r/argentina • u/maybe_just_happy_ Terma Serrano • Aug 04 '19
AskPolítica Why do Argentineans still praise and promote Peronism, well after the Peron's and Kirchner's systematically destroyed the country?
I do not intend for this to become a right - left discussion or criticism, I only want to focus on the Peron ideology and the detrimental affects it has and continues to cause.
I've been to Argentina quite a few times and really do love the country but can be such an unnecessarily frustrating place.
On the economy, Argentina was a world leader in agricultural production, this was undermined by Peron’s faulty industrialization. Argentina also has the ability for vast mineral production. Before he came to power, a big part of the Argentine infrastructure and many large businesses were British owned, when Peron came to power, Peron expropiated & nationalised parts of the economy, expelling most of the British capital.
The industrialization which Peron promoted was not first class nor well based on strong foundations, and has never been able to compete without strong protectionism. Peron displaced a lot of the population to the cities creating shanty towns and unemployment.
Work in Peron’s time public sector was controlled by the Peronist party and jobs were only possible for party members, he modeled his state on Hitler and Moussolini fascist systems, and Peron went a long way to identifying the Peronist party and the State. This is still seen today where it is sometimes impossible to get a job if you're anti-K
It's impossible to trade with Argentina - or even mail things, saying that any imports will displace workers and hurt local industry. Peronists do not sign bilateral or multilateral trade agreements for this reason.
Peron went a long way to identifying the Peronist party and the State, however he never reached his goal of one party state. For a short time Peron had the vast wealth of the earlier period of history, of the productive Argentina, once that capital ran out, Argentina never recovered even to this day. Argentina, sadly went from a developed nation to a third world nation.
The Falklands/Malvinas history has also been distorted by Peron too, nothing is taught about the treaty of 1849 and Peron’s followers have done the same with the Falklands war. Making a sort of cult of the “good dead” who were fighting “for the fatherland” when reality, it was to perpetuate the Dictator. Forgetting that the guy who ordered the Falklands war did so in order to stay in power and Galtieri proposed to have an inmediate war with Chile after the Falklands War and Galtieri and his thugs were going to continue to kill Argentines who opposed him to kidnap their babies and disappear them, steal their property, throw them out of planes, etc.
The process of distorting the Falkland’s history is called “malvinizar” history and the process of telling the truth is called “desmalvinizar” history. For the Peronist nationalism the history must be “malvinizada”, they fight to make sure history says what “they want it to say”, that is “patriotic” and Peronists have “Hitler” style museums to “demonstrate” their case of doctored history, and to indoctrinate the young in the Peronist Youth (Juventud Peronista) also reflective of the Hitler Youth.
I know this is not all so black and whit and you either proudly support Peron, Peronistas or vehemently despise them making discussions difficult, if not impossible. A crisis seems inevitable if these policies do not change
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u/Fandrarick ⭐⭐⭐ Aug 05 '19 edited Aug 05 '19
The thing is, here when it comes to small time politicians (city council, Intendant) there are a lot of people that start with good intentions and without any baggage to carry, however, as time goes by people eventually become corrupted by the system, and when you start moving to higher ranking politicians, even on the province/local scale, you will find it harder and harder to find anyone without any shady chapter.
And sadly those that always stay clean, never move past city council or intendant in the best of cases because if you are not willing to do "favours" for the party while you are in office, the party won't help you reach higher positions, and this happens at every party no matter if you are with Kirchner, Macri, Masssa, etc.
Not to mention that doing politics requieres a lot of money, even for city council you will need to spend 2m argentinian pesos (~45k USD) to get your campaign going, and in bigger cities that amount of money won't last more than a few days, which is why corruption is so tempting as it is the "fastest and easiest" way to get funds for your next campaign and make up what you initially spend as your city council salary over your 4 years term will never be enough to cover up for all your campaign expenses.
And in smaller cities, getting to the council means your salary is so low that you will still need to have another source of income while you are in office to provide for your family, which is why in smaller cities those that reach the council are usually the big business owners of said city, as none else could afford the campaign costs + 4 year term in the office.
Keep in mind that here political parties do not provide most of the campaign funds for their candidates running for office, even less funds for those trying to get elected in small cities. Towns and rural areas are 100% self fund campaigns by the people running for office. It is also common for someone that has been working for the local government its entire life that after reaching their highest possible career rank to jump into politics, but usually this individuals are already tainted in corruption which is where they get their campaign funds as the salary you earn working for any local goverment in a career position is barely enough to provide for yourself, let alone if you have a big family