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Shut Up, Stiglitz

When it comes to Latin America, international analysts don’t see the forest for the ideology.

Taru Anniina Liikanen
9 min readJan 15, 2022

Earlier this week, Project Syndicate published Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s op-ed on “Argentina’s COVID Miracle,” arguing that, under the “center-left” Peronist government, the country has made an incredible economic recovery after four years of bad management.

The nerve.

Stiglitz is not only very selective with the information he presents in the op-ed, but also making another crucial and common mistake: trying to fit eurocentric terms on Latin America. It’s not just dumb for Argentina, but also for the US:

A Slow Descent

Let’s just quickly mention the fact that with a population of only around 45 million, Argentina has consistently been in the top 10 of COVID cases in the world, which makes the headline of the op-ed pretty ridiculous. But I understand this might be the editor’s clickbait and, since the focus of the op-ed is economics, that's what I’ll write about.

Stiglitz enumerates a couple of economic variables that are seemingly good signs for the economy, and doesn’t doubt to place the blame on the previous administration.

“Consider Argentina, which was already in a recession

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Taru Anniina Liikanen
Taru Anniina Liikanen

Written by Taru Anniina Liikanen

Stand-up comedian and recovering political ghostwriter. Finnish by birth, porteña at heart. Bad jokes frequent.

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