As an Argentinian I hate this meme. The statistics of the past don't account for the fact that Argentina -still is- but used to be a deeply, deeply unequal cou

As an Argentinian I hate this meme. The statistics of the past don't account for the fact that Argentina -still is- but used to be a deeply, deeply unequal country with a small cadre of families owning the vast majority of land, and then pretty much everyone else. That oligarchy engaged in multiple decades of election fraud, propped-up military dictators, and many other shady practices to remain in power. That doesn't matter much when looking at the general economic indicators for a country that exported huge amounts of food in a global context to two world wars and a destroyed Europe. Perón came from the military, he was a demagogue, and was a fascist sympathizer. He was also the among the first governments to actually develop institutions for a strong middle class, including hospitals, schools, universal policies that benefited the working poor as well as myriad other highly progressive laws. As with a lot of populist programs it came at cost far beyond what even the relatively wealthy state could afford, which combined with the opposition to Perón (both in the shape of the military, conservatives, and also liberals who opposed Perón's repressive personality cult) turned into his downfall. What followed Perón was another series of military governments and "democratic" governments with very limited power. The development of institutions that guaranteed middle-class wealth gradually slowed down, and the country has never been able to transition away from primary exports as its basic means of foreign currency. The substantial difference from its neighboring countries is that decades of failed monetary policy have resulted in some of the highest inflation in the world, and a great degree of that failure is no doubt due to the tension between conservative and Peronist policy goals. But make no mistake, it is also true that Argentina has a substantial, educated middle class when compared to its neighbors and I'm not really sure that would have been possible without a measure of populism being introduced to break from decades of oligarchs who cared little beyond getting grain from their fields to the ports. Perón is a polarizing figure because many can simultaneously attribute the rise of an industrial middle class to him as well as the subsequent degeneration of monetary policy and demagogue populist entitlement programs of dubious effectiveness. But I doubt its lessons translate much to current times.