A History of Money by Alan Pauls

Author:Alan Pauls [Pauls, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61219-424-0
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2015-06-01T16:00:00+00:00

A Note on the Text

The fictional events in this novel unravel over decades of real tragedy in Argentina. It is widely known outside of the country that a military junta seized power in 1976 and went on to wage a Dirty War, “disappearing” tens of thousands of dissidents and people believed to be dissidents. That tragedy didn’t occur in isolation; it was preceded by five other coups d’état in the same century, and took place amid extreme instability in all spheres, notably the economic and industrial as well as the political—though obviously distinctions like these are often academic.

Between the first summer we see here in Mar del Plata in 1966 and the conclusion of the novel around four decades later, Argentina had five currencies, whose names recur in the novel: pesos moneda nacional, pesos ley 18.188, pesos argentinos, australs, and the peso convertible—introduced in 1992 and still in use at the time of writing, though it’s usually simply called the peso. Each new currency was introduced because the last had been devalued by vertiginous inflation.

For individuals, the instability of the local currency led to a reliance on the U.S. dollar that persists today. For many Argentines wishing to safeguard their cash, converting into dollars has long been a no-brainer—a reaction to economic instability that further devalues the peso.

The question of getting your hands on dollars in Argentina inevitably brings you face-to-face with the parallel—or black market—economy. The government sets an official exchange rate, but also keeps strict controls on the amount of dollars officially in circulation, sending most buyers into the black market. The rate offered at unofficial exchange outlets known as cuevas, or caves, is wildly more pricy than the government’s official rate. And “unofficial” isn’t quite the right description, either: the parallel economy is so huge and so influential in Argentina that it has its own set of rules; there’s an “official” dollar exchange rate within this unofficial sector. The novel’s arbolitos occupy a black market within the black market, offering yet another exchange rate, this one even more extortionate.

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