The Economist, you should be careful. What you regard as a “Parable” in the last century of Argentina, in fact, observed from this southern point of view could be a “Hyperbole”.

It is true; as The Economist says in its leading story, a century ago when Harrods decided to set up its first overseas emporium it chose Buenos Aires. It is also true that between 1895 and 1914, the number of Argentine industries grew from 22.000 to 48.000. However, it is a little unfair to forget that during those years Argentina was also one of the most unequal countries in the world. Poor immigrants, most of them without political rights, mainly composed the labor force that made Argentina stand out as the country of the future[1]. And yes, of course this scenario was the best place to open one of the luxurious stores in the world where even today, only the richest people can buy.

Your article makes an excessively light racconto of such a long period of history. Argentina is full of episodes of cruelty in its history. The country endured not only five (yes, five) dictatorships, but also faced social revolutions as “The Tragic Week” in 1919, “The Rebel Patagonia” in 1921 or the “Napalpí Massacre” in 1924. All those events are part of the history of a country that learned that democracy is a value that must be cherished. The racconto, if you are going to conclude that governments matter, should include other episodes in the history of the “developed” countries that took place in the same period of time. Should we start with the list now? In fact we consider the list of history as absurd as your résumé of Argentine history…

Argentina is a country that is built on social basis, respecting human rights without privileges granted by blood (as it is the case, for instance, in Great Britain). Throughout the same 100 years between 1914 and 2014, we didn’t prosecute and segregate people because of religion or skin color. And if we used to have social privileges, those were overturned by what TE call the illiterate populist that shaped our country.

I think it is a little bit simplistic to blame Juan and Eva Perón for our economic problems focusing on personalities and influence. It is necessary to remember that Perón was an elected president and he was the one who promoted the most astonishing rise of the middle-class in Argentina.

It is hard to believe that the same country that TE catalogued as the country of the future in 1914, during that “golden age” did not recognize that men and women were equal and didn’t even have a national health service. It is important to remember that all those rights that Argentina enjoys today did not exist before Perón.

But again in 1955, the country and Perón (an elected president) suffered a new coup d’état. This one started with a bombing over Plaza de Mayo, killing more than 300 people and obligating Perón to exile in Paraguay. This episode will be remembered as the largest aerial bombing on mainland Argentina. It is hard to believe that after all these episodes Argentina was finally able to build strong democratic institutions. Nowadays the country enjoys its largest period of democracy in its history.

We try to find common elements to compare the government of Perón with Chile during the 70’s (a cruel dictatorship branded by your article at The Economist as a model of economic reform!), but we failed to find any. To make things worse, TE does not seem to consider how Chile is still paying its debts with democracy.

When I first saw that Argentina was on the cover of the prestigious magazine The Economist I was very happy. I was happy because I expected to read an interesting article, from a different perspective, from what is known as a respectable magazine. What I found reading this article was a very poor piece of journalism, full of inaccuracies and with a complete lack of evidence, numbers or any index which make me believe that this article is nothing more than a biased opinion.

The hyperbole of Argentina is reflected on its capacity of learning from its own failures and recoveries from these. Argentineans were able to build a strong democracy that has nothing in common with western economies where wars (too many to count), debt, unemployment, current account deficit and oversized financial sector are not offering anything that could serve as an example.

I must say that I agreed with TE at one point: a good government matters. But I also have to say that this is not enough to run a country. Fortunately, Argentina has 42 million people that believe in their country and have something else to offer than beautiful landscapes and amazing football players. And please, if The Economist thinks that we just “burn” raw beef… You had better accept our friendly invitation to enjoy a true ASADO!

[1]Between 1880 and 1920 a total of 500,000 immigrants arrived in Argentina.