Who Is Javier Milei?

 

My VIP for this week is Javier Milei, nearly elected libertarian conservative leader of Argentina. According to Ben Shapiro, “Javier Milei is extremely scary.” He came to this opinion from headlines of various media outlets announcing Milei’s election. 

Axios calls him a “far-right libertarian who’s been compared to Trump.” The New York Times writes, “Argentina Braces Itself for Its New ‘Anarcho-Capitalist’ President,” and called the election Argentina’s “Donald Trump movement.” “Who,” asks The Washington Post, “is Javier Milei, Argentina’s far-right president-elect?”

This is, unsurprisingly, is not the way the press treated the election of former convict and left-winger Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva in Brazil. “Brazil Elects Lula, a Leftist Former Leader, in a Rebuke of Bolsonaro,” The New Yor Times reported last year, “Who,” The Washington Post asked, “is Lula? What to know about Brazil’s president.”

Milei, as we’ve said, is one scary character.

So, what are his deeply frightening positions? He has called for vast cuts to Argentina’s government – a necessity, since Argentina has defaulted on its debts three times since 2001, has a $43 billion outstanding loan to the International Monetary Fund, and now faces another default. They received a $57 billion bailout just five years.

Thanks to out-of-control spending, Argentina has had to print pesos hand over fist, which is why, according to the Ministry of the Economy, total money supply in Argentina skyrocketed 30.7% a year from 2007 to 2022. The poverty rate in the country is 40%.

Milei’s media appearances may be colorful, but that all serves a purpose: a determination to make massive change to Argentina’s economic trajectory. Milei has promised to slash and burn his way through government, cutting 11 of 19 departments; he campaigned with a chainsaw he pledged he would use on the “parasitic state.” He wants to draw closer to the United States and Israel, and away from China. He wants to dollarize the economy.

All of this should be treated as good news. Argentina’s trajectory has been a total disaster area for decades, despite the glorification of Peronism at the hands of Hollywood. And, in fact, the markets are treating Milei’s election Sunday as they should: Argentine stocks and bonds have jumped on Milei’s election, mainly because he is the first leader of Argentina in generations who has a plan to actually avoid economic default.

So, why the heartburn?

Shapiro goes on to say that there are many people in the United States and Europe who prefer social radicalism to libertarianism or conservatism. Those with such views recognize that “Argentina is a living example of what happens when corporatism and social democracy are taken to their limits” governments are substituted for markets, industry is overregulated to bring social redistribution, and other such policies. Such people want all power to be given to the government, which promises to protect “the people” – a promise that “always results in privation and misallocation, in tyranny and poverty.”

According to Shapiro, this is the reason why leftists hate Milei and why the media and the political left will try to blame Milei for all of Argentina’s failures. Shapiro claims that Milei can succeed because investors are backing him. They are placing their money on Argentina to realize “its potential as a massive source of prosperity, wealth, and power – and that alliance with the United States grows stronger as a result.”