Suchergebnisse

Extreme nationalism and a web of conspiracy theories make it particularly difficult to distinguish history from myth for the experience of foreign finance in Argentina. Julio Irazusta agrees with Raúl Scalabrini Ortíz that the London Loan of 1824 (the Baring Loan) was part of a system of spoliation, on a continental scale, by which Britons and their Government exacted full payment for the recognition of the newly independent Republics. Ortega and Duhalde report a gentleman's agreement between London bankers in the mid-1802s; Hispanic America was to be partitioned into spheres of influence and Baring Brothers were left with the River Plate. The British loans of the 1820s were intended to tie the new Republics firmly to Britain; default was welcome, since 'guarantees' could then be enforced by Britain's armed might. Baring Brothers are condemned for failing to pay up the full proceeds of the 1824 loan to Buenos Aires, for plotting to overthrow Juan Manuel de Rosas, for negotiating a harsh settlement of the debt in 1857, and for intervening in one way or another at every stage in the politics and economics of Argentina, even to the extent of promoting the Paraguayan War.

Untersuchung über die historische Bedeutung des britischen Kapitals im politischen und ökonimischen Entwicklungsprozeß Argentiniens in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Kritische Erörterung der Thesen über den maßgeblichen Einfluß des Auslandskapitals auf die Republik in den ersten 50 Jahren ihrer Unabhängigkeit

The dependency theory, under assault from Right and Left, is scarcely sustainable. Impatience with Prebisch's panacea, import-substitution industrialization, gave birth to dependency. A new bogeyman, the multinational corporation, now preoccupies the scholar and polemicist. Paradigms of Corporatism and Structuration supply the ongoing situation for further refinements in Confusionism. But this is the language of economics and political science. Students of chrono-politics (history) may still wish to inquire whether the historical evidence on which the dependency theory was based is more enduring than its currency in modern social science. The issues are very much alive. It was scarcely reassuring to be told, quite recently, that "radical writers on dependency are engaged in much productive and inventive research."

Would I be wrong in detecting a whiff of odium scholasticum? I am clearly not popular for poking fun at the language of modern social science, but I remain utterly unrepentant. It reminds me too forcibly of Section E, Umbugotology and Ditchwateristics, of Dickens' Second Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything. But worse, in my paper I "ideate" some fanciful notions on autonomy.

In general, we are all aware of the shortcomings of historical statistics. But this may be the moment, as the cliometricians dust off their computers, to take a closer look at one of the more attractive series, the statistics for foreign trade. Assuming that foreign trade figures exist at all and that they are not distorted beyond average by misrepresentation or fraud, the most difficult problems of interpretation are likely to arise over the origin and destination of the trade, the system of valuation of the products traded, and the classifications employed.