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[Milei WINS!] Javier Milei, Austrian econ. prof. & ancap, runs for president of Argentina
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Milei Promises Argentina Can Be Saved With Libertarian Economics
- Presidential contender pushes for a free-market overhaul
- Candidate wants to downsize the state after years of chaos
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ntina-can-be-saved-with-libertarian-economics
[archive link: https://archive.li/75Bv6]
Juan Pablo Spinetto (17 August 2023)
Self-described libertarians seem to pop up in political circles in every corner of the globe. But few mean it quite like Argentina’s Javier Milei.
On Wednesday, he flashed his zeal for unleashing the powers of free markets on the ailing country during a two-hour interview in Buenos Aires. He vowed to slash government spending, shutter the central bank, replace the beleaguered peso with the US dollar and restore credibility to the famously unstable economy.
And with Milei now in a good position to pull off a stunning victory in October’s presidential election, libertarian economics might be about to get its most high-profile real-world test yet.
The country has been in economic turmoil for so long — headed to its sixth recession in a decade amid triple-digit inflation and an ever-weakening currency — that it’s easy to see how proposals that might be seen as radical in other contexts come off as eminently reasonable here.
“One of the biggest thieves in the history of humankind is the central bank,” he said. “We should try to get out of the blinders that the statist indoctrination imposed on us.”
Milei, 52, sees these goals not just as smart economics, but a moral imperative. Everything is made better with competition, he believes, so it’s worth seeing what happens when Argentines can choose the currency to use.
Based on that, the free market will pick the dollar, which is “not even a good currency” in his view, because it’s at least more stable than the peso. Years of money printing and policy mismanagement wiped out 99% of the peso’s value over the past two decades, helping push the inflation rate up to 113% at the latest reading.
Milei wants to run almost everything in Argentina through his libertarian framework, and cited the economists Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard and Gary Becker to explain his vision. He dismisses concerns over the high percentage of citizens who work in the informal economy — “people should decide if they enter to the market or not.” He has no patience for subsidies to industry — “don’t pick the winners.”
The intellectual logic behind his ideas, which he’s keen to passionately debate, sets him apart from fellow populists like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. He appears eager to show himself to be serious, engaged and ready to lead the country. In times of economic hardship, his message resonates with voters who don’t have much time for theoretical discussions.
Of course, he also wants to win the election, and so seems to be willing to compromise on his vision for a libertarian paradise in South America. He says he won’t end the popular social programs that support millions of people in a country where almost 40% of the population is impoverished, despite the staggering cost.
“Those who receive social programs, are victims, not the victimizer,” he said, adding that ending that type of welfare will take as long as 15 years. “We will redesign them and take out the intermediaries.”
He even toned down some of his most controversial proposals, such as blowing up the central bank. “That was metaphorical,” he said.
The one-term congressman took almost a third of the vote in Sunday’s primary election. The mainstream center-right coalition got 28% of ballots, compared with the ruling party’s 27% support, leaving Milei the clear front-runner ahead of the presidential vote. His direct competitors in the Oct. 22 election will be Economy Minister Sergio Massa and Patricia Bullrich, a hard-line former security minister from the market-friendly opposition coalition.
Given the three-way race, it’s likely the presidential vote will go to a runoff in November, which happens if the top candidate doesn’t receive 45% of valid votes in the first round, or fails to clinch 40% while holding onto a 10 percentage-point lead over the runner-up.
A victory for Milei, an economist trained at Belgrano University in Buenos Aires, would be a more dramatic version of the pro-business government of former President Mauricio Macri. He tried to introduce market reforms after taking office in 2015 only to face political opposition and run headfirst into a financial crisis that ended with the country calling back the International Monetary Fund for yet another rescue package.
Macri’s successor, the Peronist Alberto Fernandez, struggled to fix the economy amid the Covid-19 pandemic and a severe shortage of hard currency that’s now left the country vulnerable to another debt default. He’s so unpopular that he chose not to run for reelection this year.
Milei said he’d make every effort to avoid a default on overseas bonds, but investors are skeptical, in part because of fears his policy proposals could be blocked by Congress and trigger social unrest. Argentina’s assets slumped this week.
There is still a long way to go until the election, and Argentina’s politics are as volatile as its economy. In fresh claims that echo those of Trump and Bolsonaro, Milei says he should have gotten five percentage points more in the primary election if it wasn’t for dirty tricks by his rivals that day that skewed the results.
There’s also a risk that as Argentines get to know Milei better, they’ll be less enthused about voting for an outsider who promises major change. But for now, he’s on a mission to use his newfound celebrity to preach the gospel of free-market economics.
Right after the primary win, Milei wasted no time in redoubling the strategy that worked so well for him until now, giving extensive interviews in several radio and TV shows that go viral on social media. He receives so many requests that he turned his phone off during the hours he spent at the Bloomberg bureau.
“It’s ringing all the time,” he said. “It’s very irritating.”
- Presidential contender pushes for a free-market overhaul
- Candidate wants to downsize the state after years of chaos
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ntina-can-be-saved-with-libertarian-economics
[archive link: https://archive.li/75Bv6]
Juan Pablo Spinetto (17 August 2023)
Self-described libertarians seem to pop up in political circles in every corner of the globe. But few mean it quite like Argentina’s Javier Milei.
On Wednesday, he flashed his zeal for unleashing the powers of free markets on the ailing country during a two-hour interview in Buenos Aires. He vowed to slash government spending, shutter the central bank, replace the beleaguered peso with the US dollar and restore credibility to the famously unstable economy.
And with Milei now in a good position to pull off a stunning victory in October’s presidential election, libertarian economics might be about to get its most high-profile real-world test yet.
The country has been in economic turmoil for so long — headed to its sixth recession in a decade amid triple-digit inflation and an ever-weakening currency — that it’s easy to see how proposals that might be seen as radical in other contexts come off as eminently reasonable here.
“One of the biggest thieves in the history of humankind is the central bank,” he said. “We should try to get out of the blinders that the statist indoctrination imposed on us.”
Milei, 52, sees these goals not just as smart economics, but a moral imperative. Everything is made better with competition, he believes, so it’s worth seeing what happens when Argentines can choose the currency to use.
Based on that, the free market will pick the dollar, which is “not even a good currency” in his view, because it’s at least more stable than the peso. Years of money printing and policy mismanagement wiped out 99% of the peso’s value over the past two decades, helping push the inflation rate up to 113% at the latest reading.
Milei wants to run almost everything in Argentina through his libertarian framework, and cited the economists Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard and Gary Becker to explain his vision. He dismisses concerns over the high percentage of citizens who work in the informal economy — “people should decide if they enter to the market or not.” He has no patience for subsidies to industry — “don’t pick the winners.”
The intellectual logic behind his ideas, which he’s keen to passionately debate, sets him apart from fellow populists like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. He appears eager to show himself to be serious, engaged and ready to lead the country. In times of economic hardship, his message resonates with voters who don’t have much time for theoretical discussions.
Of course, he also wants to win the election, and so seems to be willing to compromise on his vision for a libertarian paradise in South America. He says he won’t end the popular social programs that support millions of people in a country where almost 40% of the population is impoverished, despite the staggering cost.
“Those who receive social programs, are victims, not the victimizer,” he said, adding that ending that type of welfare will take as long as 15 years. “We will redesign them and take out the intermediaries.”
He even toned down some of his most controversial proposals, such as blowing up the central bank. “That was metaphorical,” he said.
The one-term congressman took almost a third of the vote in Sunday’s primary election. The mainstream center-right coalition got 28% of ballots, compared with the ruling party’s 27% support, leaving Milei the clear front-runner ahead of the presidential vote. His direct competitors in the Oct. 22 election will be Economy Minister Sergio Massa and Patricia Bullrich, a hard-line former security minister from the market-friendly opposition coalition.
Given the three-way race, it’s likely the presidential vote will go to a runoff in November, which happens if the top candidate doesn’t receive 45% of valid votes in the first round, or fails to clinch 40% while holding onto a 10 percentage-point lead over the runner-up.
A victory for Milei, an economist trained at Belgrano University in Buenos Aires, would be a more dramatic version of the pro-business government of former President Mauricio Macri. He tried to introduce market reforms after taking office in 2015 only to face political opposition and run headfirst into a financial crisis that ended with the country calling back the International Monetary Fund for yet another rescue package.
Macri’s successor, the Peronist Alberto Fernandez, struggled to fix the economy amid the Covid-19 pandemic and a severe shortage of hard currency that’s now left the country vulnerable to another debt default. He’s so unpopular that he chose not to run for reelection this year.
Milei said he’d make every effort to avoid a default on overseas bonds, but investors are skeptical, in part because of fears his policy proposals could be blocked by Congress and trigger social unrest. Argentina’s assets slumped this week.
There is still a long way to go until the election, and Argentina’s politics are as volatile as its economy. In fresh claims that echo those of Trump and Bolsonaro, Milei says he should have gotten five percentage points more in the primary election if it wasn’t for dirty tricks by his rivals that day that skewed the results.
There’s also a risk that as Argentines get to know Milei better, they’ll be less enthused about voting for an outsider who promises major change. But for now, he’s on a mission to use his newfound celebrity to preach the gospel of free-market economics.
Right after the primary win, Milei wasted no time in redoubling the strategy that worked so well for him until now, giving extensive interviews in several radio and TV shows that go viral on social media. He receives so many requests that he turned his phone off during the hours he spent at the Bloomberg bureau.
“It’s ringing all the time,” he said. “It’s very irritating.”
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A libertarian president in Argentina?
Self-described libertarian Javier Milei surprised the world in Argentina's presidential open primary election last week by finishing first with 30 percent of the vote ahead of candidates for the country's dominant left- and right-wing parties.
Milei, the figurehead for La Libertad Avanza party is an Austrian economist and has called himself an anarchocapitalist and made a name for his fiery media appearances excoriating Argentina's "political caste" of "parasites." He's pledged to end the Argentina's central bank and dollarize the economy, privatize its social services, cut taxes, create education vouchers and abolish the health, education and environmental ministries. His opponents and many in the media have repeatedly described him as "far right" and "a new Trump." Latin American political analyst Daniel Raisbeck, on the other hand, paints a more nuanced picture and warns pundits not to "confuse Javier Milei with Jair Bolsanaro."
Join Reason's Zach Weissmueller this Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern for a conversation with author and radio and TV host Gloria Alvarez and Argentine economist Eduardo Marty to discuss the election, Milei's chances of victory in a country experiencing triple digit inflation, the culture war he's fighting in Argentina, and what his rise says for the prospects of libertarian ideas in Latin America.
Watch the stream on Reason's YouTube channel or on Facebook.
Sources referenced in this conversation:
Argentina 2023 Primary Results — https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-argentina-election/
WaPo: Who is Javier Milei, Argentina's right-wing presidential front-runner? — https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/14/javier-milei-argentina-presidential-election/
Opina Argentina: Libertarians make inroads in Argentina — https://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=462085029&subtopic_1
Milei: My alignment with Trump and Bolsonaro is almost natural — https://www.infobae.com/politica/20...miento-con-bolsonaro-y-trump-es-casi-natural/
Bloomberg: Milei's proposals for Argentina — https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...r-argentina-dollarization-and-scrapping-taxes
El Pais: What's in Javier Milei's head? — https://elpais.com/argentina/2023-08-15/que-tiene-javier-milei-en-la-cabeza.html
Daniel Raisbeck: Argentina should dollarize pronto — https://www.cato.org/briefing-paper/argentina-should-dollarize-pronto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8MeyFRv16o
Self-described libertarian Javier Milei surprised the world in Argentina's presidential open primary election last week by finishing first with 30 percent of the vote ahead of candidates for the country's dominant left- and right-wing parties.
Milei, the figurehead for La Libertad Avanza party is an Austrian economist and has called himself an anarchocapitalist and made a name for his fiery media appearances excoriating Argentina's "political caste" of "parasites." He's pledged to end the Argentina's central bank and dollarize the economy, privatize its social services, cut taxes, create education vouchers and abolish the health, education and environmental ministries. His opponents and many in the media have repeatedly described him as "far right" and "a new Trump." Latin American political analyst Daniel Raisbeck, on the other hand, paints a more nuanced picture and warns pundits not to "confuse Javier Milei with Jair Bolsanaro."
Join Reason's Zach Weissmueller this Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern for a conversation with author and radio and TV host Gloria Alvarez and Argentine economist Eduardo Marty to discuss the election, Milei's chances of victory in a country experiencing triple digit inflation, the culture war he's fighting in Argentina, and what his rise says for the prospects of libertarian ideas in Latin America.
Watch the stream on Reason's YouTube channel or on Facebook.
Sources referenced in this conversation:
Argentina 2023 Primary Results — https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-argentina-election/
WaPo: Who is Javier Milei, Argentina's right-wing presidential front-runner? — https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/14/javier-milei-argentina-presidential-election/
Opina Argentina: Libertarians make inroads in Argentina — https://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=462085029&subtopic_1
Milei: My alignment with Trump and Bolsonaro is almost natural — https://www.infobae.com/politica/20...miento-con-bolsonaro-y-trump-es-casi-natural/
Bloomberg: Milei's proposals for Argentina — https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...r-argentina-dollarization-and-scrapping-taxes
El Pais: What's in Javier Milei's head? — https://elpais.com/argentina/2023-08-15/que-tiene-javier-milei-en-la-cabeza.html
Daniel Raisbeck: Argentina should dollarize pronto — https://www.cato.org/briefing-paper/argentina-should-dollarize-pronto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8MeyFRv16o
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World’s First Anarcho-Capitalist President
[MENTION=28167]Occam's Banana[/MENTION], you like and have mentioned Milei before (I like him too), a little good news to start the day. An AnCap running for prez, sounds like an Agorsist ;-)
By Doug Casey
International Man
August 31, 2023
International Man: Anarcho-capitalist Javier Milei recently won Argentina’s presidential primary. He is now the undisputed front-runner in the upcoming elections.
The outcome took many by surprise. Milei is an outsider who bested the country’s two entrenched establishment parties.
How did this happen, and why should anyone outside of Argentina care?
Doug Casey: It could be the most dramatic thing that’s happened politically since at least World War II. Anywhere. Why? Because he’s an AnCap libertarian who’d like to abolish the State—or come as close as possible. If he’s elected in October, he’ll make every move possible to eliminate—not just reduce—as many government departments as possible as quickly as possible. And most people seem oblivious to it.
Milei was in first place in the primary. Historically, in Argentina, the person who wins the primary wins the general election. There’s only been one exception to that rule. Even more encouraging is his ratings have gone up from 30% to 40% since the primary. It appears his campaign is not just a flash in the pan but a trend that’s building momentum.
Argentina was one of the most prosperous countries in the world a hundred years ago when it was about as free as any country economically. Before Peron, the Argentine GDP equaled the rest of the continent put together. But since the accession of Juan Peron in 1946, it’s consistently gone downhill every year.
Why might that be?
Peron was an overt fan of Mussolini and fascism. Fascism—a word coined by Mussolini—is defined as the complete subordination of corporations and business to the State. After WW2, the word “fascism” was a no-no, so the system was rechristened “Peronism” in Argentina. It’s not a consistent philosophy; it has many mutations. It’s all about businessmen and politicians using each other, through the State, to get rich. The lower classes are made dependent, and the middle class is impoverished. Fascism has little to do with militarism and jackboots; it’s an economic system. Almost every country in the world is fascist today—including the US, the EU, China, and Russia.
Despite the triumph of Peronism, Argentina still has the most classically liberal traditions in all of Latin America. It’s always been the most outward-looking country in Latin America. I’ve always believed it was the most fertile ground for a pro-individual liberty revolution in Latin America. Now, that may be happening.
If we divide Argentine society into a ruling, a lower, and a middle class, it’s clear that for the last 80 years, the ruling class has used welfare schemes and lies to get the lower classes to vote against their own interests. The middle class has paid for it with immense taxes and regulations. Inflation has basically destroyed the lower and middle classes; high inflation has made it impossible for them to save and build capital.
Milei could totally overturn all of this. The average Argentine is fed up with being ripped off. Milei’s support is greatest among the young and what’s left of the middle class. Estimates are that half the country is hard-pressed to feed themselves. They desperately and enthusiastically want radical change, and only the most stupid can’t see what fascism, socialism, and other varieties of statism have done. The main supporters of the status quo are the unions and welfare mooches. Everyone else hates them.
International Man: Milei has called central banking and fiat currency a historical fraud. He has vowed to “burn down the central bank” and replace the peso with the dollar and whatever commodity the free market would choose as money. He is favorable to precious metals and Bitcoin.
He has called taxation theft and seeks to drastically reduce—and eventually eliminate—many taxes.
Milei also wants to radically cut down the size of the government and eliminate numerous departments.
He also rejects the climate change hoax and was critical of the Covid mass hysteria.
Doug, you are a prominent anarcho-capitalist. What is your take on the soundness of Milei’s platform?
Doug Casey: I am totally in favor of Milei. In fact, he’s more radical (using radical in the proper sense of getting to the root of the problem) than Ron Paul was in his US campaigns. He’s as radical and sincere as my old friend Harry Browne, who ran for the US presidency in 1996 and 2000.
Milei is extremely outspoken and vibrant. He realizes that, since the average person doesn’t understand economics and has no interest in philosophy, politics is 90% entertainment. I urge everybody reading this to go to YouTube and tune into several videos of Milei (here, here, and here).
Milei is totally sound from an economic, political, and a philosophical point of view. But—and this is critically important—he’s sound from a moral point of view.
He deals in basic concepts of good and evil, right and wrong. That’s something that no politician anywhere discusses, certainly not in South America. It’s the equivalent of hitting a donkey between the eyes with a two-by-four to get his attention. Everyone intuitively understands that the political class is essentially criminal—but only Milei is brave enough to say it. The average guy wants to do the right thing, the moral thing. That’s what Milei is pointing out to people and why they like him. He doesn’t use doubletalk, brook compromise, or support half measures.
That’s why, in the US, I actually respect the Democrats more than the Republicans.
How can I say that?
Every idea the Democrats have is wrong and rotten to its core, but at least they’re not hypocrites. They say what they want to do. They actually believe in something, even though it’s stupid and evil.
The Republicans, on the other hand, don’t have any real core beliefs. They don’t disagree with the moral premises of the Democrats. They just say that the Democrats are going too far, too fast.
Milei, on the other hand, wants to overturn the moral structure that politics is built on.
International Man: The global mainstream media has synchronized their talking points on Milei.
It’s almost impossible to find an article about Milei—in any language—that doesn’t preface him with some kind of meaningless pejorative, labeling him a “far-right populist,” an “ultra-rightist,” or something to that effect.
Why is the Davos class so afraid of Milei? Can he overcome their opposition?
Doug Casey: This is further proof of how worthless the mainstream media is. They call Milei a Donald Trump lookalike, or ultra-right wing, in an attempt to scare Boobus argentinus. These people don’t deal in issues and factual programs but fear-mongering. Everywhere in the world, the chattering classes are only malevolent mouthpieces of the ruling class.
Milei is not “ultra-right.” He’s a libertarian who believes in free minds and free markets. In fact, he’s more than a libertarian; he’s an AnCap—an anarcho-capitalist. He doesn’t believe the State serves a useful purpose. He believes that society, certainly in an advanced industrial country, can live without a government. I’ve discussed this philosophy here and here.
His plan is to reduce the size of the government by 50% this year, 50% the next year, and so on, until it’s as near zero as possible. The horrible people in Davos hate him because he’s attacking their very essence. He doesn’t intend just to make a few changes around the edges but to transform Argentina into the freest and most prosperous country on the planet.
In some ways, he’s symptomatic of what’s going on in the world at large today. The United States itself, in my opinion, is on the ragged edge of a civil war. Freedom and personal liberty have been retreating at an accelerating rate for years. People in the US are just as fed up as the Argentines; we just don’t have a proper firebrand. Trump is as close as we get, but he’s just a traditionalist, not a libertarian.
Milei is cause for optimism in the world at large.
International Man: President Nayib Bukele dramatically transformed El Salvador at lightning speed—drastically reducing crime, making Bitcoin legal money, and initiating reforms to bring business and productive people to the country.
Although Argentina is much bigger than El Salvador, does Bukele’s example suggest that enormous positive change is possible in Argentina?
Doug Casey: Bukele is another symptom of a possible major turnaround in the world.
The statists and collectivists may finally have overplayed their hand. They’re just clever criminals with large followings, like Hitler in Germany and Mao in China. Only the brain-dead buy their themes. “You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy.” The world is ending because of climate change. Vaccinate or die. 15-minute cities. Restricted travel. No eating meat. ESG. DEI. No fossil fuels. It’s a long litany. They can destroy civilization itself.
People with a brain are looking for a lightning rod to catalyze change.
In El Salvador that may be Bukele. He definitely has libertarian instincts, indicated by the fact his main economic advisor is Safedean Ammous, an AnCap. He’s one of the most important economists in the world today, along with Walter Block and Hans-Hermann Hoppe. I urge you to listen to the interview he did with me last month on AnCap principles (link).
El Salvador is the last country in the hemisphere—with the exception of Haiti—I would have picked to turn around. It’s the most overpopulated country in the hemisphere. It’s crime-ridden, which is why he’s locked up 65,000 gang members. It had a nasty civil war from 1979-1982. It has no exports except for coffee, bananas, and poor people. Who could have guessed?
Bukele already made Bitcoin legal tender. It’s possible that he’ll reform El Salvador in the same way as Milei will try to reform Argentina.
International Man: What are the investment or speculative implications of Milei’s rise for Argentine assets?
What are the lifestyle and other international diversification implications?
Doug Casey: Right now, Argentina is the cheapest, nice country in the world. Certainly the cheapest country in the Western world.
That’s especially amazing in view of the immense tax burden that the Argentine economy has to bear, paying huge numbers of useless mouths who detract from prosperity.
If Milei is elected, he’ll radically reduce taxes, which means that costs of production will drop radically. As the country dollarizes, the currency will stabilize, and gold could come next. Real prices could drop further, but not because of a collapsing currency. The economy should boom economically as investment pours in. People will go back to work, start saving, and rebuild domestic capital. Argentina could quickly become, again, one of the world’s richest countries.
What could go wrong with the scenario? The parasites now living off the State don’t want their rice bowls broken. Even though Milei has huge support from people across the social spectrum—including the lower classes who are fed up with being kept like pets by the people in the Deep State. The Deep State will undoubtedly fight Milei’s reforms viciously. I hope he has plenty of competent bodyguards around him because these people are genuinely evil, just like the Deep State in the US.
If he’s elected, both the lifestyle and investment implications could be huge.
Argentina has always been one of my favorite countries in the world, bar none. But if they go to sound banking, a sound currency, and disregard the rules laid down by the US, the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum—it could really be one of the best places in the world to live.
You ought to keep in mind that citizenship is available with only two years of residency. And even during those two years of residency, it’s only necessary to spend half of the year in the country. Culturally, Argentina is more European than some countries in Europe.
If Milei manages to wash away the socialist immorality and criminality that has corrupted Argentina for so many years, I won’t just live down there half of the year, but all of the year.
Reprinted with permission from International Man.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/08/doug-casey/worlds-first-anarcho-capitalist-president/
[MENTION=28167]Occam's Banana[/MENTION], you like and have mentioned Milei before (I like him too), a little good news to start the day. An AnCap running for prez, sounds like an Agorsist ;-)
By Doug Casey
International Man
August 31, 2023
International Man: Anarcho-capitalist Javier Milei recently won Argentina’s presidential primary. He is now the undisputed front-runner in the upcoming elections.
The outcome took many by surprise. Milei is an outsider who bested the country’s two entrenched establishment parties.
How did this happen, and why should anyone outside of Argentina care?
Doug Casey: It could be the most dramatic thing that’s happened politically since at least World War II. Anywhere. Why? Because he’s an AnCap libertarian who’d like to abolish the State—or come as close as possible. If he’s elected in October, he’ll make every move possible to eliminate—not just reduce—as many government departments as possible as quickly as possible. And most people seem oblivious to it.
Milei was in first place in the primary. Historically, in Argentina, the person who wins the primary wins the general election. There’s only been one exception to that rule. Even more encouraging is his ratings have gone up from 30% to 40% since the primary. It appears his campaign is not just a flash in the pan but a trend that’s building momentum.
Argentina was one of the most prosperous countries in the world a hundred years ago when it was about as free as any country economically. Before Peron, the Argentine GDP equaled the rest of the continent put together. But since the accession of Juan Peron in 1946, it’s consistently gone downhill every year.
Why might that be?
Peron was an overt fan of Mussolini and fascism. Fascism—a word coined by Mussolini—is defined as the complete subordination of corporations and business to the State. After WW2, the word “fascism” was a no-no, so the system was rechristened “Peronism” in Argentina. It’s not a consistent philosophy; it has many mutations. It’s all about businessmen and politicians using each other, through the State, to get rich. The lower classes are made dependent, and the middle class is impoverished. Fascism has little to do with militarism and jackboots; it’s an economic system. Almost every country in the world is fascist today—including the US, the EU, China, and Russia.
Despite the triumph of Peronism, Argentina still has the most classically liberal traditions in all of Latin America. It’s always been the most outward-looking country in Latin America. I’ve always believed it was the most fertile ground for a pro-individual liberty revolution in Latin America. Now, that may be happening.
If we divide Argentine society into a ruling, a lower, and a middle class, it’s clear that for the last 80 years, the ruling class has used welfare schemes and lies to get the lower classes to vote against their own interests. The middle class has paid for it with immense taxes and regulations. Inflation has basically destroyed the lower and middle classes; high inflation has made it impossible for them to save and build capital.
Milei could totally overturn all of this. The average Argentine is fed up with being ripped off. Milei’s support is greatest among the young and what’s left of the middle class. Estimates are that half the country is hard-pressed to feed themselves. They desperately and enthusiastically want radical change, and only the most stupid can’t see what fascism, socialism, and other varieties of statism have done. The main supporters of the status quo are the unions and welfare mooches. Everyone else hates them.
International Man: Milei has called central banking and fiat currency a historical fraud. He has vowed to “burn down the central bank” and replace the peso with the dollar and whatever commodity the free market would choose as money. He is favorable to precious metals and Bitcoin.
He has called taxation theft and seeks to drastically reduce—and eventually eliminate—many taxes.
Milei also wants to radically cut down the size of the government and eliminate numerous departments.
He also rejects the climate change hoax and was critical of the Covid mass hysteria.
Doug, you are a prominent anarcho-capitalist. What is your take on the soundness of Milei’s platform?
Doug Casey: I am totally in favor of Milei. In fact, he’s more radical (using radical in the proper sense of getting to the root of the problem) than Ron Paul was in his US campaigns. He’s as radical and sincere as my old friend Harry Browne, who ran for the US presidency in 1996 and 2000.
Milei is extremely outspoken and vibrant. He realizes that, since the average person doesn’t understand economics and has no interest in philosophy, politics is 90% entertainment. I urge everybody reading this to go to YouTube and tune into several videos of Milei (here, here, and here).
Milei is totally sound from an economic, political, and a philosophical point of view. But—and this is critically important—he’s sound from a moral point of view.
He deals in basic concepts of good and evil, right and wrong. That’s something that no politician anywhere discusses, certainly not in South America. It’s the equivalent of hitting a donkey between the eyes with a two-by-four to get his attention. Everyone intuitively understands that the political class is essentially criminal—but only Milei is brave enough to say it. The average guy wants to do the right thing, the moral thing. That’s what Milei is pointing out to people and why they like him. He doesn’t use doubletalk, brook compromise, or support half measures.
That’s why, in the US, I actually respect the Democrats more than the Republicans.
How can I say that?
Every idea the Democrats have is wrong and rotten to its core, but at least they’re not hypocrites. They say what they want to do. They actually believe in something, even though it’s stupid and evil.
The Republicans, on the other hand, don’t have any real core beliefs. They don’t disagree with the moral premises of the Democrats. They just say that the Democrats are going too far, too fast.
Milei, on the other hand, wants to overturn the moral structure that politics is built on.
International Man: The global mainstream media has synchronized their talking points on Milei.
It’s almost impossible to find an article about Milei—in any language—that doesn’t preface him with some kind of meaningless pejorative, labeling him a “far-right populist,” an “ultra-rightist,” or something to that effect.
Why is the Davos class so afraid of Milei? Can he overcome their opposition?
Doug Casey: This is further proof of how worthless the mainstream media is. They call Milei a Donald Trump lookalike, or ultra-right wing, in an attempt to scare Boobus argentinus. These people don’t deal in issues and factual programs but fear-mongering. Everywhere in the world, the chattering classes are only malevolent mouthpieces of the ruling class.
Milei is not “ultra-right.” He’s a libertarian who believes in free minds and free markets. In fact, he’s more than a libertarian; he’s an AnCap—an anarcho-capitalist. He doesn’t believe the State serves a useful purpose. He believes that society, certainly in an advanced industrial country, can live without a government. I’ve discussed this philosophy here and here.
His plan is to reduce the size of the government by 50% this year, 50% the next year, and so on, until it’s as near zero as possible. The horrible people in Davos hate him because he’s attacking their very essence. He doesn’t intend just to make a few changes around the edges but to transform Argentina into the freest and most prosperous country on the planet.
In some ways, he’s symptomatic of what’s going on in the world at large today. The United States itself, in my opinion, is on the ragged edge of a civil war. Freedom and personal liberty have been retreating at an accelerating rate for years. People in the US are just as fed up as the Argentines; we just don’t have a proper firebrand. Trump is as close as we get, but he’s just a traditionalist, not a libertarian.
Milei is cause for optimism in the world at large.
International Man: President Nayib Bukele dramatically transformed El Salvador at lightning speed—drastically reducing crime, making Bitcoin legal money, and initiating reforms to bring business and productive people to the country.
Although Argentina is much bigger than El Salvador, does Bukele’s example suggest that enormous positive change is possible in Argentina?
Doug Casey: Bukele is another symptom of a possible major turnaround in the world.
The statists and collectivists may finally have overplayed their hand. They’re just clever criminals with large followings, like Hitler in Germany and Mao in China. Only the brain-dead buy their themes. “You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy.” The world is ending because of climate change. Vaccinate or die. 15-minute cities. Restricted travel. No eating meat. ESG. DEI. No fossil fuels. It’s a long litany. They can destroy civilization itself.
People with a brain are looking for a lightning rod to catalyze change.
In El Salvador that may be Bukele. He definitely has libertarian instincts, indicated by the fact his main economic advisor is Safedean Ammous, an AnCap. He’s one of the most important economists in the world today, along with Walter Block and Hans-Hermann Hoppe. I urge you to listen to the interview he did with me last month on AnCap principles (link).
El Salvador is the last country in the hemisphere—with the exception of Haiti—I would have picked to turn around. It’s the most overpopulated country in the hemisphere. It’s crime-ridden, which is why he’s locked up 65,000 gang members. It had a nasty civil war from 1979-1982. It has no exports except for coffee, bananas, and poor people. Who could have guessed?
Bukele already made Bitcoin legal tender. It’s possible that he’ll reform El Salvador in the same way as Milei will try to reform Argentina.
International Man: What are the investment or speculative implications of Milei’s rise for Argentine assets?
What are the lifestyle and other international diversification implications?
Doug Casey: Right now, Argentina is the cheapest, nice country in the world. Certainly the cheapest country in the Western world.
That’s especially amazing in view of the immense tax burden that the Argentine economy has to bear, paying huge numbers of useless mouths who detract from prosperity.
If Milei is elected, he’ll radically reduce taxes, which means that costs of production will drop radically. As the country dollarizes, the currency will stabilize, and gold could come next. Real prices could drop further, but not because of a collapsing currency. The economy should boom economically as investment pours in. People will go back to work, start saving, and rebuild domestic capital. Argentina could quickly become, again, one of the world’s richest countries.
What could go wrong with the scenario? The parasites now living off the State don’t want their rice bowls broken. Even though Milei has huge support from people across the social spectrum—including the lower classes who are fed up with being kept like pets by the people in the Deep State. The Deep State will undoubtedly fight Milei’s reforms viciously. I hope he has plenty of competent bodyguards around him because these people are genuinely evil, just like the Deep State in the US.
If he’s elected, both the lifestyle and investment implications could be huge.
Argentina has always been one of my favorite countries in the world, bar none. But if they go to sound banking, a sound currency, and disregard the rules laid down by the US, the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum—it could really be one of the best places in the world to live.
You ought to keep in mind that citizenship is available with only two years of residency. And even during those two years of residency, it’s only necessary to spend half of the year in the country. Culturally, Argentina is more European than some countries in Europe.
If Milei manages to wash away the socialist immorality and criminality that has corrupted Argentina for so many years, I won’t just live down there half of the year, but all of the year.
Reprinted with permission from International Man.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/08/doug-casey/worlds-first-anarcho-capitalist-president/
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Anti Federalist
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[MENTION=3169]Anti Federalist[/MENTION] , whatcha think? You a convert now?
I already threw my support behind him.
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Thanks
Your first link goes to Balázs Orbán, I didn't see anything concerning Milei.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javier_Milei
Before I deep dive into his past record I'll wait to see what happens, whether he wins or not, and the outcome. It is encouraging that the people seem to be supportive of an AnCap.
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What we especially need to know is whether he is currently attending a public charter school.
Because if he is, we can conclude that he is "safe and not a threat" to the system, amirite?
Well, he did say that he's "not going to take any more money from the IMF....... for now".
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