Dani Rodrik: Naomi Klein is very hard to understand

Dani Rodrik's weblog: Some things are very hard to understand: For instance, how Naomi Klein was able to feel good about Argentina in 2002:

The only time she has ever felt a whiff of utopia was in Buenos Aires, in 2002, when the political system had virtually disintegrated—during the time that she and Lewis were filming “The Take.” “That moment in Argentina was an incredible time because a vacuum opened up,” she says. “They had thrown out four Presidents in two weeks, and they had no idea what to do. Every institution was in crisis. The politicians were hiding in their homes. When they came out, housewives attacked them with brooms. And, walking around Buenos Aires at night, there were meetings on every other street corner. Every plaza where there was a streetlight, people were meeting under it and talking about what to do about the external debt, I swear to God. Groups of one hundred or five hundred people. And organizing buying groceries together because they could get cheaper prices, setting up barters because the currency was worthless. It was the most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen.”

This is the same Argentina which had just collapsed into a severe economic crisis, with a more than doubling of the share of population in extreme poverty and a 10 percent decline in GDP.  I wonder how many Argentines were feeling equally euphoric. 

Comments

[Colin]

Out of context? I feel like she probably wasn't being insensitive to Argentinians but was commenting on potential.