LONDON -- Five presidents in 12 days; riots and looting that have left 32 dead; the biggest default on sovereign debt in history; and the prospect of a return to military government or a toned-down, spruced-up version of fascism lurking around the corner. What is wrong with Argentina?

That question is the main topic of conversations with foreigners in Argentina even in the best of times, because the Argentines themselves can't understand why their country has fallen so far below their own and others' expectations. Only 100 years ago, somebody who had more money than they knew what to do with was known in France as "riche comme un Argentin" (as rich as an Argentine). Nowadays even Argentina's long-despised Brazilian neighbors are better off.

Why has a resource-rich country with a relatively well-educated and homogeneous population, which was once a leading destination for the same sort of European emigrants who headed for the United States and Canada, ended up as a by-word for political incompetence and economic failure? A century ago Argentina had a higher per-capita income than Canada, and thought it owned the future. Now it's sliding back into the dismal patterns of a past that Argentines had desperately hoped they were finally leaving behind. What is wrong with Argentina?