Other options were available to politicians in Alfonsín’s position. He could have defaulted on Argentina’s huge debts. He could have joined with neighboring governments in the same crisis and formed a debtors’ cartel. These governments could have created a common market based on developmentalist principles, a process that had begun when the region was torn apart by sadistic military regimes. But part of the challenge at the time had to do with the legacy of state terror faced by new democracies.
A debtors cartel
