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Argentine Sickness
| Article
# : |
13273 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1987 |
2,644 Words |
| Author
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Robert Wesson
Robert Wesson, a senior research fellow at the Hoover
Institution, has written numerous works on Latin America, the
most recent of which is the Latin American Military
Institution. |
President Alfonsin of Argentina has a special ambition: namely, to remain in office until December 10, 1989. This would seem to be a very modest hope, but accomplishing it would secure his place in history, for no civilian president of Argentina has completed a term since 1928. Since that date, there have been a dozen forcible changes of the top office, and the country has swung repeatedly between ineffectual civilian and unsatisfactory military rule. Moreover, many of the changes have not been mere palace coups, replacing a few persons at the top, but have looked something like revolutions, or intended revolutions, hoping to remake the national economy and society. Few countries have shown such instability in our times, certainly no relatively cultured and civilized nation, as is Argentina. Obviously the Argentines, people and elite, have been looking desperately for a way out.
Why they have been dissatisfied for many decades is clear: their history has been a sad disappointment. From the middle of the nineteenth century, when a nasty dictatorship was overthrown and a constitution was adopted, Argentina lived an almost uninterrupted success story until the end of the 1920s. It was one of the economic miracles of the age. Production and exports, based on the agricultural riches of the pampas, grew steadily; Argentina was the world's largest or second largest exporter of such products as wheat, corn, and meat. The population swelled by immigration; and Argentina became the richest, strongest, and most admired Latin American nation. By the 1920s, its per capita income was in the same bracket as those of the United States, Canada, and Australia, above that of most European countries. Its carefully nurtured educational system was among the world's best, as were its press and elegant theater. Its big spenders were the admiration
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