Argentina: Past and Future

The last member of the brutal junta that led Argentina from 1976 to 1983 has kicked the bucket. Unwept, unhonored and unsung.

No, don't tell me to speak nothing but good of the dead; they spoke nothing good of the thousands of people they murdered. And don't tell me not to judge; they judged enough to torture and kill. These people - and I use the term loosely - have brought into vocabulary the word "disappeared." The 30,000 that were "disappeared" did not disappear. They were brutally tortured and killed.

At the beginning of 20th century, Argentina was not only one of the world's richest countries but also one of its most coveted. People dreamed of Buenos Aeros even more than they did about United States. Argentina at the time was synonymous with romance, beauty, beautiful architecture, luxurious surroundings, spectacular art and magnificence all around. It was the jewel of the civilization and one of its greatest accomplishments.

Fast forward to 1983. After taking the power in a coup, the military junta, not content with a seven-year-long reign of terror, decides to invade the Falkland Islands, a territory of UK. The English army routs the Argentinians, and the junta is deposed. The successive governments try different things to fix the country, all with partial results. In 2002, after a government debt default brought on by the previous administration's misguided policy of pegging the Argentinian currency to the American dollar, Nestor Kirchner is elected. In 2006, his wife Christina Kirchner is elected to succeed him.

Presently, Argentina is mostly distinguished by its fondness for psychoanalysis. Despite having one of the world's most psycho-analyzed populations, Argentina remains a basket case. Its per capita GDP is not much more than it was a century ago. 45% of its population live in poverty. And the beauty of the country has faded, to the point that people visiting Latin America think first of Rio De Janeiro and only think of Buenos Aeros as an afterthought.

How can this state of affairs be changed? How can a country that once was the best of First World but then became Third World again become First World? Well the first step to understanding that is what made Argentina magnificent in the first place. It was very much the fruits of passion and creativity that accomplished that feat. Psychoanalysis, seeing such things as pathological, goes to great lengths to wipe out these qualities in the people. Which means that in embracing psychoanalytic perspective the Argentinians lost what made them great in the first place; and the way to restore its original magnificence is to once more value and cultivate these qualities and profit from their implementation.

Another step is to trade on what Argentina has. Argentina has enough highly educated people to make more than enough capable engineers, and enough people presently living in poverty to make more than enough capable workers. Argentina does not have an adequate industrial base, which is why it has not thrived economically on a consistent basis. It needs to create a strong industrial base. Whether it's done through export-led growth like Asia, or internal demand-led middle-class growth like Europe and the United States, is not important. Either would create sustainable prosperity.

The economic policies under Carlos Menem were concerned mostly with dismantling the welfare state; but that has not even begun to solve the problem. Both European welfare states and capitalist economies like America are better off economically than Argentina. The real economic solution comes from production - and not only production but production of what people want to buy. And it is this that actually creates successful economies.

The early 20th century was a time that created a legacy of great embodied beauty - the beauty that is made possible when business and art, or the productive and the creative, elements, work together. Argentina was at the top of the world at this time. Re-vitalizing and cultivating its passion and creativity, while also implementing workable business policies, will empower both the creative and the productive potential of Argentina. And by working together they will re-create Argentina's magnificence and make it again the fabulous and coveted nation that it once was.