Joseph Stiglitz: Patron Saint of Latin America’s Radical Left

In his prologue to Carlos Rangel’s 1977 classic essay “From the Noble Savage to the Noble Revolutionary” (published in English as “The Latin Americans: Their Love-Hate Relationship With the United States”), French philosopher Jean-François Revel argued that Latin Americans are not innocent of “making up and propagating their own myths.” The problem is greatly magnified, however, because they are “enormously encouraged in such counterfeiting when the figments of their imagination and their illusions about themselves are sent back to them duly authenticated, bearing the stamp of recognition bestowed by the high priests of the European intelligentsia.”

In this vein, no other foreign intellectual in the last two decades has done more to confirm the destructive myths of Latin America spread by left-wing radicalism than economist Joseph Stiglitz. Armed with a Nobel Prize, Stiglitz has given credibility to populist and socialist regimes throughout the region, validating their disastrous economic and social policies.

In no other Latin American country has Stiglitz’s involvement with the populist left been more notorious than in Argentina. His relationship with the corrupt Kirchner dynasty has a long history that cannot be covered here, but one of the latest and most shameful episodes of his long-standing willingness to whitewash the Kirchnerite populist project occurred in 2022. In a column for Project Syndicate, Stiglitz went so far as to describe the policies of the Fernández-Kirchner government during the COVID pandemic as a “miracle.” Moreover, Stiglitz blamed all the country’s problems on President Alberto Fernández’s predecessor, Mauricio Macri (2015-2019). According to Stiglitz, “Given the mess that Argentinian President Alberto Fernández’s government inherited in late 2019, it appears to have achieved an economic miracle.” This “miracle” included high growth rates, employment recovery, higher taxes, growth in exports and debt restructuring.

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