What is MacroWeb?

A PERIOD OF GROWTH

For a century—from the 1830’s until the Great Depression of the 1930’s—a period of pseudo-steady growth took place in Argentina. Thanks to the contributions of great leaders such as Sarmiento, Saavedra, Belgrano, Roca, and many others, a Constitution and a series of laissez-faire policies were drafted that helped Argentina incorporate itself into the world markets. With an economy dominated by agriculture and livestock raising, and a variety of exports—including corn, wheat, soy, meat, and wool—Argentina was able to attract foreign investment and increase its GDP considerably. This period was also a time of population growth, great improvement in the educational system, and an expansion of transportation infrastructure (railroads, subways, and roads were built).

But not all was well. This period was also characterized by a number of unscrupulous, power-hungry politicians who managed to take control of the government and advance their poorly-conceived ideas and policies. Some of their more notorious events include the Conquista del Desierto (The Conquest of the Desert, in which the Military killed or drove away the remaining aborigines from Patagonia in the late 1870’s), the tyrannical 23-year reign of governor Rosas (1829-1852), the distribution of millions of acres of land to a small number of families of the Argentine Aristocracy, and a military usurpation of the democratic government. External debt was significantly increased during this period as money was borrowed to build railroads, public buildings, and utility systems. And in 1922, during president Yrigoyen’s government, the first large federally-owned company was created: YPF, owner of all the oil wells in the country. It was here that politicians conceived a dangerous idea: that the federal government can be a source of national recovery.

The Great Depression of the 1930s deeply damaged the Argentine economy, which largely depended on investments and loans from the U.S. and Great Britain. It was a period of rising poverty, a trend that increased the popularity of extremist groups, both left-wing and right-wing. Juan Domingo Peron, who became president in 1946, was a member of such a group, one made up of military personnel with ideas that, according to my father, who lived through Peron's reign, "were similar to those ideas espoused by Hitler and Mussolini."

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