[likortera]

I lived for 20 years there. In my opinion the root of all problems there is that it is embedded in the culture to be as egoist as possible and to steal as much as you can from everyone else in the most ruthless and shameless possible way.

People usually complain about the government being corrupt and stealing to the people. But most people are the same, at their own level. They will try to steal as much as they can at their level or what is close to their hands. From bit paying taxes to actually pocketing others money, etc.

I know it is not everyone, but it is the majority of the people that are like this, politician or not.

I still have a friend there, always complaining public services don't work (healthcare, police, etc) but then in the same conversation he says with a straight face that he prefers not to pay with credit cards or bank accounts because then he'd have to pay taxes and declare the money.

There are people like this all over the world, but the proportion in Argentina is huge, a big majority I'd say. It's part of the culture.

[dang]

Comments like this are always tough because on the one hand, (a) 20 years of experience is a lot and there are lots of interesting things to share out of that, and (b) denouncing entire cultures is internet flamebait for sure, and the kind of thing we routinely ask people not to do here. No doubt (b) is why users flagged your comment.

This comes up a lot in other cases too, e.g. "My spouse is from $country and I've learned that they $foo, $bar, and $baz as much as they can." Or: "I'm from $country so I get to say bad things about them."

In general, the "eschew flamebait" rule (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) has to take precedence because preserving the forum is more important than any specific discussion, and we're constantly trying to prevent this place from drowning in flames. It's really easy to understand how a comment like yours would land with someone else from $country (in this case Argentina), someone living there, someone having family from there, etc.

I don't have a great suggestion for how to rewrite a comment like this, except to say: reduce the generalization, be less judgmental, and instead emphasize your particular experience.

[199X]

Im Argentinian and lived here almost my whole life (30y) except a for 5 years in the Netherlands. I Agree with your comment, it is embedded in the culture. But I disagree that people are the same at their own level, on the contrary. The problem is that this is not a new issue, we have the same goverment for the last 20 years and inflation and corruption is always getting worst. During the 90s we had 1USD == 1Peso. Nowadays 1USD == 320Pesos, and thats 24% more than two weeks ago, and usually inflation is at least 5% per month!. I have no problem with high taxes if those reflect to the services goverment gives back (like the nordic countries). But if you pay 50% taxes on paycheck, then 20% on everything you buy, then 5% per month on inflation, and the result is an insecure unstable shithole is totally not fair. I promote paying and reciving paymentes on cash or crypto, and do my very best to avoid taxes, credit cards, bank accounts, etc. Because the politicians are destroying my country and I dont want to finance that.

[likortera]

In my opinion, people are destroying the country, not just politicians (they're people too, after all) because they would do the same the politicians do if they have the chance, for the same reasons you have (if I don't do it, I'm the only idiot).

It is a "positive reinforcement" loop with negative consequences for everyone and there is no easy way out of it.

I agree that you cannot be the only one "doing it right". Of course...that wouldn't fix anything and you'd be screwed. But do you see the problem? Everyone has the exact same argument you have for doing it, this the cultural thing I was talking about.

As another example, my friend's father passed away a few years ago. As everyone over there he had all of his saved money hidden at home. His own brother stole all the money just hours before his dad passed away.

As I said on my initial comment, this happens everywhere on every country, but the proportions and the impunity on which this shit happens over there is just unbelievable. This is an example of what I mean with "everyone would do it at their level". It's just that politicians have more opportunities to do it.

[the_af]

We haven't had the same government for the last 20 years, and furthermore, we've had corruption and economic problems for far longer than the past two decades (where, in fact, we experienced a limited recovery).

[SllX]

I can’t comment on Argentina specifically but something I find people often forget is that government is downstream from culture. It doesn’t matter what your structure of government is or the text of your laws are if the culture they sit within is corrupt and/or decadent.

[mgh2]

Yes, culture matters: https://trendguardian.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c...

[likortera]

Exactly. This is what I wanted to explain. You did it better. Thanks.

[bloomingeek]

My wife and I vacationed in Buenos Aires a few years ago because we read it was the Paris of the south. We enjoyed our trip, but what we found was far from Paris!

We rented a nice apartment from an expat from Michigan who married a Argentinian. In an email he practically begged us to bring $100 bills, which he would exchange for pesos at a much better rate then was available from local banks, which he thankfully did. When I asked him what was the deal, he told me the currency is so volatile there, the only protection was the USD, especially the $100 bill.

Most of the locals were friendly, the food was great. Public transportation was dirty and hot. We were constantly being approached by people wanting to give us "tours" around city for a fee. (We read about this before going!) The infrastructure everywhere was pretty bad, you had to be very careful where you stepped on any sidewalk. Not sure if we would go back, but we did enjoy most of our time there.

[the_af]

> My wife and I vacationed in Buenos Aires a few years ago because we read it was the Paris of the south. We enjoyed our trip, but what we found was far from Paris!

When people describe Buenos Aires as "the Paris of the south", this is what they mean:

That we have a great deal of Parisian looking architecture, especially in our "historic" sections of the city, such as microcentro.

That we have a greater deal of European influence than our Latin American neighbors. (There's also a racist implication that we are "whitest". Argentinians care a lot about skin colors, and for us, calling someone a "negro" is a common insult. There's a confusing exception here -- "negrito", "negri" or "negro" is an endearing term you can call a friend, but it's always insulting if you refer to poor people, "esos negros", "qué negros", etc).

Historically, the upper classes of Buenos Aires looked up to Paris. This has been replaced for admiration of the US, a long time ago, and is no longer relevant.

As for scheming locals and dubious tours: I find these to be the norm in many European cities as well. I was marked for tricking/mugging in Paris, Barcelona and Rome, so... another European influence I guess?

Dirt and poorly maintained infrastructure: sadly, you're right. We porteños -- the people from Buenos Aires -- are a very dirty people and we like throwing garbage on the streets, breaking public stuff, urinating in whatever place, etc.

[likortera]

You can consider yourself lucky if you didn't have your phone stolen at gun point

[plantain]

My SaaS product has problems with users sharing accounts - more than half the problematic users are Argentinians :(

Inevitably I will simply have to withdraw from the market there...

[fomine3]

Do you offer different price by country, like Netflix? If so, possibly worldwide abusers just impersonate as Argentinian and share the account.

[xkcd1963]

Man, I feel like being robbed when companies offer cheaper prices for other countries.

[plantain]

No, same price everywhere...

[Magnusmaster]

Taxes in Argentina are insane. If you have a 1000 USD monthly salary you will be taxed in the same way as a billionaire: you have to pay a third of your income and 3% of your total wealth (that is, everything you own) each year. And you can't even deduct most debts from the 3% tax. And you get nothing in exchange, because all the money goes to the politicians' pockets and a welfare state that literally hands out money to millions of people who refuse to work

[notch656a]

Doing Business* puts Argentina's tax on profit at 106%. That is, it is illegal to make a profit in Argentina. Legally every business must shrink until destruction.

https://www.doingbusiness.org/content/dam/doingBusiness/coun...

[likortera]

Yes, but it is a feedback loop into destruction. People don't pay taxes because of this, so the government increases taxes to collect more, so people pay less, so they need more. There is no way out of it.

[Finicky4482]

If you are an Argentinian developer working for a US company and want to do things the right way, you have to agree to a 55-70+% deduction from your gross income (adding taxes, fees from converting USD->ARS->USD which you can still do but who knows for how long, and so on)[0]. You could stay with ARS but with a projected annual inflation of 70% that doesn't sound too clever, plus you would automatically lose around 50% of the "real" value of your dollars.

Great! Now that your money is in the bank, pray for <deity> you don't fall into a bank run[1] and lose 65% of your savings[2]. The Central Bank still has reserves, but it doesn't look nice.

This applies to freelancing, but I can imagine most other areas work like this, with bureaucracy and pressure to SMBs working way right of the Laffer curve[3].

My point is, this is a negative feedback loop that (maybe?) started with the toxic vainglory of "outsmarting the system" but was fueled along the years with a general mistrust of banks/institutions, for good reasons. There are no incentives to do things correctly, and if some would appear it's likely set up for failure, because who says the next administration doesn't remove it and the show goes on?

Honestly, I don't know how (or if) it can be fixed at this point.

EDIT: Plus, it's really hard to see any of that tax revenue being put to good use. We're sitting at around 40-50% poverty.

[0] https://maxifirtman.medium.com/gu%C3%ADa-definitiva-para-cob... - second graph [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corralito [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corral%C3%B3n [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

[likortera]

I agree with everything you said. The system forbids doings things right. And I don't see any way out of it. The only realistic solution is to leave the country, which is what most that have the opportunity end up doing.

[G3rn0ti]

Free markets usually direct selfish interests of people to create overall benefits for the society as a whole (with the occasional exceptions of course). Immoral behavior and excessive egoism usually are the result of bad economic policies that act to hamper individual freedom. The behavior you observed in Argentina is most likely the outcome of generations of short-sighted government policies that empower a small clique but deprive a majority of their economic well-being. Tax evasion, corruption and social inequality are the direct result.

Bad monetary policy makes bad acting individuals: https://mises.org/library/ethics-money-production

[skeptikal]

There’s the joke that the real national sport of Argentina is “joder al próximo”.

[ggambetta]

"Prójimo"?

[tptacek]

If you want to make whatever point you're trying to make here, you have to write it a lot more carefully than this. Imputing negative traits to entire nations or cultures is explicitly not OK on HN:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[ggambetta]

I get where you're coming from. But I wonder how familiar you are with Argentina, though.

I was born and raised in Uruguay, a smaller neighboring country that shares a lot of traits with Argentina. I'd bet a lot of people from either country will not only agree with OP's characterization, but embrace it. This kind of behavior even has a name that carries positive connotations: "viveza criolla", loosely translated as "local wit". Behaving this way is considered the smart thing to do. Not behaving this way makes you an idiot.

I hated this mentality growing up. I never felt like I fit. I've now lived in Europe for the last 12 years and it feels a lot more like home.

[the_af]

Exactly, "viveza criolla". Well said.

[the_af]

Maybe he could have worded it better, but what he's saying rings true to me, an Argentinian living in Argentina.

Note I mostly disagree on politics with 99% of all other Argies posting here (let's say the kind of Argies who post on HN are self-selecting for the kind of politics I disagree with), but this bit is true: we are, at least in Buenos Aires, a selfish, cheating people. Nobody ever in Argentina thinks the rules and laws apply to us, we want to take every advantage we want, pull whatever lever from friends in useful positions, but we always, ALWAYS, complain when somebody else bends or breaks the rules.

"The politicians are all corrupt!" -- but never me.

"That guy drives terribly and jumped a red light!" -- but never me.

"He's cheating me on the price of this!" -- but I never do this myself.

"My employer is exploiting me!" -- but I, of course, always legally employ cleaning ladies for my own house.

This defines our national identity and it needs to be said.

[chitowneats]

This site is full of harsh criticisms of the USA. Not just of the government but of the citizens themselves.

You're correct about what the policy says, but enforcement doesn't seem to back it up in many cases.

Personally I don't see an issue with critiquing the dominant culture in any nation. GP made plenty of caveats about "not everyone" and the like.

I find such caveats to be nauseating, but they tend to be quite effective at preemptively disarming the type of insinuations of national or racial chauvinism that are exemplified by your comment.

[acchow]

> This site is full of harsh criticisms of the USA. Not just of the government but of the citizens themselves.

I think because YC is based in the US and most of the users here are based in the US then harsh criticism of the US (and its people) is acceptable.

[chitowneats]

Even for those who are not from the U.S.? Europeans in particular frequently vent their frustrations about the U.S., both realistic and unrealistic, in this space.

Would you feel better or worse if I elucidated my criticisms of Argentina en Español on an Argentinian website?

My intuition is that would be seen as aggressive or chauvanistic.

[NikolaNovak]

Normally I'd agree, but isn't "culture" basically by definition a common subset? Race and ethnicity are born into and I cannot do anything about it. Culture though is explicitly a descriptor of common traits one can generalize about.

Either way. I hail from a particular (different) country and I will make fairly confidently proclamations about cultural every-day ingrained corruption there. I have explicitly, consciously and purposely changed my culture as I vehemently disagreed with common negative traits of my previous and original culture.

[valcron1000]

Pathetic argument. What happened during the '90? Did the "egoist" people disappear? Or did they decide to be generous?

All of us are selfish, not only people in Argentina

[ab8]

How is this related to currency?

[likortera]

I'm not an economist. But I'm pretty sure a culture of stealing each other and not paying taxes is somehow related.

[notch656a]

Not paying taxes is the opposite of stealing IMO. It is the taxing that is theft.

[mgh2]

Exchange rates are indirect measures of the country's production vs. others. ex: 1 usd is worth more because its population has a higher output (GDP) relative to Argentina

[e_i_pi_2]

> it is embedded in the culture to be as egoist as possible and to steal as much as you can from everyone else in the most ruthless and shameless possible way

This sounds like an issue with capitalism and the rest of your comment aligns with that too. You also pointed out the dissonance between the complaints people have about the govt and the similar actions they take - I think a lot of that has the same cause. We have bad incentives at multiple levels because it's the water we're all swimming in

[GabrielBen]

This is a common argentinian conception, and it is a big misconception. Gov corruption is a lot worse in the united states. It's just that corruption is not a 1-1 correlation with the success of an economy.

Argentina has a poor economy because it is a half-capitalist half-socialist country.

[vkou]

Many of the European social democracies are also half-cap, half-soc countries, and they have far fewer economic problems.

They have a very different monetary system, though, and some of them are successful because the Euro lets them export their economic problems to their poorer neighbours.

[GabrielBen]

Argentina is way more socialist as measured in a controlled economy than europeans - some taxes are higher than 80% of net income and often exceeding gross income as well.

It is also way more capitalist than the US by having a large part of the population paying less than 5% income taxes.

The country is hard enough to explain without the constraints of a browser textbox.

[odiroot]

This sounds very familiar to a person from an ex-Warsaw-Pact state. My family told me similar stories about our communist times, when I was growing up.

People just got by with stealing and hustling.