In these weeks, the question of the renegotiation of the debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be at the top of the agenda in the public discussion. More after the resignation of Maximo Kirchner as head of the ruling bloc in the Chamber of Deputies.
Argentina again incurs the recurring problem of indebtedness, monetary issue and a significant deficit in its public accounts. Borrowing at exorbitant levels is already part of a constitutive condition of the country: if there is no enormous debt, it is not Argentina.
Argentina’s interaction with the IMF fits in with the double bind concept developed by Gregory Batson to understand communication with those who suffer from schizophrenia and addictions.
Bateson was a typical exponent of California thinkers, from the area called Bay Area, where a large part of the ventures in the digital field were later developed. Biologist, anthropologist, pioneer of cybernetics, he was a sponge that absorbed various ranges of knowledge to later create very creative theories. The one who suggested that I give him deep readings was the philosopher Alexander Piscitelli twenty-five years ago, when I had to coordinate a working group that included alberto ure and occasionally Oscar Landi. A dream team of thought and action.
For Bateson, the double bind is characterized by these conditions:
- Two or more people: here the protagonists are Argentina and the IMF. Argentina would be, in Bateson’s terms, “the victim”.
- Repeated experience: the “victim” has this experience repetitively so that it appears as a habitual experience. Argentina is indebted beyond his capacity, he affirms that he is going to pay and whoever reaches him the sums claimed pretends that this affirmation had some trait of reasonableness, which it does not. A game of simulations is established by both parties.
- A negative primary mandate: “don’t do that, I will punish you”. There is always a relationship based on punishment and not on reward.
- There is a more abstract secondary mandate where survival is at stake: “don’t doubt that what I do is for your own good, it is not a punishment”. The IMF’s “recipes” are always intended to save, “cure” the sick.
- A tertiary negative mandate that prohibits the victim from escaping from the field: leaving the IMF or declaring default is always the non-option.
- These conditions or ingredients become unnecessary when the victim has learned to live under double bind patterns.
Argentina has immersed itself in a new sequence of negotiations where the communication between the parties is impregnated with unlabeled, unconventional metaphors..
As communication levels are multiple and simultaneous in developed democratic societies, where freedom of expression prevails to an appreciable degree, relationships based on the double bind spread throughout all public spheres.
Hence, a large part of the debates between politicians and economists, the media columns – this one of course – and family and coffee chats are affected by this type of relationship. This is seen in a remarkable way in the “panelist” programs (talk shows) where much of the discussion deals with the double bind. This causes the dialogues built from fractured logics to be projected, in a Borgean way, like mirrors.
Nobody expects Argentina to order its economy in relatively orthodox terms or that it deigns to comply with the clauses of the successive partial agreements that will come with the IMF. Or if?
hence that is more and more present the attitude of leaving the labyrinth from above and breaking this link. This is reflected in the continuous drainage of young people who progressively, slowly and steadily seek their future in other parts of the world. It is our circular destiny.
Christian Schwarz is a Ph.D. in Sociology (UCA). Professor UCA, UNTREF, UCES.
by Christian Schwarz
