Big mouth, unruly hair, Javier Milei hovers over the Argentine political world like a malicious goblin. To the bewilderment of image consultants, he behaves like a punk rocker who entertains his fans with a mix of crude insults against the great men he doesn’t like and learned allusions to long-dead Viennese thinkers.
The irruption on the stage of such a singular figure has left almost everyone stunned. Those worried about what might come out of the great national mess had spoken of the risk of a character like Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro or, perhaps, someone with military characteristics, a role that surely continues to tempt the lieutenant colonel Serge Bernie. It never occurred to them that he would be someone with a style typical of those comedic actors who specialize in telling truths that are often overlooked by most.
Although it was difficult for them to take it seriously, Milei already scares both government supporters and opponents. It bothers the Kirchnerists because he is depriving them of the support of the rebellious youth and, to make matters worse, he furiously repudiates the imaginative story they have concocted about what happened in the longed-for 1970s, but they are reluctant to mistreat him since they understand that he could help them by seizing votes that would otherwise go to Together for Change. is that Miley represents an alternative to the status quo that is so drastic that, compared to it, that of the PRO hawks, let alone the soft version favored by the party pigeons created by Mauricio Macri and the radicals, it seems pathetically insubstantial.
Is Milei an anarchist who, given the opportunity, would not hesitate to demolish all state institutions, starting with the Central Bank, in addition to forcing members of “la casta” to look for work in a private sector in which no employer would have reason to associate with politicians and officials? It may be, but it’s also something else. In its own way, it embodies the liberal capitalism against which the bulk of the political class and countless intellectuals have fought, scoring one sudden victory after another. Thanks to his efforts, Argentine capitalism lies comatose on the canvas. Is it possible to revive it? Milei is not the only one convinced that, unless he recovers from the blows he has received lately, Argentina will be in danger of becoming a barely habitable wasteland.
the stardom of Miley is due to failures of a prolonged series of military and civilian, Peronist, radical and timidly liberal governments that failed to combine the strength of capitalism with the evident need to protect those who are not in a position to take advantage of the opportunities it makes possible.
The challenge posed by the intruder is very similar to the one that, a couple of generations ago, was embodied by the figure of the engineer Álvaro Alsogaray, a dogmatic of military borders whose recipes seemed inhumanly harsh until a certain Carlos Menem decided that it would be convenient for him to apply some of them and, meanwhile, incorporate the supporters of Ucedé into what was then the main branch of the Peronist movement. Macri may have wanted to do the same with Milei, José Luis Espert and his followers, but until now his attempts in this regard have not prospered; from Milei’s point of view, Together for Change it is excessively collectivist, and from that of the moderates and, above all, the radicals, it would be crazy to associate with a “neoliberal” who despises them, taking them for communists disguised as maudlin democrats.
The fact that a character as particular as Milei has managed to become one of the protagonists of the national political melodrama can be considered a good sign. He is not a militarist. He, too, is not an irresponsible populist or, what would be worse, a leftist revolutionary of the kind he would like to eliminate or, if he is benevolent, send to concentration camps those who do not share his ideas.
What is Milei up to? For starters, he would like to slam down the barriers that keep the economy at bay. It is an objective that is not too different from that of many others, both macristas and some radicals and Peronists, who are aware that the Kirchnerist model is close to collapse according to which it is necessary to continue squeezing the already exhausted “productive apparatus” to subsidize its electoral clientele and provide the militants of groups such as La Cámpora job opportunities in an already clinically obese state.
While it is clear that Milei’s growing popularity is not due to her admiration for the thinkers of the Austrian School but to the exuberance with which he attacks lifelong members of “the caste” and his uninhibited theatrical style, the fact that he passionately defends the only economic system that is capable of producing in abundance the goods that everyone needs will affect the thinking of many who are tired of being disappointed by the hypothetical solidarity of populists who attribute all the ills of the world to “neoliberalism.” Those affected in this way cannot help but wonder: If this creed is the alternative to the set of ideas that has ruined the country, would it not be worth adopting it? After all, as perverse as liberal capitalism is, it cannot be worse than the model that was cobbled together by the national political class.
The mentality of those responsible for the impoverishment of half the population, chronic inflation and so many other ills is rentier. to justify their conduct, those politicians and those who depend on their will who are used to living off the productivity of others, without being interested in what businessmen, farmers and others who provide them with the money they need have to do, tenaciously cling to the myth that Argentina is a congenitally rich country. When income is scarce, they do not attribute it to their own mistakes but to the actions of individuals who, for sinister reasons, want to make the vulnerable suffer, hence Cristina’s fondness and her admirers of conspiracy theories.
Of these, the most harmful is the one that divides politicians into two blocks; one, his, is one of the good ones who defend the Argentine people against savage capitalism, Yankee imperialism and other scourges; another is that of the bad guys who, their heads full of foreign ideas, want to enslave the poor. According to this fanciful interpretation of the country’s history, there is no moral difference between Macri and Jorge Videla because the two assumed that the country would benefit from some economic reforms, the subject of an exhibition, labeled “Neoliberalism Never Again”, in what was the ESMA with which the Secretary of Human Rights tried to show that, thinking about it, the opposition is really a coalition of vile murderers who dream of re-editing the military process. If they want, the macristas and radicals could organize an exhibition to underline the links of the Kirchnerists with terrorism of genocidal aspirations, friendship with atrocious dictatorships and corruption on an industrial scale, in addition to mentioning the Triple-A of Juan Domingo Perón and José López Rega, but fortunately they are reluctant to surrender completely to Manichaean fanaticism.
What is neoliberalism? Nobody knows very well, since there are very few economists who claim to be neoliberals, but those who feel outraged when governments try to reduce public spending often use the word because for them it has very negative connotations. In his view, all adjustments are bad and the lack of money in state coffers is not reason enough to go to such an extreme. Thus, it would seem that the worse the financial situation of a country, the more “neoliberal” the necessary measures would have to be to balance the accounts, which suggests that a fiercely “neoliberal” future awaits Argentina not because its rulers, the current ones or their eventual successors, are sadistic but because the sad reality is that they will have no more options.
At this point, resisting, under the pretext that it is never good to adjust anything, is useless. There are indications that most understand it. Things are so bad that the only question is whether the market will take care of the coming adjustment or whether a duly elected government will be encouraged to do so, sharing the costs as equitably as possible without losing sight of the pressing need to stimulate production.
The leaders of the opposition coalition swear that, if it is his turn to return to power, he will reveal a “plan” that, according to Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, they will apply in the first “hundred hours” to give “clear and forceful signals” of what he would do. With the elections approaching and the socio-economic crisis deepening, Together for Change, pressured by Milei who is succeeding in attracting many who distrust radical conservatism when it comes to downsizing the state – which would mean eliminating a multitude of positions suitable for politicians – and disbelieve in the reformist will of the PRO, assume positions that in other circumstances its members would denounce as neoliberal.
