Crack-up in Argentina
The comparative experiences of Brazil and Argentina suggest that, in Latin American countries, at least, rampant hyperinflation can be brought under control only by the exercise of the sternest authority. For the moment President Peron can depend on the support of the Armed Forces in her confrontation with the trade unions and other powerful elements in the coalition which her late husband created in order to restore him to power. But the economy and the social structure of the country are alike cracking up, and the Peronist movement lies shattered. There is evidence that the army is resisting intervention in the country's affairs only because it has vivid memories of the unhappy experiences of military dictatorship between 1966 and 1973. But to the north of Argentina the Brazilian generals not only bid fair to bring inflation under control, but are presiding over runaway growth as well. The Latin American tragedy appears to be the impossibility of combining democracy, control of inflation, and reasonable social reforms: even Chile, which once, it seemed, would be able to bring off this combination, has had to come under authoritarian military control. Since the Latin American experience also demonstrates that most military regimes are replaceable, it might well be better for Argentina to exchange the confined and dictatorial court of Senora Peron, which is incompetent, for a junta.
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