Carte Blanche: Javier Milei and the path forward
Antoine Gyori - Corbis
“The traditional politician asks for your vote so that they can fix your life, as if they know what you need. What I say is, I ask for your vote so that I can give you back the power to be the architect of your own life. You will perceive the benefits, but you will have to pay the costs if you make a mistake. It is not that I did not warn you.”
- Javier Milei
No political theory has been more derided, laughed at, and wholesale ignored than libertarianism. Every major political and economic theory argues that the government must always set guidelines, directly intervene, and grant rights to its citizens. Human nature is too unpredictable and destructive. Therefore, it should be left up to governments, staffed and led by humans, to decide how the world could and should work. Politicians and political parties have worked in unison to make sure that the day never comes when the idea takes root, let alone that someone who identified with this tyrannical and dastardly ideology would ever hold any real power. Enter Javier Milei, who in 2023 was elected by a clear majority as Argentina's new President. A country that has for decades been ruled by Juntas, dictators, and socialists with the clear intention of making the country more equal without the pesky need for freedom and civil rights. What could be worse than a libertarian elected to lead a country? That the policies he implements actually work. There is nothing that highly educated economists and politicians hate more than someone questioning their perfect designs for how a country and economy should be run. When those questions are then used to dismantle everything that they have acted as prophets and high priests for, and it leads to prosperity, then it is blasphemy of the highest order. Anything and everything that can be done to predict and inflict absolute failure is carried out as swiftly as possible, at a speed inconceivable at any other time for such certain individuals.
On November 20th 2023, Javier Milei won close to 56% of the popular vote and won the presidency. His party, La Libertad Avanza, was a minority party for the first half of his current term, with around 15%, until it won over 40% of seats in the country's legislature. That serves as a symbol of the support they have received for the policies and reforms achieved in less than three years in office. Milei slashed government spending, reduced the number of ministries, cut most subsidies, and began deregulating and denationalizing industries. Milei even devalued the peso, something Argentinian politicians and bankers had long resisted. By decreasing the value of the Peso from 400 to 800 per US Dollar, exports became cheaper. While this made imports more expensive in time it gave rise to foreign investments and a decrease in inflation. From the start, fear was stoked by the almost guaranteed outcomes predicted by pundits and academics alike. A particular issue points out the quickness with which hypocrisy is applied to President Milei and his administration when they begin the long process of solving decades of problems compounded by government incompetence and corruption. Argentina, at the time of Milei’s election, had inflation of over 200% and a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 100%. During that time, his administration faced many difficult decisions. Many argue that if he wanted to run his country like a libertarian nation, then the government shouldn’t intervene at all, and austerity measures should be implemented immediately. The argument was one of ending the government and allowing the market to sort itself out, as many who claim to be libertarians claim will solve those issues. Those suggestions were offered not as tongue-in-cheek but mockingly, and in the hope of failure, as proof that the only way forward in the 21st century is with heavy government involvement. What was being suggested was effectively the same as a doctor giving a patient on life support chemotherapy and expecting their body to magically recover. A death sentence in the name of medicine is still a death sentence.
After much negotiation, a $20 billion loan was secured from the U.S. to continue propping up the country's currency, buying time to rebalance the books and secure other lifelines so the nation wouldn’t simply go dark. No matter what explanation the Milei Administration gave, they were called hypocrites by those eager to see them out of office. The problem is not only that the funds provide much-needed capital, but also that the loan was repaid ahead of schedule. This gave the policies implemented time to take effect. As the first term of his presidency comes to a close, Argentina has seen inflation drop to 30%, and support for Milei rise to 49%. The popularity he has achieved means he will be able to implement more policies, shrinking the government and returning the Argentinian people's rights to choose and live their lives as they see fit. None of which would’ve been possible if he had caved to the calls of hypocrisy and given in to the doubt of others.
By no means is Javier Milei or his administration the perfect example of libertarian policies, nor is everything they do likely to be right. His administration has taken a tough and somewhat authoritarian line on protesters, expanded the role of the state intelligence apparatus, and has it reporting to an unelected appointee, his sister, and he continues a long-held government tradition of taking a hawkish tone on the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. However, the Milei Administration is taking the largest step in the direction of valuing the choices and lives of the people of Argentina over the best-laid designs of bureaucrats, politicians, and academics who wish far more to be right than to help their fellow human beings. A century ago, being called “as rich as an Argentine” was a compliment to one's wealth. The possibility exists that the saying could return to the modern lexicon. However, if every choice made by the first libertarian head of state is concluded to be a lie or a falsehood, or he doesn’t act out every policy advocated by the ideology he embraces, then his best laid plans will never improve anyone's lives. But for those who would cast such stones, it would be best to remember that they live in a glass house. As none of those they hold so high in the realms of government intervention or control lived up to their ideas perfectly, either. Nor did the great equity and equality they champion appear, regardless of the money spent, or the lives so willingly sacrificed by others, who ate so well, and slept so comfortably.
The future of Argentina is in the hands of its people and those they duly elected. It is easy to criticize the difficulty of allowing others to make their own choices and see how it works out. Javier Miliei is the first president in modern times, if ever, to allow this to be so by removing shackles from the citizens and placing them back on the government where they belong.