Every day we read and hear that inflation, particularly food inflation, is the most complex challenge that the ruling Peronism faces in these elections to prevent the right in some of its brutal versions from returning to power.
It is difficult to find a more dramatic paradox: that in a country blessed with the most fertile soils in the world, food is very expensive for many of the middle class and directly inaccessible for millions of poor people.
Precisely, another of the paradoxes that most marked me during my adolescence was the one denounced by the socialist thinker Erich Fromm in his book “Psychoanalysis of the contemporary society”.
Fromm wrote that the capitalist system is so irrational that, in a world where many hundreds of millions suffer from hunger, a record food harvest can be not good news but bad news because it crashes food prices and hits the economies of many. countries that live by exporting them and that are full of poor people.
Paradoxes are like traps of reality. They are sayings or facts that seem contrary to logic, that contain contradictions.
The philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell was a master of paradoxes. One of his most famous is his barber paradox.
In a distant town in an ancient emirate there was a barber named As-Samet, skilled in shaving heads and beards, master in pedicure and in putting leeches for healing.
One day the emir noticed the lack of barbers in the emirate, and ordered that the barbers only shave those people who could not shave themselves. And he imposed the rule that everyone was shaved (it is not known if for hygiene, aesthetics or to codesimply show your power).
On one occasion the emir called As-Samet to shave him and he told him his anguish.
He told him that, as he was the only barber in his town, he could not fulfill the emir’s order himself: because he would be shaving someone, him, who could shave. But, if he didn’t, he would be disobeying the order that everyone be shaved.
His reasoning so impressed the emir that he rewarded him by giving him the hand of the most beautiful of his concubines (Russell’s emir did not consider gender issues). And so, the barber As-Samet lived forever happy and bearded.
But it is not always certain that a paradox will be resolved with a happy ending. Perhaps the best known is the statement “I lie”. If he lies, as he claims, he is telling the truth. But if he tells the truth, he doesn’t lie.
The current electoral campaign in Argentina is also populated with lies and scissors, and, to make matters worse, the kingdom of paradoxes has established itself. Let’s see.
Patricia Bullrich, and not only her, Together for Changethey are promising that they are going to make Kirchnerism disappear, which is a fascist, anti-democratic speech by those who called themselves defenders of the Republic.
But it turns out that, with the PASO and the post-PASO, support for Bullrich fell so much that Together for Change could not enter the runoff and, if it happens, as the polls suggest, that right-wing coalition could implode and, instead of exterminating Kirchnerism, as they promise, they will be the force that disappears without anyone having pushed them, except the terrible one. Macri’s management and his current two-pronged game, Bullrich’s discomfort with Melconian or his own clumsiness.
Although the provincial elections seem to reinforce JxC, radicalism, which is the real winners, is not comfortable with Macriism.
There are more paradoxes: that Bullrich’s strength is falling is good news for Massa and Union for the Homeland, because it consolidates his chance to contest the runoff with Milei. But, as colleague Pablo Ibañez points out, if PvC continues to fall a lot, the majority of your votes will have migrated to Freedom Advances and it becomes more likely that Milei will win the presidency in the first round.
Dear readers: we have more paradoxes for the lady’s wallet and the gentleman’s pocket.
Milei has successfully imposed that he is the one who will end “caste.” But it turns out that she already foresees strategic positions in her eventual government for people with patrician surnames (to the Central Bank – before burning it – to Emilio Ocampo Alvear Mihanovich Nazar Anchorena; the Ministry of Infrastructure to Bertie Benegas Lynch,). And he surrounds himself with people from the core of the economic political caste, like Cavallo, Roque Fernández or Carlos Rodríguez, executors of Menemism in the ’90s. And Milei flirted with Mauricio Macri until ten minutes ago.
Do you want more “chaste” than that? Does it call on the “caste” to fight against the “caste”?
Milei is an ocean of contradictions: its candidate for vice is the defender of that dictatorship that went to war against Great Britain over the Malvinas Islands and as its candidate for chancellor a woman who says that the Malvinas issue must be left in the hands of the kelpers.
Although perhaps instead of paradoxes it is simply hypocrisy.
But let’s continue with the paradoxes, ladies and gentlemen:
Cristina reappeared on Saturday shining as always, and in a moment it took its toll on those who reproached her for being silent and not supporting Massa too much when, as she said, it was she who was opposed to settling the official candidate in the PASO and with that she reinforced the I support Massa.
But it is true that there is another paradox: if Cristina decided to be more of a protagonist in this section of the campaign, the risk is that she will revive that situation where, due to her centrality, she weakens the image of autonomy and strength of the candidate Massa, as happened with Alberto Fernández.
The paradoxes do not end in politics. How else can we understand that at this time unemployment has dropped so much that in eleven urban centers in the country there is a situation that can be defined as full employment (when unemployment is around 4%) but, at the same time, Poverty, instead of falling sharply, has risen?
I insist that paradoxes are a kind of trap that reality poses to us. And many times we look for the exit by spitting upwards.
The right-wing poor are one of the terrible paradoxes of this world.
I don’t know if there are many poor people on the right in Argentina, but yes, we are at risk of being crushed by a paradox.
