In the Aftermath of Peronism

...Reviewed by Arthur M. Shapiro Professor of zoology, University of California, Davis A couple of years ago I was in an especially remote part of Argentine Patagonia, nursing a beer in the wee hours of the morning...

...If so, there is hope for Argentina...

...Although it is not an easy task, he explains ho w a government could murder 10,000 of its citizens to suppress Marxism and yet run one of the most oppressively statist economic operations on earth...

...Gasoline prices are out of sight, even public transportation is in trouble, and the "Menemist bicycle" has quickly become a sign of the hard times...

...An unlikely savior, the playboy Peronist President Carlos Menem, continues his attempt to privatize State enterprises with limited success (who would wanttobuythem...

...All this is accurate as far as it goes, but because the cycle has been in place for a relatively short time, Lewis may have misjudged its permanence...

...He does try to temper his analysis by calling Peron the product of a military institution that is partly to blame...

...Paul Lewis agrees...

...As for the Left, it merely looks ridiculous as the bankruptcy of Marxism becomes widely accepted...

...The man said ruefully: "The trouble with this country is that nobody wants to work...

...Lewis skillfully interweaves narrative history with detailed case studies of particular economic sectors and descriptions of their behavior at various critical junctures...

...The Crisis of Argentine Capitalism is a meticulous account of how the wealthiest country in South America turned itself into aglobal basket case...

...Indeed, Argentina in the second half of the 20th century became a country where no economic good deed went unpunished...

...She told me she remained "a woman of the Left," albeit a disheartened one...

...The charismatic cashiered colonels, Aldo Rico and Muhammad Ali Seineldin, have virtually ceased to function as a rallying point for x?nophobes and Fascists...

...In fact, the inherent weakness in that "path of development," and the resultant maldistribution of wealth and authority, made some sort of social convulsion inevitable...

...The Seineldin-inspired uprising that erupted shortly before President George Bush's visit to Buenos Aires failed to gain any support and was put down forcefully, a clear demonstration of the Far Right's waning significance...

...Lewis concurs with this assessment, maintaining that "for three decades the common people gave their wholehearted loyalty to Peron and got, in the end, the kind of society they deserve...

...Reflecting on the economic ruin of present-day Argentina, shethen said something I found surprising: "The trouble with this country is that nobody wants to work...

...Eventually it will, mough it remains to be seen whether the remarkably general agreement on the diagnosis of the national disease will lead to its cure...

...The militant Peronist unions beat back a MenemistpuiscA and go on resisting economic rationalization, but most of the rank and file recognize the hollowness of the rhetoric...

...The reason is that however aware people are of the nation's central problem—like my Montonera barmaid and fellow travelers on the Mendoza bus—the lack of any solutions seems to have sapped motivation...

...would do well to note the disastrous consequences of Argentina's welfare for the rich, and of the all-too-cozy relationship between its government and the defense industry...

...We talked politics and economics...

...how such a heavily bureaucratized nation could have a practically nonexistent tax-collection system...

...Meanwhile everyone seems to bemarkingtime, waiting for something to happen...

...That message is chilling in the context of our own recent ethos of hostile takeovers, junk bonds and S&L piracy...

...Still, many who are knowledgeable about those times will take issue with the author's claim that "the estanciero oligarchy and domestic industry had, in the pre-Peron era, embarked onapath of development which, had it been followed, would probably have led to a system that would have been fragile and flawed in many respects, but essentially successful: somewhat like that of Italy...

...But to the old estanciero —the dominant group of wealthy ranchers that he and Evita battered without mercy—and soon to the intellectuals, it was apparent that a very high price would ultimately be paid for the new regime's largess and delusions of grandeur...

...My interlocutors were a very proper middle-class couple in their 60s—conservative, Catholic, patriotic, the sort of people who looked the other way when the death squads exterminated dissidents like my friend the Montonera barmaid not so very long ago...

...One tenet of pop psychology holds that being able to recognize one's problem is the first step toward coming to grips with it...

...Lewis tells the story of a society that converted the State into a broker among a multitude of contending interests, that raised whining to a premier civic virtue and at the same time emphatically discouraged anything remotely resembling innovation or enterprise...

...Certainly he did not anticipate a level of demoralization throughout Argentina that would curb the worst effects of the cycle yet make the outlook for definitive reform bleak indeed...

...The Army evidently has no will to rule, nor any illusions about its economic insight...

...Lewis' tale ends as the administration of Raul Alfonsin is reeling toward collapse—done in by its inability to force concessions from the Peronist-dominated labor unions...

...how the stevedores' union could be so powerful that shippers had to routinely figure into their costs the replacement of materials stolen from the docks in broad daylight...

...Peron created at least the illusion of empowerment for the working poor...

...That aspect of the book aside, The Crisis of Argentine Capitalism correctly traces the series of events following Peron's rise to power responsible for today's "permanent stalemate...

...As the definitive personality in the nation's modern history, he reshaped its reality...

...It is a truism that no Argentine of normal intelligence has a neutral opinion of Juan Peron...

...Comparisons to Poland are routine, yet the Poles have moved further in the direction of real change than the Argentines...

...A predicted re-escalation of social tension, radicalism and military reaction has not occurred...

...Initiative and daring were systematically penalized, while corruption and high-risk currency dealing flourished...

...He describes a vicious "political cycle" : Credit squeezes lead to austerity, which leads to social discontent, which leads to resurgent Peronist populism and hyperinflation, which leads to more social discontent, which leads to military intervention and repression, which leads to still more social discontent, which leads to a civilian restoration and the need for further austerity...

...A few weeks later I was far to the north, onalong-haulbusmakingits way through the foothills of the Andes in the Province of Mendoza...

...Only a masochist would have attempted a straightforward capitalist venture in post-Peronist Argentina...

...Lewis' scenario is purely an exercise in "What if...

...What is clear from this book is that a political culture that rewards insider trading and speculation and simultaneously discourages investment in infrastructure is doomed...

...The barmaid had once been a Montonera, a revolutionary Peronist...

...The U.S...

...how the military could develop its own net work of industries and use the excess production capacity—not to mention its political influence—to stifle competition in the private sector...