Argentine First World country in 2000

Max Sinister

Banned
What do the Argentinians have to do to avoid falling back?

Some ideas I had: A smart dictator (like in Singapore); right kind of immigration; avoiding Peronism; what else?
 

Xen

Banned
What if there is no Monroe Doctrine and Latin America is opened to European exploit? Argentina becomes a British Crown Colony, it finally achieves independence from Britain in the 1920's, but like Canada, Australia and New Zealand remains close to London. Assuming World War II isn't butterflied away, Argentina joins the UK in 1939.

By the 1950s, Argentina appears more independent than in years before the war, and has a very British style form of government. Like Canada and the US its an American nation made of immigrants with a British influenced government, becoming a two party democracy with incredibly high standards of living, and a stable economy. Argentina will be heavily industrialized in the north, while the south is mostly agricultural.

That would take care of the old Spanish power blocks. It would be intresting to see English surplant Spanish as the national language, but that doesnt really have to happen, maybe it will be like Canada, a bilingual nation.
 

Max Sinister

Banned
Now that would be a pre-1900 POD. No, I had something different in mind. In 1900, Argentine was comparably rich; the Argentinians could afford three times a steak a day while frex German workers lived of bread and potatoes. How can we make the Argentinians keep up?
 

Straha

Banned
Simply don't have Peron get in power. That's all you need. without peron, argentina participates in the post-WWII economic liberlization of the west.
 
LacheyS

LacheyS

Have it become more protectionist in the early 20th century. The need for its agricultural commodities means retaliation would have been less likely, while it could have had the chance to diversity its economy instead of relying solely upon imports for manufactured goods. By encouraging import substitution at a time of relative prosperity and stability, rather than at a time of crisis (in OTL, they commenced the process during the Great Depression), you may not end up with the military seizing control of things.
 

basileus

Try with a violent Communist revolution in the 20s, forever crushing the former colonial oligarchy, and a subsequent democratization from the 40s on (say, in 1940 another civil war liquidates the Stalinists in favor of a Trotskyist-Social Democrat alliance). Argentina takes active part in WWII from 1942, helping in the liberation of Italy, then stays effectively neutral in the Cold War (indeed, ironically it WAS by the time she attacked Britain over the Falklands: the self-proclaimed anti-Communists had Brezhnev as best friend!), a strong middle class emerges and sane economic policies, oscillating from liberalism to social democracy, are implemented, with a strong forcus on industrialization. In 1967 Argentina has the nuke, in 1975 the hydrogen bomb. By 2000 is the elader country in South America.
 

King Gorilla

I can think of a couple of things that would have over time enormously helped Argentina develop as a world power. While Argentina was the richest South American nation pre-WWI it still had an export denpendent economy. For all the beef and grain argentina produced to feed Britain, it didn't really make any manufactured goods for its own consumption. The effect of this was worsened by the fact that Argentina had an exceptionally low level of domestic investment during this time period and was consequently dependent upon Britain for investment capital. Thus the money earned by it's profitable exports never really stayed in the economy nor was it used to develop a large and healthy middle class. Worsening these problems was the fact that Argentina failed to find markets other than Britain after WWI and the value of food crops plummitted after nitrogen fixated fertilizar became widely available. And as a final unfortunate coup de gras Argentina had decades of repressive corrupt governments who stymmied the development of intellectual capital, disccouraged foreign investment and mismanaged poorly conceived import substitution industries.

Inorder to get best get a stronger Argentina in my opinion, one would need to get more internal investment leading to native owned businesses and industry, a more responsive government, and a more diversified export market so a British Recession wouldn't lead to an Argentinian recession.
 

Kidblast

Straha said:
Simply don't have Peron get in power. That's all you need. without peron, argentina participates in the post-WWII economic liberlization of the west.
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Both the US and Argentina experienced many of the same problems during the Great Depression. Unfortunately, Argentina had Juan Peron, while America had FDR. If Argentina had elected a better leader, they would probably still be first world.
 

Faeelin

Banned
King Gorilla said:
. While Argentina was the richest South American nation pre-WWI it still had an export denpendent economy. For all the beef and grain argentina produced to feed Britain, it didn't really make any manufactured goods for its own consumption.
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Is this so different from, say, Australia?

Also, I think it's a mistake to assume that industry = wealth.



And as a final unfortunate coup de gras Argentina had decades of repressive corrupt governments who stymmied the development of intellectual capital, disccouraged foreign investment and mismanaged poorly conceived import substitution industries.
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Agreed.

Hmm. I wonder if there's a way to get Argentina on the Allied side earlier in the war, so they're part of the post war trade liberalization agreements.
 

Max Sinister

Banned
OK, so we can agree that getting rid of Peron would help. What'd we need for that? And when we get rid of him: What to do next to ensure that Argentine goes a similar path as Australia?
 

Tyr

Xen said:
What if there is no Monroe Doctrine and Latin America is opened to European exploit? Argentina becomes a British Crown Colony, it finally achieves independence from Britain in the 1920's, but like Canada, Australia and New Zealand remains close to London. Assuming World War II isn't butterflied away, Argentina joins the UK in 1939.
Click to expand...

The monroe doctrine was a British enforced international law, most of the Americas were under British influence- Argentina was in the empire in everything but name.
 

Tom_B

Peron as Scagegoat

Argentina had a lot of economic problems before Peron, who tried to solve them but didn't too well. Have him butterflied away or killed in childhood may result in an even worse military dictator.

A better POD might be a short World War One (with no war being really short). The flow of international credit during the war caused major disruption and after the war it did not recover to anywhere near prewar levels. A short war would allow for more recovery. In my Operation Unicorn TL Great Britain and Germany will likely be competing financially in Argentina so it should do fairly well
 
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