After The Collapse  

Argentina is something of a poster-child for post-collapse states (albeit a milder case than places like Somalia and North Korea). "The Dominion" has a review of a new movie looking at the aftermath - "Argentina: Hope in Hard Times".

Throughout the nation of Argentina, tens of thousands of unemployed people search the streets and garbage dumps for recyclable products. Called Cartoneros, many of them are young, some of them barely teenagers. Each Saturday, a truck drives by their neighborhood to buy some of what they have collected. This is their means of survival in the new Argentina.

Illustrating this day-to-day struggle of unemployed and poverty-stricken Argentines is an inspiring new documentary by Seattle-based independent film makers Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin. Entitled Argentina: Hope in Hard Times, the film reveals how ordinary people in dire circumstances can overcome incredible challenges by working together for common goals.

The story of Argentina over the past decade has been a sad one: due to financial pressures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government privatized state assets, fired tens of thousands of civil servants, deregulated financial markets, slashed social program spending, raised interest rates, and cut public sector wages and benefits. Not surprisingly, the incomes of the wealthy and powerful increase almost exponentially, while unemployment and poverty skyrocket for the poor and working class, leaving the country with greater inequality and poverty. Added to this is the financial collapse that began in 2001, when even hundreds of thousands of middle-class Argentines started to lose their jobs and savings.

When this crisis hit, Young and Dworkin were actually on vacation in South America. But with millions of Argentines taking to the streets shouting "Que se vayan todos!" ("throw them all out!") and thousands of desperate workers taking over abandoned factories to protect their jobs, the film makers went back to the United States and later returned to Argentina with their film equipment.

Whereas other documentaries such as Naomi Klein's The Take focus on democratically-controlled businesses in Argentina, Hope In Hard Times embraces a much broader perspective on the Argentine free market tragedy. The documentary not only examines how Argentines have adapted their lifestyles to a crumbling economic system, but asks larger questions about human nature and the possibilities people have of building a different kind of economy and a new society.