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In Argentina, public demonstrations and riots against the governmental austerity programs have resulted with the deaths of at least 22 people and the resignation of president De la Rua along with his cabinet. While economists and politicians are identifying whom to blame for the financial ruin of Argentina, I am of the opinion that the root problem rests with the preaching of the Free Market all over the world.

The Free Market economic philosophy is driven by the speculative incentive to make money with money and as a consequence people become a resource of the economic system to be exploited. The Free Market has been responsible for creating a wider economic gap between the rich and poor countries, and between the rich and poor people within a country. However, with the current world wide recession the Free Market seems to be unable to sustain itself and a strong sign of its collapse is being experienced in Argentina.

Argentina has been in recession for the last four years, unemployment is at 20%, inflation has been eroding savings, bank accounts have been partially frozen, and under the advices of the IMF the government has become smaller by cutting the number of its employees, by cutting their salaries, and by withholding the payment of pensions. And guess what? This government got smaller by increasing taxes too! This a counter intuitive phenomenon that our neoclassical economists and politicians cannot comprehend as they are intent in applying their immediate game theories to make money with money.

Argentina is on the verge of defaulting on its $132 billion US debt and today it has no government. Michael Shifter, an expert at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, says "These events have huge implications for Latin America, for prospects for free trade and globalization, because they put the whole economic model of the last decade under serious question." In the meantime, this is how the common people feel:

***"All I want is food so I can feed my family," cries Santiago Orozco

***"The real looters are in the government," said opposition legislator Alicia Castro

There is an understanding that in order to avoid an economic collapse Argentina may devaluate its peso, or adopt the American dollar or default on its public debt all together. This is an aspect of the Free Market, the colonization of common people by the power of money.

References:

Argentina teetering on the brink, by Howard LaFranchi and Joshua Goodman, The Christian Science Monitor, December 21, 2001 http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1221/p1s3-woam.html

Argentina collapses into chaos. President quits and 22 are killed as economic crisis worsens, Uki Goni in Buenos Aires, December 21, 2001, The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/argentina/story/0,11439,623448,00.html