Forum user claims Argentina was wealthier than Spain until 1973

Argentina in 1951: When Buenos Aires was richer than Madrid

There is a date that surprises anyone reading it for the first time: according to calculations circulating in the material, Spain did not match Argentina's per capita income until 1973. Not in 1930, not in 1950. In 1973. During the 1950s and 1960s, indicators of literacy, motorization, healthcare, or telephony in Argentina and Uruguay far exceeded those in Spain, according to the same source. And in 1951, with Perón in the presidency and foreign debt recently settled, the South American country was still an agro-exporting power with a capital that seemed European. The question is not how Argentina was then. It is what peine afterwards.

From sixth world power to Argentine decline

At the beginning of the 20th century, Argentina was the fifth or sixth economic power in the world, according to one of the voices in the material. The material itself recalls this: the southern country fed Spain after the Civil War, in a context of international isolation of the Franco regime. In 1946, Juan Domingo Perón's government granted Spain a loan of 350 million pesos for food purchases. It was not charity: it was credit, and it was paid religiously, argues another voice. The supermarket on the corner also feeds people every week, one of the voices in the material ironizes.

The Argentine peak is situated between 1890 and 1930, according to one interpretation. The opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 changed maritime routes: until then, all ships heading to the US West Coast had to pass through Cape Horn and, probably, stop at the port of Buenos Aires, suggests a participant. When that stopover ceased to be profitable, the decline began to be noticed.

Perón, foreign debt and the 1955 coup

In 1951, Perón governed with a model that had settled Argentina's foreign debt, according to one version of the material. A British loan on which the country had been paying interest for a century was renewed again and again, the last time in 1933, and was definitively settled in 1952. This gesture, according to one of the most repeated interpretations in the material, was his great sin.

On June 16, 1955, a coup d'état overthrew him. The data provided by the material are stark: Sherman tanks shelling civilians, aviation and naval artillery bombing Buenos Aires, around 2,000 dead, according to that version. Videla's coup in 1975, according to the same comparison, was a joke in comparison. Afterwards, the model of a indebted country returned, with constant inflation and devaluations.

Why did Spain surpass Argentina in per capita income?

The short answer: because Spain grew and Argentina did not. The material poses it bluntly: war, post-war, embargo, autarky... and only then could growth begin. Considering that Argentina was a top country only fifteen years earlier, the time Spain took to match it seems even short.

Argentina's GDP during World War I gives a clue about structural fragility. The data handled by the material: 1914, -2%; 1915, +2%; 1916, +4%; 1917, 0%; 1918, -2%. An average of 0.4% annually in absolute terms, and negative in per capita terms due to population growth, according to a calculation circulating in the material. The 1918 flu also took its toll. It was not an unstoppable booming country.

Buenos Aires, scaffolding and urban decline

The Argentine capital retains traces of its former wealth. Astonishing buildings completely neglected, facades black from never having been cleaned, dead pigeons on balconies. An anecdote circulating in the material: former Madrid mayor Moneo said that to know if a city is doing well, you have to look at the scaffolding. New York is always full of buildings under renovation. In Buenos Aires, in two visits, only one was seen.

Havana produces a similar impression, according to another voice. Cities that were rich and became frozen in time.

The socialist narrative and the counterargument of data

Part of the material argues that decades of socialism turn any paradise into misery. The counterargument is that Argentina was not socialist in 1951, nor did Perón come to power until 1946. Before Perón, Argentine workers had their own struggles: the tragic week, the conventillo crisis, the subsistence crisis. Perón's mistake, according to one interpretation, was ignoring his vvife, who warned him about the sound of sabers.

Regarding the demographic composition of the country, there are statements in the material that are not supported by data and should be treated with caution. The majority of the Argentine population was never white, only in certain provinces, and within a couple of decades not even that, argues one voice. These are opinions, not censuses.

---

The surprising data remains: according to calculations circulating in the material, Argentina was richer than Spain in 1951, and Spain did not catch up until 1973. A twenty-two-year difference. No one has fully explained why the country that fed Spaniards ended up being the one emigrating to Spain.