One of the most illustrative is Argentina, a nation that has retrogressed greatly over the last century, thanks to statist policies that undermined property rights, sound money, the rule of law, and more.
Here’s a letter in today’s Wall Street Journal making the point:
Mr. Meltzer omitted to thoroughly address the difficulty of changing a welfare state once it is established. Take the example of my native Argentina. During the first decades of the 20th century, it was one of the 10 richest countries in the world, driven by a vibrant economy, immigration and improving living conditions. Since the 1940s, many populist governments, including Peron’s, have been transforming Argentina into a welfare state where the government—not the private sector—is the lifeline of the country. As in the case of Argentina, once the culture and people’s expectations change to government-dependence, it usually takes several generations to become again a nation of entrepreneurship and self-reliance. If the U.S. continues in its current path, will it be in 70 years what Argentina is today? And then, how many generations of Americans will it take for the U.S. to become a start-up nation again?
Fernando Costantino
Bellevue, Wash.
