how long can the Argentinian dream last?

But by the Cold War Canada was not only just next to the USA (so there is plenty of trade across the border) but also needed for NORAD while Australia was the bulwark of the American lead military alliance in the Southern Pacific. The USA doesn't need Argentina to defend from Soviet bombers nor it needs bomber bases here to kill its enemies, so it wouldn't really make a difference.
Economically it would help.

Also, you just outlined more reasons why "lol Argentina could have been like Canada/Australia if they were a little more British master race" arguments are stupid.
 
by 1913 Argentina was the richest country in South America and among the richest in the world, well Beyond France or Italy and on par with Germany, maybe even more. The decline of international trade and the political instability brought by the wars slowed down the amazing growth and locked Argentina in a cycle of political killings, dictatorships, boom and bursts. Without the wars, or with far shorter ones, could Argentina have mantained its wealth? will there be a war with Brazil, can the naval race continue? tell me what you think

The wealth of Argentina was not based on a self-sustaining engine though. It was based on an engine very dependent on outside factors.

Further, the state of education in Argentina was much poorer than in countries like Canada and Australia, which in 1900 appeared similar in many respects - right down the the vulnerable economies.

Poorer education in 1900 meant worse educated (or just less) professionals in 1930 than Canada or Australia and poorer education in 1900 meant worse educated leaders in the 1940-1960 period. And a weaker educated class and weaker leadership meant that Argentina didn't handle the challenges of the 20th Century as well as Canada or Australia did, so that translates directly into lower economic growth.

One can propose that the Great Depression might be avoided, or the OPEC embargo avoided, or the Falklands War be avoided. But one still would not address the fundamental area of relative weakness.

So IMO, the way for Argentina to perform better is not to avoid any one crisis, it is to go crazy for education as early as possible so that it closes the gap from their OTL level to the level that Denmark had reached by that point in OTL. Probably the simplest way to achieve this would be to have Argentina somehow avoid the civil wars between the provinces and Buenos Aires, meaning less is wasted in war and there's time for better education systems to grow naturally. That's a 19th Century PoD of course...

In the 20th Century, though, it's not unrealistic to have a crusading education reform movement such as that which produced the revolution in education during the twilight years of the Tsarist empire.

Even so, if the PoD is in 1900, I'd still predict that Argentina would flag during the alt-Peronist era, as the generation who had been educated before 1900 would still be deficient compared to later generations.

So I don't see how Argentina can avoid flagging in relative terms in the mid-Century without a second PoD. But they would be well positioned to gain ground in the last third of the 20th Century, perhaps seeing Argentina emerge as one of the top 10 economies in the world by the start of the 21st Century.

EDIT: Why would Britain put the war at Europe at risk just for a few lousy islands down in the south Atlantic that are nearly empty of people and, as far as they know, barren of resources?

Because the Falklands, along with Panama, is one of the key points controlling traffic between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Controlling sea lanes is THE main resource for the British Empire.

Considering that the UK in WW2 can re-orient trade to other food producers like the US, Brazil, Canada (if Canada mobilized for war less) and Australia (if Australia mobilized for war less) at the cost of winning WW2 slower, it has to be in very desperate straits to consider giving the Falklands up to keep access to Argentine food.

Also, the Falklands were a very profitable colony for its size. Wool may not be big business now, but up until the collapse of the Soviet Union, is surely was. (Though the Falkland Islands wool industry is now making a profit again, which I never thought I'd see.) And back during WW2, it still had a big part in the whaling industry in the South Atlantic, so it was hardly "barren of resources" even if you ignore their extreme strategic value.

fasquardon
 
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Argentina's prosperity, as Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla was right in pointing out in his previously-linked essay, was more fragile than that of Canada or Australia.

http://archive.economonitor.com/blog/2014/02/argentina-the-myth-of-a-century-of-decline/

With a stronger oligarchy and lower levels of human development, Argentina was bound to encounter greater problems than Canada or Australia come the Great Depression. Some degree of relative decline, relative to the United Kingdom that was its major trading partner and to the southern Europe that was its largest source of immigrants, was probably inevitable. Considering that Australia itself experienced a certain level of relative decline in the post-war period, as western Europe recovered and became richer, some decline for Argentina is probably inevitable.

This does not mean that the degree of decline was inevitable. Diaz-Bonilla is right in pointing out the 1970s, when political chaos led to a military takeover and terrible misadministration, as a major turning point. Had Argentina remained politically stable and continued on its trend growth, in terms of per capita wealth the country might look more like Spain or New Zealand now. It would still be relatively poorer than Canada or Australia, but not that much poorer.

An Argentina that managed to become a founding member of the major Western alliances after the Second World War, getting locked into the plethora of political and economic and military agreements knit together by the United States, might well be locked into a more positive trajectory. How you get that is a different issue.
 
Is it really that hard to stay on the same trend with Can/Aus (if somewhat lower) if they avoid going into dictatorships etc mostly post WWII?
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http://archive.economonitor.com/blog/2014/02/argentina-the-myth-of-a-century-of-decline/

Can/ Aus is part of the British Empire and had better access to the Imperial market.
 
To put things in perspective, I'm pretty sure that Argentina has the highest living standards of any country in South America, though this may not be true as of the date of my writing this since they are going into another economic crisis.

My brief take is that the problems with Argentina have three sources:

1. Its a resource extraction economy and there is not much you can do about this. They did try, and not without success, to industrialize.

2. Very corrupt civilian politicians. This is how they are different from Canada and Australia where the pols are less corrupt.

3. An army both willing to intervene in politics and repeatedly and obvious incompetent at actually governing the country.

However, all Latin American countries have historically have had problems with # 2 and # 3. For a Latin American country, Argentina had a good deal of Italian immigration, but Italy is also known for corruption and less than competent government.

One POD is to have the British succeed at Buenos Aires in 1807 and to turn Argentina into a British colony. The most realistic twentieth century POD is better military juntas, who wind up setting up something on the lines of the PRI regime in Mexico.
 
But by the Cold War Canada was not only just next to the USA (so there is plenty of trade across the border) but also needed for NORAD while Australia was the bulwark of the American lead military alliance in the Southern Pacific. The USA doesn't need Argentina to defend from Soviet bombers nor it needs bomber bases here to kill its enemies, so it wouldn't really make a difference.
Maybe if Brazil became Communist and the US needed a South American counterweight?
 
One POD is to have the British succeed at Buenos Aires in 1807 and to turn Argentina into a British colony. The most realistic twentieth century POD is better military juntas, who wind up setting up something on the lines of the PRI regime in Mexico.

I've never been a great fan of this idea. The British had enormous investments in and influence on Argentina, Patagonia was heavily settled by British sheep farmers as well as by other groups. So Argentina was already a kind of British settler colony and economic colony. So what changes if it is an actual colony? Maybe the British can head off the civil wars that plagued Argentina in its early years, but at what cost? I am sure the British would also bring bad things if they directly ruled the country.

I don't think Argentina's problems would be solved by wise British suzerains "looking after them". More likely they'd swap some problems for other problems.

I do wonder how much of a negative impact the Falklands issue has had on Argentine development. In the Falklands we certainly notice how we are waved in front of the Argentine populace every time there is some internal problem. The whole invasion in 1982 was driven by the Junta's domestic troubles and they landed their troops in search of cheap political fuel. So if the Falklands sore had somehow been resolved or not become an issue after the end of WW2, does that mean Argentine leaders do a better job in dealing with the problems of the country?

I suspect that Argentina gaining full or shared sovereignty over the islands at any point after 1945 wouldn't make a whole lot of difference - more likely other excuses and distractions would be found, just as happens in anywhere else in the world.

fasquardon
 
I do wonder how much of a negative impact the Falklands issue has had on Argentine development. In the Falklands we certainly notice how we are waved in front of the Argentine populace every time there is some internal problem. The whole invasion in 1982 was driven by the Junta's domestic troubles and they landed their troops in search of cheap political fuel. So if the Falklands sore had somehow been resolved or not become an issue after the end of WW2, does that mean Argentine leaders do a better job in dealing with the problems of the country?
No. Chiefs of State will always look for smokescreens to cover their mistakes but, at the end of the day, that will always fail because all it takes to remember the economic situation is one trip to the supermarket.
 
I've never been a great fan of this idea. The British had enormous investments in and influence on Argentina, Patagonia was heavily settled by British sheep farmers as well as by other groups. So Argentina was already a kind of British settler colony and economic colony. So what changes if it is an actual colony? Maybe the British can head off the civil wars that plagued Argentina in its early years, but at what cost? I am sure the British would also bring bad things if they directly ruled the country.

Quite. I can imagine British rule over Argentina introducing the sort of ethnic issues, between different colonial populations, that Argentina has been lucky enough to avoid.
 
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