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25 - Why Should We Cry for Argentina?

A Country Reverses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2022

Johan Fourie
Johan Fourie
Affiliation:
University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
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Summary

Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world in 1900. Its GDP per capita, according to the Maddison Project database, was $4,583. At the same time, Germany’s GDP per capita was $4,758, Sweden’s was $3,320, and Japan’s $2,123, the same as South Africa one year earlier, while Indonesia ($1,151) and India ($955) were comparatively poorer.1

More than a century later, in 2018, the situation was very different. While Argentina was four times as rich in 2018 as in 1900 ($18,556 vs. $4,583, adjusted for price increases), Germany was ten times richer in 2018 than in 1900 – a country, one must remember, that had suffered defeat in two world wars. Sweden was fourteen times richer. Indonesia was ten and India seven times richer.

Keywords

comparative developmentinternational tradeprimary goodsinward-looking industrialisationpopulismPeronism
Type
Chapter
Information
Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom
Lessons from 100,000 Years of Human History
 , pp. 147 - 152
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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