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Argentina’s Milei Looks to Take Conservative Revolution Global

Posted on Saturday, April 6, 2024
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by Ben Solis
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AMAC EXCLUSIVE

Argentina president Milei

Four months into his tenure, new Argentine President Javier Milei has largely delivered on his promise to take a chainsaw to Argentina’s socialist government and bloated state bureaucracy. Now, he’s also hinted at plans to help build an international coalition of conservatives to counter the global left.

In recent days, Milei laid off 15,000 more government bureaucrats, on top of the 9,000 he laid off late last year. Tens of thousands more layoffs are expected in the coming months. In addition, Milei has cut the number of state ministries in half, mandated in-person work for government employees, and dramatically reduced government spending, among other changes.

Milei’s tenure represents a dramatic reversal from Peronism, a socialist governing system which had dominated Argentine politics for the better part of 50 years, and a return to the capitalist principles that once made Argentina one of the most prosperous countries in the world.

Professor Cordero Quiñones, a former advisor on economic affairs to Brazil’s President João Figueiredo, told me that it was Peronism which “led the country to unprecedented decline.”

“Discarding the pro-free market ideas formulated for Argentina by economists and lawyers Juan Bautista Alberdi and José Benjamín Gorostiaga transformed it in a decade from one of the richest countries in the world to the beggar of the world,” Professor Quiñones continued. “Socialist leaders wasted Argentina’s wealth, which was created thanks to the free market economy, by imposing centrally planned governance and financing their progressive experiment.”

“With an excessive money supply keeping wages rising regardless of whether work generated more value, the progressive Peronists destroyed the market price system, the soul of free enterprise, which has never recovered.”

Soon after descending into socialism, Argentina saw investors flee and inflation soar, reaching as high as 280 percent. A country which once rivaled the economic powers of Europe became impoverished virtually overnight.

Western media and academia have long denied this narrative, as it is a powerful case study in the inherent flaws of socialist policies. “Western academia still denies that Argentina’s economic tragedy began with Peron’s abolition of the free market,” Professor Giacobbe Provenzano, a former advisor on financial policy to Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani, who currently lives in Peru, told me.

Milei, however, a former economics professor, is acutely aware of the failures of Peronism.

Milei is a student of Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek, one of the most prominent economic and political thinkers of the mid-20th century. Eighty years ago, Hayek warned that the leftist ideas which underpin Peronism were a “new slavery” that would ruin countries.

In his work The Road to Serfdom, Hayek emphasized that the growth of commerce in the West reflected the principles and values of Christianity in public life: respect for the individual and the recognition of the value of human life. Collectivism, Hayek argued, deprived people of freedom, while individualism guarded freedom.

Hayek, a veteran of World War I and witness to World War II, concluded that societies prosper when they work to free the individual from limits to his or her economic activity.

This is the ethos that Milei has brought to Argentina. Not quite a true traditional conservative, Milei’s platform rests on the idea that Argentina will thrive again when the state stops meddling in the economy.

During his presidential campaign, Milei, also a former actor, reached audiences with a series of humorous skits that effectively conveyed his economic message. In one such skit, Milei, posing as a mental health doctor, tries to help a middle-aged businessman suffering a nervous breakdown. Milei diagnoses the man with “inflammation from bureaucracy.”

“Bureaucracy is a mortal virus that kills responsible citizenry – it attacks the spirit of liberty, enterprise, and individualism,” Milei’s character says.

As a remedy, Milei recommends a “Leave me alone” lifestyle, which he explains is the opposite of collectivism and statism.

As firmly as he defends the free market, Milei also stands strongly for Judeo-Christian morals. He has unabashedly declared that abortion is “murder,” and even offered his support for the March for Life in the United States.

But Milei has not been content to just advance the causes of individual liberty and economic freedom in his home country. Increasingly, he also wants to spread those ideas to the rest of the world.

During a meeting with Italian President Giorgia Meloni in February, Milei said that he wanted the ideas of liberty to be accessible “worldwide,” further calling for an international conservative movement to balance the global leftist movement.

To be sure, Milei recognizes that his approach cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution for every country. Retired Professor of Economics Paolo Avenzano, who lives now in Brazil, told me that, while many of their policy goals are the same, Milei had to adopt a different strategy from conservatives in the United States and Europe to win over the people of Argentina.

But, Professor Avenzano continued, Milei does hope to create a global political environment where conservatives help each other promote their ideas. “Milei believes that the left, with slogans, sells its utopias around the world as if they would be a ticket to paradise, while they are opposite.”

“It would be a group, gathering nations’ leaders interested in spreading policies consistent with free market values,” Professor Quiñones added. “As a lawmaker and now also most crucial decision maker, Milei knows that the spirit of entrepreneurship, competition, and free enterprise encourages good morals and responsible citizenry.”

As Professor Provenzano pointed out, Milei’s best global marketing strategy for conservatism will be the success of his policies at home. “The results of the restored foundations of the market economy in Argentina that prospers again will be attractive to others because it will be clear it is an alternative to mountains of debt, vehement bureaucracy, and a shrinking economy,” he said.

Now, it will be up to Milei to continue delivering on his promises and prove to the world why economic freedom and individual liberty are the only path to human prospering.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.

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Rita
Rita
5 months ago

Awesome Article. Pray America wakes up and takes down this bide-ocracy Immediately!
4 more years of demon/crats and we will be known as AmericanWhoCrats! What a natural disaster of the Biden sellout onomics!! This Obama puppet sociopath has all but shut us down. Faith in the Creator-Jesus Christ is our only Hope. Don’t believe it??? Watch n wait.

Kurt Smith
Kurt Smith
5 months ago

This is Great News! President Javier Milei is a true champion in the fight against communism. Thanks AMAC!

Kim
Kim
5 months ago

I wrote to my congresswoman, Virginia Foxx, asking her to vote “no” on the 1.2 trillion-dollar budget bill. She voted for it.
It’s only when our legislators decide to take a sledgehammer to the budget process that we’ll finally make progress on whittling down the debt and government spending. Foxx and all the other Republicans who voted for it should take a lesson from Milei. That’s how things get done. Republicans need to put some muscle behind their promises.

No “yes” votes until real issues, such as closing the border, are written into the bill. I don’t care who goes without funding. Handling the border as biden and team have done kills people every single day. That’s immoral, unconscionable, and insane considering the numbers of people invading our country and the crimes they commit against innocent American citizens. I don’t want them in my country! Trump was right.

Rich
Rich
5 months ago

True Americans can learn a great deal from Milei, IF we will only open our eyes.

Melinda
Melinda
5 months ago

The more I hear of Milei the better I like him, and wish him success. Now if only our thick headed liberals would see the light.

Goblyn
Goblyn
5 months ago

So cliffy, you obviously believe that Biden, pelosi, shucker, AOC, schiff, others are the saviors of the United States and the Constitutional Republic. Hamas should reign free and the border should be open so that all the illegals can vote for a vegetable. Great ideas cliffy. You should march around mommy’s basement eating your crayons and dragging your blanket, you dumb, uninformed, blind, democrat.

carol exposito
carol exposito
5 months ago

Trump will be our Milei. What the old devil in the White House has accomplished in his demolition of America has left us dumbfounded! We knew Joe was horrible, but nobody could have predicted the damage he would do….and is still doing!!! 8 more months to Election day and then nearly 3 months before the moving van drags him out. Think how much more damage he can do. I wish we could evict him right now!

uncleferd
uncleferd
5 months ago

It appears that people all over the world are seeing the threat of liberalism, and how many lives it ruins… and in the case of many countries, how many lives have ended in its’ path. Russia and the USSR murdered over 100 million people in the 20th Century, yet, now our college and high school students are being brainwashed in the same ways as yesteryear. Time to make sure our minds are free, and, that WE are free to love our families and provide them with happiness.

GI Joe
GI Joe
5 months ago

Cliff
Your a fool !

Rich
Rich
5 months ago

Please go back to the AARP. Where there is more Kool-Aid for you.

JaneN
JaneN
5 months ago

When the truth is revealed many people will need to recover from cognitive dissonance. The lies of the cabal

Warren Earhart
Warren Earhart
5 months ago

And you’re a Communist wingnut

John
John
5 months ago

Can we put him on the ballot for president here. only joking!!
Everything he says is true and he is getting rid of there swamp which is all the protected and privileged government, useless employees.
Same thing as here in America. Trump should have done the same thing in his first term.
Retire them, lay them off, require them all to work in person, reorganize all the agencies and make all of them reapply dor there positions.
Boom! 50% of government workers gone or quit and those left have to prove there skill set and compete.
Also the Federal budget just saved at least 25%.

Harry
Harry
5 months ago

Off the Cliff?? Sounds like you have already given up and are envious of Trump, because your Vegetable, (Biden’s) total failure list continues to grow. God you people are psycho!!

bahian
bahian
5 months ago

Milei is head and shoulders above Trump or Bolsonaro whose policies were not consistently libertarian or Austrian school. The man’s philosophy is based on a profound understanding not just of economics, history etc. but human nature. A big thumbs up from Brazil. Like Bolsonaro and Trump, Milei faces backstabbing and fierce resistance from the the unions, bureaucracy, peronists and their allies. I hope he has the good instincts to not appoint people who betray or disappoint him like Trump who time and time again regretted appointments he made to Attorney General and other govt agencies not to mention his VP.

Harry
Harry
5 months ago

If Biden screws Israel and many die. Biden will be the new Hitler!!! Already being mentioned!

Steven Coughlin
Steven Coughlin
5 months ago

Cliff, either you are a closet Trump lover or you should stop doing drugs. How about providing some actual substance to your wonderfully insightful comments? ( That’s called sarcasm, Cliff)

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Sugar Defender Review
5 months ago

You’re welcome! I appreciate your willingness to engage further. If you have any specific questions or topics you’d like to delve into, feel free to share them. Whether it’s about recent developments in technology, intriguing scientific discoveries, captivating literature, or anything else on your mind, I’m here to provide insights and assistance. Simply let me know how I can help, and I’ll be happy to assist you further!

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