamously the opposite of what he was doing lmao

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u/Music_Upbeat 16d ago

Lex Fridman has an interesting conversation with Javier Milei on his podcast.

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u/dave1314 17d ago

I don’t know much about it so could be wrong - but did he not already tank the economy? Hard to give someone credit for making improvements on a poor economic situation they created in the first place.

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u/ComfortableYak2071 17d ago

Not at all. Argentina’s economy has been tanked since the 40s under Perón. Also a massive Great Depression in the late 90s early 2000s. Milei inherited an abysmal economy and has started to turn it around. Inflation has lowered, rent prices have significantly decreased, government is running at a surplus for the first time in forever.

He is very much hated by reddit, so they deny any good he does, but it is what it is

It’s gonna take a while, but he is making actual improvements

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u/dave1314 17d ago

Just looked it up for myself, you are being disingenuous.

It looks like Inflation rates and poverty increased dramatically since Milei took power.

A slight recent reduction in inflation and changing the spending deficit to a surplus does not mean the Argentinian economy suddenly looks good.

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u/BIGDADDYBANDIT 16d ago

Inflation rate, not inflation. They were in a period of hyperinflation when he was elected, and now have the second lowest inflation rate in South America. It doesn't undo the inflation already taking place, but it is one in a long list of improvements made to the Argentine economy under Milei. The black market currency exchange is dying off and FDI is flooding in. You can disagree with the ideology, but for the ideology, Milei is about as effective an administrator you could get to implement these reforms. He knows his stuff.

And not that this is directly relevant to what you said, but the 91% tax cut being repeated above is false. It's a nonspecific but high percentage of different taxes being cut next year to reduce administrative bloat. The rffective reduction inntax rate will only be around 10% in 2025.

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u/ComfortableYak2071 17d ago edited 17d ago

I’m curious to see where you’re getting your information from.. is it random Redditors who have a massive hate boner for the man?

https://news.gallup.com/poll/654089/javier-milei-argentina-charts.aspx

https://www.focus-economics.com/blog/argentina-economy-under-milei/

You act like real life is a movie or something, and expect this man to come into office and fix one of the worst, longest running South American economies in a matter of a month. He’s made significant progress in a year, and of course there will be some pain along the way, they’ve been in severe pain since the 40s. You can’t fix an awful economy without there being pain, because again, life isn’t a Disney movie. You are the one being disingenuous and ignoring data my friend, most likely because of your political biases

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u/Cuchifo 16d ago

As an argentinian, this Is just wrong. The outgoing administration printed money equaling 13 GDP points in its last year in office. During the election campaign, they wasted a massive FMI loan on reckless economic measures, such as axing the only progressive tax we paid (income tax) without a care for what would happen in the future. As a result, monthly inflation in december was a sky-high 25.5%, and that's with price control measures in place, and a official rate-market rate disparity of the dollar value at a record 93%.

Not only we now have 2.4% inflation, trending massively down (way better than the "slight reduction" you seem to perceive), but that's with a saneated macroeconomy, no price controls, and no black market dollar rate. The official rate is now true, and this stability provides a lot of benefits. For example, we are not at risk of defaulting on our debt, and this in turn gives us a lot better rates when negotiating old and new debt.

What you are saying Is just disingenuous. Please educate yourself with non-biased sources

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u/letterboxfrog 17d ago

Interesting take by Joe Blogs Argentina in Deep Trouble - "Dead Cow" Revolution

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u/ComfortableYak2071 17d ago

Go read the comments in that video, especially from those actually living in Argentina

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u/RudolfjeWeerwolfje 16d ago

It already is.

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u/Vast_Discipline_3676 16d ago

We’re well on our way!

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u/Copacetic4 Geography Enthusiast 15d ago

Milei’s been able to staunch the losses for now. We’ll see if he manages lasting change

I guess three economics degrees do come in handy.

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u/contextual_somebody 15d ago

The poverty rate increased from 40% to over 53% in six months. It’s now 57%. Extreme poverty is now 15%. Without government subsidies and rent stabilization, homelessness has skyrocketed. As a consequence, domestic spending is down. But hey, the stock market is up.

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u/Copacetic4 Geography Enthusiast 14d ago

He did manage to close the deficit for what that's worth. And Argentina has had a rather bloated bureaucracy even by modern standards.

Sounds like it's at least a net improvement to me, Argentinians will vote on it next election, which is still some time away.

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u/KoedKevin 13d ago

He has lowered inflation from 25% per month to 2.5% per month.  Housing availability has opened up dramatically and unemployment and the economy are much healthier.  Another year and extreme poverty will be dramatically lessened. 

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u/Cozywarmthcoffee 14d ago

It’s cheeky, but unrealistic. America could disappear tomorrow and would likely have and has had more of an impact on the globe (for better or worse) than the Romans, Greeks, and Ottomans combined. So, no America will never be the Argentina of North America- because what Argentina had was a flash in the pan of wealth and political stability. Almost immediately to return to the state of all other Latin American countries- unfortunately. They also had little to no impact on the Latin world during this period nor less the globe. I still love Argentina- but no. 

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u/permanent_echobox 13d ago

Also the Panama Canal changed international shipping/business.

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u/alvar368 16d ago

Maybe the US-backed dictatorships also have something to do with it? Just saying. That includes the one that started the Malvinas (Falklands) War.

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u/Fair_Ad3429 14d ago

The fact u think the problem is voting tells me all I need know.

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u/belortik 17d ago

Isn't that already Mexico?

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u/garytyrrell 17d ago

When was Mexico rich?

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u/sharpafm8 17d ago edited 16d ago

Luckily Americans voted against that this election

The downvotes make me laugh. Let’s just ignore the fact that Peron was a socialist and his socialist policies helped destroy a once prosperous nation because it doesn’t fit our “trump bad 😡” ideology.

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u/Limekilnlake 17d ago

I mean peronism was protectionist, so trump’s tariff plan doesn’t bode well in that department

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u/Lurker-420 17d ago

Replace UK imports with Italian imports was the real outcome though.

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u/sharpafm8 16d ago edited 16d ago

I guess we’ll just ignore the fact that “Perón pursued many left-leaning policies, nationalizing the central bank and several large corporations, expanding health and welfare benefits, and establishing an alliance with organized labor unions.” I guess tariffs are the singular issue we should look at.

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u/WickedWiscoWeirdo 16d ago

Peron was kinda a mixed bag. There were very left and very right policies

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u/contextual_somebody 16d ago

And you are just ignoring the authoritarian nationalism, the militarism, the corporatism… Peronism is a third way ideology, which is well known.

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u/Nyorliest 16d ago

I bet you think the Nazis were socialist too.

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u/RuthlessKittyKat 14d ago

The IMF and the US Supreme court have really fucked them.

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u/THEdopealope 15d ago

I’m Argentinian American and US current events are not that crazy. A lot of “it couldn’t happen here” but boyyyy yes it absolutely can

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u/belortik 15d ago

If Harris had become president I would agree with you

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u/THEdopealope 15d ago

Care to expand on that?

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/Jq4000 17d ago

As they say, there are four types of economies: Developed, Developing, Japan and Argentina...

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u/french_snail 16d ago

I don’t get it

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u/M4xusV4ltr0n 16d ago

Argentina is the only country to go from "developed" back down to "developing", so it's a super weird one in that case.

Japan's economy is also weird in that inflation there has been super low, like so low that it would be a problem in the US because it would mean economic growth has stopped. So it doesn't really fit in with the other "developed" economies.

Tldr Japan and Argentina have really weird economies

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u/DrPepperMalpractice 16d ago

Japan has been living in the year 2000 since the 1970s. As they say.

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u/Which_Environment911 16d ago

and still do

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u/Whattacharliefoxtrot 16d ago

That’s the joke

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u/Which_Environment911 16d ago

LOL yea i understood, just supporting it. its funny and sad at the same time

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u/visualogistics 16d ago

It's a famous saying of economist Simon Kuznets I believe. At the time he was implying that the economies of Japan and Argentina are unusual and do not fit into the standard model of 'developing-developed' that other countries do.

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u/onarainyafternoon 16d ago

There's another famous saying that is something to the effect of, "Japan has been in the year 2000 for the last forty years". Basically, Japan used to be one of the most technologically and economically advanced countries in the world, but in the 1990s, their economy crashed, and it's been a huge struggle since then. They still use fax machines for every day occurrences and only recently started putting government functions online.

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u/Ok-Excuse-3613 16d ago

The vibrant fax culture is mostly due to quickly aging population, incredible conservatism in terms of business practices and mediocre digital culture, than it is due to their economy

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u/Eagle4317 16d ago

The incredibly conservative mindset causing stagnation to last half a century. I wonder where we’ve seen this before?

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u/Ok-Excuse-3613 16d ago

I mean I don't want to be the devil's advocate, but...

Japanese politics have been conservative for the last 75 years now, with the LDP being in power during both their formidable growth and during most of their stagnation. Japan has almost never experienced a party majority change, with an LDP coalition in power from 1955 to 1993, 1994 to 2009 and then 2012-2024. So the roots of both their success and failures have to come from something else than just conservatism

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u/oyasumi_juli 16d ago

I’m in the US and in my line of work fax machines are in full force on a daily basis. I work with DMVs in all states though, so it’s more so that DMVs are stuck in the Stone Age tech-wise rather than the company I work for. Some have been moving forward with electronic titles, vehicle records/services and such, which just completely confuses the boomers (and beyond) generation, but fax is still totally a daily thing here too.

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u/JerrytheK 16d ago

Sorry, boomer here. Have been on computers (time share via a telex machine in high school) since 1967. We’re all not technologically inept. On the other hand, I did about want to rip a credit card out of an American’s hand in Norway when he could not figure out how to just tap the card to pay.

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u/Viend 16d ago

Argentina is a country that should be developed but somehow isn't, whereas Japan is a country that should still be developing but somehow already developed.

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u/SwoleHeisenberg 16d ago

Why should Japan be developing?

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u/epona2000 16d ago

Kuznets said this in the 80s or earlier. Before South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and arguably China copied Japan’s economic trajectory, no country had gone from war-ravaged and impoverished to industrial leader anywhere near as quickly as Japan.

The secret to this is what free-marketers don’t want to tell you or feign ignorance of: state capitalism grows economies really fast, especially if your country is poor.

Ironically, Japan’s economy is super weird again because of stagnation since the 90s but Kuznets obviously couldn’t have known. Quantitative easing and negative interest rates were invented because of the strangeness of the Japanese economy. However, there are signs that countries which followed Japan’s economic trajectory are also starting to stagnate and this may be a general trend due to how economic growth causes demographic shifts. 

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u/e9967780 Physical Geography 16d ago edited 16d ago

In simple English when an economy rapidly develops, women have fewer children. This quick shift means that within one generation, there aren’t enough young workers to support the growing number of elderly people through taxes and social services.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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u/epona2000 16d ago

It’s not just money. It’s the unpaid labor of taking care of your parents. It’s the fact that in a democracy, political power shifts up the population pyramid. 

Japan’s cultural xenophobia , misogyny, and tendency to save as opposed to invest money place them in a very undesirable position as well.

I don’t like your framing, because it makes it look like the solution is to just force women to have more kids. 

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u/e9967780 Physical Geography 16d ago edited 16d ago

Women are choosing fewer children because, for the first time, they have real alternatives to traditional roles. They can pursue education and careers, which fundamentally changes reproductive decisions. This isn’t reversible - it’s a permanent societal shift happening worldwide, not just in specific countries.

The global population trend is heading toward fewer births as women gain more economic and personal freedom. Countries like Japan are early indicators of a broader global pattern where population decline becomes the norm, not the exception. There’s a finite number of people and resources, and the current model of endless growth is unsustainable.

Multicultural expansion and immigration aren’t universal solutions. Some societies, like Japan, may choose to maintain their demographic and cultural integrity rather than importing populations. The underlying reality is that global population dynamics are changing, and societies will need to adapt to smaller populations and limited resources.

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u/Poringun 16d ago

Its less "developing" and more should be growing.

Japans economy is stagnating, has been for like 3 decades now.

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u/Ginmunger 16d ago

It's not weird, their population is shrinking and aging rapidly, they're a service based economy. People produce a lot less when they retire and die.

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u/Poringun 16d ago

It was stagnating even before their population started crashing tbf. Most of the problem can be traced to the 90s bubble popping and the ensuing liquidity trap.

Then it becomes a vicious feedback loop of self fulfilling prophecy, where people being afraid the economy will crash leads to less aggressive spending which leads to worsening economy leading to people being afraid.

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u/Ginmunger 16d ago

Yes definitely started with the financial bubble, it became very expensive to raise a child so people waited longer to have kids and had less. Sounds familiar.

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u/CR24752 16d ago

Didn’t this also happen to the UK? Must be an island lifestyle thing

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u/MittlerPfalz 17d ago

Right, and of course in 1913 (and the preceding decades) Britain was at the peak of its powers, the Empirein full swing, the Brits feeling perfectly comfortable throwing their weight around all over the world.

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u/mwa12345 16d ago

yes. And Britain was a large trader with Argentina and a large market iirc Could be wrong

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u/BroSchrednei 17d ago

Argentina was also extremely unequal at the time. That wealth was completely concentrated with few people, while the vast majority was very poor.

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u/simulation_goer 16d ago

Naw, that's what lefties/peronist say to justify the robbery perpetrated by the socialist administrations that sunk the boat.

I come from euro immigrant families. A couple of branches arrived with nothing and turned comfy middle class in a couple of decades.

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u/lunartree 16d ago

Argentina flip flopped between the authoritarian left and the authoritarian right for most of 100 years. If you think the issue is on the economic axis you're missing the point.

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u/UsualLazy423 16d ago

That’s pretty much what all of South America does politically. They flip flop between hard right and hard left with no real center. I fear that’s exactly what’s happening to US right now. 

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u/lunartree 16d ago

There is no "hard left" party in America. There's a far right party and a centrist party, and both people on the left and right use the word "liberal" as an insult toward them. Trying to conflate the American Democratic party with a South American socialist party just makes you sound historically illiterate.

Again, authoritarianism is a thing, and this flip flopping happens because people are literally blind to what it is. When you don't have a healthy democracy where laws are enacted though the will of the people what you get are waves of populism that install charismatic leaders that force unpopular laws onto the masses. Then because their rule is unpopular they have to use a lot of force to hold that power until the next wave of populism topples them.

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u/JurtisCones 16d ago

Even calling the Democrats centrist is hilarious. The Dems are extremely right wing based on the traditional horseshoe / grid. Obviously not quite as right auth as Trump but not far away, under Biden.

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u/lunartree 16d ago

Also a dumb take. American politics really are a product of its people huh...

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u/JurtisCones 16d ago

I’m not American so your cheap shot was about as accurate as your politics takes

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u/FlygonSA 16d ago

Have you ever read Bialet Masse's report? Back in 1904 he traveled the whole country to report back to Roca the conditions of the working class of that era, it literally mentions how everybody worked and lived in poor conditions with low pay.
He wasn't a crazy leftist either or that wanted to defend the immigrant working class at all cost making shit up, he was a businessman and a liberal much of the liking of Roca, even in his report he berates the forestry laborers in Chaco because "They spent all their money on gambling and hookers".

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u/axdng 16d ago

You’re completely missing the point lmaooo

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u/simulation_goer 16d ago

Feel free to enlighten me about my country's history, I can't wait to read what you have to share.

6

u/comalriver 16d ago

The whole country got richer. The average standard of living was higher than almost all of Europe.

But some people got richer faster. And some people had a higher standard of living than the rest.

So they burned it all down.

-3

u/axdng 16d ago

You got a 3rd world education lmao. Trying to lecture me.

1

u/Eranaut 16d ago

There's that on-brand Reddit Elitism. Love to see it.

1

u/simulation_goer 16d ago

Perhaps. Or maybe I got a first-world ed in a third world country.

That's it, this is where I stop feeding the troll.

Chau

PS, still no word about 20th-century Argentine history. I'd love to see some of that good ole 1st world education right here

-10

u/usedtyre 16d ago

Leftist and socialist policies just made everyone equally poor. Great achievement.

4

u/hinterstoisser 16d ago

False Economy by Alan Beattie is a fascinating read- talking about how immigration affected how Argentina and the US went in opposite directions on the prosperity front

1

u/mwa12345 16d ago

They were the first "non colony" colony.

1

u/ElPedroChico 16d ago

How did Argentina fumble so bad?

1

u/thirsttrapsnchurches 16d ago

Interesting! Thank you for sharing. I’ve always been fascinated by Argentina. Would you happen to know of any good books for someone new to Argentinian history? Or maybe even just Latin America in general?

1

u/whataball 16d ago

The country has vast resources but its economy is just bad. It's literally called "Land of Silver".

1

u/JerrytheK 16d ago

Since this has diverged so far from the original question, I'll give a little insight on the money situation. I first went to Argentina (just BA and surroundings) in either the late 90s or early OOs. US$/peso rate was 3 to the dollar. Went back a few years with my children, 5 to the dollar. Went in January on my way to Antarctica. Couldn't get any money in BA airports, so I landed in Ushuaia, went to an ATM, which said a 2,000 peso withdrawal limit. Figured that couldn't be right, put in the card, did the dance, got 2,000 pesos. Figured I'd done something wrong, nope, got another 2,000. Bank rate at that point (IIRC) was about 900 to the dollar! I had read to take a lot of US cash, particularly new, crisp $100 bills. Hotel gave me 900 to the dollar. When I got to BA, the street rate was 1,200/US$. And the biggest bill was 1,000 pesos, so about US$.83. I checked and the street rate is about 1,100, so a bit of an improvement for the Argentines. BTW, most if not all real estate transactions are in US$, not pesos.

Despite the awful inflation, all the Argentines were some of the nicest people I'd met. It was (unfortunately for the citizens) one of the least expensive and from a dining perspective, best places I'd been in a long time.

1

u/ArmaniOvo 16d ago

Is South Africa the second? Or no

1

u/JerrytheK 16d ago

Good question. Don't know the answer.

1

u/Eodbatman 16d ago

75 years of extreme economic regulation and socialism will do that to a country.

1

u/better-off-wet 15d ago

Why did it regress?

1

u/PerennialSuboptimism 13d ago

Don’t worry because my dumb ass country will look to take the cake on being the largest economy to regress from developed to developing.

P.S. I’m American. The divide in our country of have and have not will only grow further with many of the policies that are about to be passed (I also significantly benefit from these policies but it doesn’t mean I morally support them or ever will). Reagan was far more moderate than what we have today, but don’t let it fool you that the policies he passed significantly contributed to the wage gap we have. Sorry for dumping politics in here.

-2

u/Crafty_Currency_3170 17d ago

You'll probably be able to add Canada to that list in a decade or so.

-1

u/tc_cad 16d ago

Maybe less. Next government will either be a shadow of its old self or a new leader that will give its own spin on being Trumpish.

-3

u/BIGDADDYBANDIT 16d ago

We could use another 10 states.

1

u/WestEst101 16d ago

Actually, the US would much better off if the northern richer states just joined Canada already

0

u/UtahBrian 16d ago

Argentina opened its border to mass immigration in order to cut wages and increase corporate profitsin the early 1900s. The newcomers immediately started voting for socialism, fascism, and more socialism. And endless corruption.

It's one of the dangers of large scale immigration.

2

u/JerrytheK 16d ago

My wife had dinner last night with an Argentine. He said post WW II, a lot of communists/socialist from Spain and France emigrated to Argentina and then helped with the drift towards socialism. As Margaret Thatcher said (though she actually didn't) "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

85

u/zehcoutinho 17d ago

I’m from Brazil, and back in the day my city got lots of Argentine tourists, and their nickname here was “dame dos”, which roughly translates to “I’ll take two” hehe

8

u/jstax1178 16d ago

Venezuelans were the same at their peek too, everywhere they went “dame dos” lol Venezuela is a shit, I’m sure Argentina is still better off.

1

u/New_Ambassador2442 13d ago

Give me two*

61

u/mattyrob88 16d ago

To my understanding, the completion of the Panama Canal did a number on the Argentinian economy, as BA was no longer “on the way” for all manner of shipping anymore. Certainly their voting habits throughout the subsequent decades of the 20th/early 21st century set them back decades on the development index, but it seems to me like the Panama Canal was a catalyst of sorts.

29

u/emessea 16d ago

Think it also had to do a lot with being an agrarian economy, and the land owners fought any industrialization which they felt would diminish their influence.

4

u/SlypherAllin 16d ago

This is the main factor. We call them "Sociedad Rural / The thousand families".. Rich people who do not care about the general welfare of the country. Same old story.

1

u/mwa12345 16d ago

Also . Being an economic colony without politician takeover?

59

u/adiabatic-mind 17d ago

You can thank the fascist military dictatorship of the 20th century for this. For decades it drove argentinas economy to the ground and to this day it never recovered

99

u/Specialist-Guitar-93 17d ago

Chile recovered, Brazil recovered, if your reasoning that fascist dictators are the reason Argentina never returned to prosperity, explain its immediate neighbours return to the big league of stability and relatively good economic growth.

Whilst I'm not doubting a centralist, nationalist, military centralised planning based economy is a shit idea. Being under a dictatorship isn't why their economy is so shit.

Go and listen to the rest is history podcast, it does a great 10 part series on Argentina and it's military dictatorship and you will see that it was essentially down to the currency going down the shitter, exports drying up, turning them into an import economy with no capital or fluidity to prop up a flailing currency, hence runaway inflation.

25

u/ItsKyleWithaK 17d ago

Centralized planned economy? In a right wing fascist dictatorship? Propped up by the U.S. in order to prevent socialism from gaining ground in Latin America? Not saying you’re wrong, but that doesn’t sound right, albeit I know little about Argentine history.

43

u/Specialist-Guitar-93 17d ago

Basically the short answer is, the first dictator of Argentina wasn't really fascist, he was a weird mix of populist (he gave working people a massive lift out of poverty, his wife Eva was the driving force behind it), centralised economy, relied on the military to remain in power, but he also regularly met with trade unionists and gave them a lot of what they asked for, education, housing, benefits etc He had the cult following that you would associate with fascism but I don't think Peron would be fascist. After his death (he was ousted before he died and tried to return, it involves witches and necromancers really interesting story), the country steadily slipped further and further right, lots of anarchist and communist bombings, it culminated in the Falklands invasion as a final gamble to retain power as they knew that the economy was so dire that they were fucked. The final dictatorship was were the most "disappearings" happened, flights into the Atlantic were prisoners were chucked into the ocean alive etc.

14

u/ItsKyleWithaK 17d ago

Ahh that makes sense, i confused Peron with that one final one. I remember reading a little about him in Che Guevara’s biography. Definitely an interesting dude from a historical standpoint.

16

u/Specialist-Guitar-93 17d ago

Yeah, Argentine history is wild last century. That's why all those words I used shouldn't make sense. But it's because they tried to do everything for everyone with none of the money to do it lol.

Spotify : The rest is history podcast

Excellent podcast.

2

u/annieca2016 16d ago

He did return to power. He was President again from 1973 to 1974 when he died. His third wife, Isabel, was his vice president and so became president. She was the one overthrown by the junta. She was pretty inept, inflation had reached 3000 percent by some metrics, and the Peronist party had split into right- and left-wing factions, causing the junta.

1

u/A-NI95 16d ago

The more I know about Peronism the weirder it gets lol

0

u/Remote_Ad5082 16d ago

Peronism is 100% Argentinian fascism. All the other things mentioned in this thread aren't though. Brazil and Chile never had fascism, and Argentina didn't again after the death of Evita.

20

u/Lieutenant_Joe 17d ago

I’m not gonna pretend to be able to give you a specific answer to your question, but I can tell you as someone with a moderate amount of interest in the topic of 20th century American foreign policy: America’s single-minded policy of “stop communism at all costs” led to some very goofy alliances, some of which were with folks who had a lot of communist ideas but chose not to package them with that label.

2

u/A-NI95 16d ago

Modern Americans like to conflate interventionism, even the mildest versions of it, with socialism/communism. But there are plenty lf examples of the opposite side of the spectrum going interventionistst. Different flavours of far right loved to have a big state not only politically but economically, be it either with nominal "worker" discourse, to appease the working class, because they liked the power, because of nationalist ideas...

7

u/french_snail 16d ago

Argentinas decline started earlier in relation to their major export being beef and the markets crashing, but the fascist government certainly didn’t help lol

4

u/greekfreak15 16d ago

Argentina's economy was already in the shitter before the Dirty War

15

u/meldirlobor 17d ago

I'd say the responsibles for Argentinian economic collapse was #1 Menen and #2 The Kirchners.

3

u/Entropy907 17d ago

Seems like there’s a lesson here (??)

0

u/froyolobro 16d ago

Ah nice so a taste of what’s to come for us in the US

5

u/Dai-The-Flu- 16d ago

As an immigrant destination it was seen as on par with the US

0

u/topbananaman 17d ago

I mean argentina also purged their native population, so I guess they're similar to the US in that regard?

1

u/ArminOak 16d ago

Has there been a "Make Argentina Great Again" movement yet? Maybe MArGA,