What is worse, Mr. Noonan observed, is that few countries go through a mega-devaluation only once. "It becomes a habit."

In the case of Argentina that's being kind. A 200-year history of recurring devaluations is even more serious than an addiction. It's pathological.

The latest markdown came last week when Argentina announced that it now costs eight pesos to buy a dollar from the central bank instead of 6.9. That's up from three in 2006. In the black market the price is now more than 12 pesos, suggesting that there is much more bloodletting to come.

This crisis comes just over a decade after the last one, which happened just over a decade after the one before that. But undermining the value of the peso is not a modern phenomenon in Argentina.

According to UCLA professor Sebastian Edwards, author of the 2010 book "Left Behind: Latin America and the False Promise of Populism," the habit of devaluation in Argentina dates back to the 1820s. In 1827, the paper peso that circulated in Argentina was devalued by 33.2%, Mr. Edwards says. In 1829 it was devalued by 68%. In 1838 there was a 34% devaluation, in 1839 a 65.5% markdown, in 1845 a 95% reduction and in 1851 a 40% devaluation. An 1868 currency board came unglued in 1876; another one, established in 1891, survived until 1914.

The politicians were only warming up. According to Mr. Edwards, there were currency crises in 1938, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1954, 1955, 1958, 1962, 1964 and 1967.

"In 1971," Mr. Edward writes, "there was a new crisis when the peso was devalued by 116.8%." (The percentage can exceed 100 because it is calculated using pesos per dollar.) Argentina's economic instability grew worse after 1974. "Inflation rose to 444% in 1976. This crisis recurrence had a negative impact on growth: per-capita income fell at an annual rate of 1.7% between 1975 and 1985. By 1985 inflation was 672%. Between 1981 and 1991, the rate of devaluation of the peso averaged a staggering 1,346% per year."

President Cristina Kirchner's practices of expropriation, contract abrogation, export taxes and caps on utility rates have destroyed capital. Meanwhile, government spending as a percentage of GDP doubled over the last decade. Neither foreigners nor locals want to hold pesos because the central bank erodes their value by printing too many of them. When that happens, there is almost no way to stop a foreign-exchange run on the central bank, an inflationary spiral and impoverishment.

Last week Argentina's foreign-exchange reserves dropped $1.25 billion as its central bank struggled to defend the peso. Reserves are now a mere $28.3 billion—down from a peak of $52.6 billion in January 2011.

The worsening foreign-currency shortage is bound to stress an economy that relies on imported raw materials and intermediate goods in the industrial and farming sectors. Argentines report trouble finding medicines that are sourced outside the country. Price controls, informally applied using intimidation, further complicate the situation. Importers may buy dollars on the black market to pay foreign suppliers, but they lose money unless they can adjust retail prices.

Fearing an inflationary spike, the government last week said it would increase competition in local markets by introducing more imports if the local producers try to raise prices. Apparently the geniuses at the central bank forgot to tell the price-controllers that they haven't got the dollars to bring in more imports.

Jorge Capitanich, Mrs. Kirchner's chief of cabinet, says speculators—out to make a quick buck by beating down the value of assets so they can buy them—are the cause of the peso collapse. Such economic ignorance at the helm of a nation of 41 million souls is frightening. But it is not surprising in Argentina.