I recently translated a chronicle of the recent violent crackdown on the Alberdi Hall artists collective in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It’s a perfect case study of statist attack on public property, on an autonomous initiative that produced a highly valued cultural offering for the community with a clear potential of standing on its own financial feet.

But because it was homesteading a space within a crumbling state-owned building neglected by years of governmental missmanagement, it was considered a threat to the bureaucrats who claim they have a better use for the space.

And while nobody knows with certainty what those plans are, the evicted artists’ suspicion that it involves “privatizing” the building for the benefit of a few corporate cronies seems perfectly reasonable, specially given the philosophy and track record of the current government of the city.