It’s no consolation for Alberto Fernandez, Sergio Massa and their collaborators, but almost every government in the world feels the victim of grossly unfair attacks by those who criticize them for their inability to meet the demands of their own supporters, not to mention the predictable hostility of those who have never loved them. They pray that the economy they are trying to manage grows large enough to allow them to reconcile with the citizenry, but they have every reason to fear that it will spin out of control at any moment. Although it has never been easy to combine economic vigor with an adequate degree of social justice, that is, to balance the economic with the political, today trying to do so tends to become more and more difficult, presenting dilemmas to the rulers that none of them seem to be aware of. in a position to resolve.
That this is the case should worry not only the current Kirchner government but also the leaders of Together for Change who trust that the electorate will soon ask them to take charge of the destiny of the country. Even if an eventual government of this type is a paragon of efficiency and communication skills, judging by international experience, it will not be able to count on the support of those who will have taken it for the lesser evil compared to the Peronists and the tempted by nihilism that underlies Javier Milei’s offer. As in other parts of the world, a very wide chasm has opened up between the reasonable expectations of the majority and the real possibilities.
What is happening in France, where President Emmanuel Macron finds himself facing a rebellion similar, albeit on a decidedly larger scale, to that of “the 14 tons of stones” he faced Mauricio Macri in December 2017, when he sought to slightly modify the pension system, is a good indication of what could await those who succeed the Kirchnerists in power. They will not only have to act rationally so that the situation in which the country finds itself does not become even worse, but also provide the measures they take with an emotional content strong enough to persuade the population that they are participating in a epic or, at least, of a valuable joint effort to which everyone will have something to contribute.
While the changes ordered by the French government are relatively bland and clearly logical, the fact that they are necessary does not help it at all. On the contrary, the arguments that deployment Macron to justify what he is doing harm him. When he tries to convince his compatriots that the demographic evolution of France forces him to implement unsympathetic reforms, since it would be worse than useless to pretend to believe that nothing important has happened in this field since 1881, the year in which the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck created the first state pension system, Macron reinforces the impression that he is an icy “technocrat” who by training is incapable of understanding the problems of ordinary people. The French love to believe that they are severe “Cartesians”, but it happens that they are just as vulnerable to populist statements as the inhabitants of the most depressed districts of the Buenos Aires suburbs.
It is understandable the nervousness felt by governments, and those opposition politicians who hope to take their place, when they think about the prospects for the international economy. Lately, they have seen the collapse of supposedly robust entities – before it collapsed, Silicon Valley Bank had more than 200 billion dollars in its virtual vaults – and The Credit Suisse Shipwreckwhose crew was rescued by another giant Helvetic, the UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland)which could well end up tainted by the ills of an acquisition that, had it not been for government pressure, it would have preferred to reject.
Thus, the epicenter of the crisis that has the various governments of the planet in suspense and was unleashed by the increase in the interest rate ordered by the US Fed to combat inflation –which, at 6 percent per year, is barely anecdotal by Argentine standards– has moved to the country that for many symbolizes financial prolixity.
The already almost universal sense of precariousness, that in a world of instantaneous electronic communications even seemingly secure schemes can be disrupted overnight, has been intensified by the realization that theories that once had the adherence of broad sectors did not provide the expected results. Unlike what happened in the past, there are no long-range projects that, according to those who have adopted them, will bear very positive results over time.
Both socialism and liberalism and their respective variants are no longer considered panaceas. They have been replaced by mixed schemes that at most work for a while until they are disowned. In many parts of the world, those most affected by the shape that economic development has taken have been those who lack the necessary attributes to prosper in an age dominated by the “knowledge economy” and who, to top it off, are often despised by members of the new elites who treat them as under-endowed bums. These neglected, in their own way equivalent to the piqueteros who regularly occupy the center of Buenos Aires, made it possible the irruption of Donald Trump in the United States and, in France, they are trying to evict Macron from the Elysée Palace.
In developed countries, the new elites are made up of people educated – their critics would say indoctrinated – in universities where many specialized in highly politicized subjects. Helping each other, they have managed to entrench themselves in highly influential positions in the media, academia and, of course, the political world where they have taken over the leadership of parties that claim to be progressive, marginalizing those from the traditional working class. .
Here, the situation is somewhat different, since the Kirchnerist attempts to create a permanent elite based on “the militancy” have been less successful than the efforts of those committed to the politics of the “woke” identity in North America, Western Europe, and Australia. The Kirchneristas have tried to import the most impressive slogans and aspirations, especially those related to gender, from the movement that was born in the most prestigious universities in the United States. They have done so in part because they understand that issues brought from the empiresuch as those assumed by “inclusive language” and “equal marriage”, can serve to distract the attention of the faithful from the calamitous results of their socioeconomic management, and partly because they like to feel like participants in a great international progressive movement, one that, needless to say, is much more influential than the one represented by the Puebla Group.
Although for some politicians it may be comforting to know that Argentina is far from being the only country whose economy is at risk of collapsing, since according to the UN there are fifty, including Turkey, Pakistan and Lebanon, that could end up crushed by their debts, for now at least it would not be in the government’s best interests if the world is rocked by a systemic crisis as serious as the one that followed the collapse of the US entity Lehman Brothers in 2008.
Despite the fact that Alberto and Sergio do not like it, it is nowhere useful for the rulers to point out that the problems they face are almost universal. Like their counterparts in Europe and North Americathey are right when they affirm that the pandemic, followed by the invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, have had a very negative impact and they ask their opponents to take them into account, but, unfair as it may seem, in all countries the majority tends to attribute the difficulties to errors perpetrated by their own government and to minimize the importance of phenomena of external origin.
Like the other countries, what Argentina needs to have the possibility of prospering is a benign international climate, that is, one of stability, with low credit rates; Otherwise, the strongest will not hesitate to take advantage of their advantages at the expense of the weak. To restore some order to an economy sick with chronic inflation and implement a program aimed at eliminating the most harmful distortions that have left three-quarters of a century of decadence, the next government will need to count on the good will of others, since without it it will have no possibility of receiving the investments it would need to make full use of material and human resources that remain available. It would seem that the presumed presidential candidates of Together for Change understand this very well, but in order to convince their interlocutors from other latitudes, they would have to show that they have the mental strength they would need to be able to achieve their immediate objectives before it is too late.
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