Since Javier Milei burst onto the media scene, authors such as Murray Rothbard and concepts like libertarianism They began to circulate in the public conversation. It is a kind of paroxysm of classical liberalisma market economy hyperbole and a return to conservative morality. But it wasn’t always like this: in the ’60s, many libertarians were more like hippies than Chicago yuppies, they believed in free love, experimented with substances and rejected any type of authority.
Luis Diego Fernandez is philosopher and writer. He teaches courses on different philosophical topics and writes frequently in media such as Seoul, Ñ Magazine and Clarion. Yes in your book “Foucault and liberalism”(Galerna) was interested in finding links between the French thinker and classical liberalism, in his recent book “Utopia and market” (Ed. Adriana Hidalgo) makes a compilation of texts by diverse libertarian authors, to account for the heterogeneity of this ideological current. She describes Milei as a “Creole paleolibertarian”, explains the historical origin of libertarianism and the crisis of the current left.
News: Why is it that within libertarianism there are positions associated with both the left and the right?
Luis Diego Fernandez: Freedom can be understood in different ways. Libertarians usually understand it as “non-interference.” About the body itself, since following Locke, they consider that the body is the first property; on the market – they advocate economic deregulation, free and voluntary exchanges of goods and services, etc.; and “non-interference” from foreign countries. An element that is sometimes forgotten is that libertarians are anti-imperialists, or at least that is how this position emerged in the 1960s: They may be against the government of Venezuela, but also the intervention of another government on that government, although be a dictatorship. From that perspective, it is a situation that must be resolved by the Venezuelans themselves.
News: The idea of property occupies a central place in this logic.
Fernandez: Yes. Sometimes I say that libertarianism, more than a philosophy of freedom, is a philosophy of property. Because there is no constitution of freedom, as libertarianism understands it, without property. But there are other ways of thinking about freedom, anti-proprietarian, or that do not think in “individuals” but in “singularities.” This idea that without property there is nothing also has to do with Locke, who was somewhat the founding father of classical liberalism. But if one follows the libertarian logic we will necessarily reach a kind of commodification of all aspects of life.
News: Do you see Milei in this line?
Fernandez: A president is one thing, and a libertarian theorist who has no responsibility for public affairs is another. One can have thought experiments, such as thinking about the possibility of selling organs or selling children, as Milei himself has once suggested. Ideas that appear in the texts of Rothbard or other authors. But a president faces other difficulties: an obvious statehood, especially in Argentina, a strongly statist country. Libertarian philosophy is an American philosophy, the United States is a country that was formed from the individual to the State. And in Argentina it has been the other way around: from the State to the individual.
News: Why does this happen?
Fernandez: The Argentine liberals, who even Milei himself claims, sought to build a State. They were not anti-statists, on the contrary. The United States is different, each state (let’s say “province”) seeks its autonomy, and each community, even within each State, as well. The laws, in general, depend on each particular state, as in the case of cannabis consumption: each state defines whether or not it is criminalized.
News: You claim that the left is in crisis due to its restrictive aspect of pleasure. Do you think that was the reason why Milei attracted the young vote?
Fernandez: In these last twenty years, progressivism became mainstream. There was a kind of progressive convergence in terms of personal freedoms. Since that was the establishment, it is clear that the rebellion cannot come from there. On the other hand, I think there has been an excessively identity-based and victim-oriented drift on the left in recent years. Very anti-hedonistic and restrictive of pleasure. In the case of Argentina, something must be emphasized, which is the presence of Kirchnerism, which was in power for twenty years with a progressive populist discourse, with a very strong nationalization and a depressed economy. This must be added to moralistic control. I think the turning point was the pandemic, especially for young people, with the confinement and disciplinary measures, carried out by a supposedly progressive government. And Milei entered there, and through libertarian influencers who follow him. A discourse of freedom as a criticism of the restriction, especially of the pandemic.
News: How did libertarianism, which advocated free drug use or free sexuality, become a certain conservative morality?
Fernandez: It has to do with paleolibertarianism, an aspect that emerged in the United States in the 1990s. In the 1980s, what was the Libertarian Party, founded in the year 71, had had a drift, from the point of view of Rothbard, “libertine”: there were hippies, countercultural people. Which had made it, since the 60s, converge in many things with the New Left, very anti-statist, self-managed, which valued experimentation, the creation of new forms of life, was anti-imperialist, had points in common. Rothbard considered that these were minority positions and the Libertarian Party could never pass 1% of the vote. And he develops another strategy: he explains that the problem is not authority, but state authority. That is why they seek to return to a certain form of tradition and figures that socially order such as the Church or the father of the family. They seek to return to a “mythical masculinity” as a reaction to gender theory and feminism. But that is not going to happen: people already live in very different ways from the past. They can repeal laws or prohibit something, but people live beyond that.
News: How do you define Milei?
Fernandez: It seems to me to be the Creole libertarian paleo version. A kind of neo-Menemism, with all the differences it may have with Menem: he was a leader of the interior, he had been governor, he came from the Justicialist Party. But like Menem, he has a plebeian transfer as a political figure. Menem was followed by businessmen, due to his position to deregulate the economy, but he also had important popular support. But he is clearly a right-wing populist, I don’t understand why many liberals try to place him in the liberal republican tradition. He doesn’t seem like a Republican to me at all, he demonstrated it with the mega DNU, by speaking with his back to Congress at his inauguration. He builds from antagonism, something that Menem did not do: “good Argentines versus bad Argentines”; Menem had populist ways, but he did not build from antagonism but from closing cracks. Milei is “they don’t see it”, there is something about “bullying” the opponent. “Those who disagree with me have Stockholm Syndrome,” an atrocious pathologization of the opponent. His economic measures tend toward liberalism, but politically he is a populist.
