President Javier Milei campaigned as an anarcho-capitalist and minarchist who pledged to abolish the central bank and dollarize the economy.

He proposed drastic spending cuts, including abolishing several ministries and slashing welfare payments.

The executive issued an 83‑page Necessity and Urgency Decree and a large omnibus bill to repeal hundreds of laws and facilitate privatizations.

The omnibus would enable privatization of dozens of state firms and delegate over 1,000 extraordinary powers to the executive until December 31, 2025.

Milei has adopted "turbo-politics" to bypass Congress and has threatened referendums and sanctions to pressure opponents.

His governing coalition lacks a Senate majority and controls only a plurality in the lower house, forcing negotiation and causing legislative defeats.

His economic moves include devaluing the peso, cutting interest rates, and vows to stop money‑printing to reduce inflation.

Analysts warn full dollarization would cede monetary control to the US, require 35–50 billion dollars in reserves, and raise vulnerability to external shocks.

His agenda has sparked mass protests and legal challenges, and some proposed labor and environmental deregulations were suspended or limited.

Scholars argue these fast, market‑oriented reforms risk weakening democratic institutions and concentrating executive power under a neoliberal parliamentarism model.

In sum: Milei is pursuing radical libertarian, market‑oriented reforms that dollarize currency, shrink the state through privatisation and ministry cuts, and centralize executive authority, with contested economic and social consequences.

President Javier Milei campaigned as an anarcho-capitalist and minarchist who pledged to abolish the central bank and dollarize the economy.

Title:

Content: Argentina sees the light with Maverick Javier Milei – Ivo Vegter

In a surprising turn, libertarian firebrand Javier Milei secured Argentina’s presidency after a second-round victory against his left-wing rival. Vowing to end decades of socialist mismanagement, Milei, an outspoken economist, faces challenges in implementing radical reforms, including abolishing ministries and dollarising the economy. While hailed as the world’s first libertarian president, Milei’s uphill battle involves legislative opposition and managing economic pain amid promises of a freer, market-oriented Argentina. Skepticism remains, awaiting the true impact of his ambitious plans in a nation grappling with deep-rooted economic struggles.

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Argentinians see the light

By Ivo Vegter*

It took a second round of voting, but the libertarian Javier Milei has defeated his Peronist rival to become president of Argentina.

A month ago, Javier Milei unexpectedly lost the first round of the Argentinian general election to his left-wing Peronist rival, Sergio Massa, after the latter had cynically promised zero taxes as a way to bribe voters.

In my column on the lessons South Africa could draw from that election, I said: ‘Let’s hope Argentinians see the light before Massa and Milei face off in the run-off election.’

Happily, they did see the light.

After decades of economic malaise under a government that for most of the last 30 years has been socialist, corrupt, wasteful and incompetent, leaving Argentina eighth from last in the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World Report 2023, they elected Milei, a libertarian firebrand, in the biggest landslide since Juan Perón’s election in 1973.

Milei becomes the first libertarian president, not only of Argentina, but in the world. The closest precedent that comes to mind is that of Calvin Coolidge, the small-government conservative president during the Roaring Twenties in the US, but Milei is far more radical than that.

‘“oday the reconstruction of Argentina begins’, he said, after winning 56% of the vote in the head-to-head race. That was also his first lie as president-elect, since he doesn’t actually take office until 10 December, but we’ll let that slide.

Radical

To describe Milei as radical would be putting it mildly. He has described the country’s ruling elite as thieves and the government as ‘a criminal organisation’. He has promised to abolish ten of the government’s 18 ministries. He said he would do away with the central bank and dollarise the Argentinian economy.

‘The model of decadence has come to an end’, he told his supporters. ‘There’s no going back. We have monumental problems ahead. Inflation, lack of work, and poverty’.

Milei is an accomplished economist, and largely follows the Austrian School of individualist free-market economics. He has variously described himself as an anarcho-capitalist and a minarchist (an anarchist who accepts the legitimacy of a small government dedicated to protecting life, liberty and property).

He has been extraordinarily outspoken on the evils of socialism and statism, and how they turned Argentina from a once-wealthy world power into an over-indebted, poverty-stricken, underdeveloped basket case.

Mainstream media

The mainstream media, with its largely left-leaning bias, has compared Milei to former presidents Donald Trump of the US and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.

‘Argentina set for sharp right turn as Trump-like radical wins presidency’, trumpeted the Washington Post

‘Argentina Elects Javier Milei in Victory for Far Right’ was the headline in the New York Times, which added: ‘Argentina’s next president is a libertarian economist whose brash style and embrace of conspiracy theories has parallels with those of Donald J. Trump.’

The ‘embrace of conspiracy theories’ is a particularly vicious jab. Readers would have to follow a link to find an explanation, and it turns out that the Times only referred to Milei’s allegations of polling irregularities, which have not been tested.

It is entirely plausible that Argentina’s electoral system is less secure than that of the United States, and that the incumbents – who went as far as abolishing taxes in order to engineer a win – might have been involved in some electoral skulduggery.

Allegations of election fraud are very common on all sides of the political spectrum, and do not, in and of themselves, rise to the level of the debunked claims of Trump, and his attempt to derail the orderly election of his rival.

Authoritarians

More importantly, both Bolsonaro and Trump are alt-right populists. They are moral authoritarians – not liberals – and appeal to collectivist – not individualist – principles such as nationalism and protectionism. They have often, rightly, been described as fascist, which is just as antithetical to libertarians as is left-wing socialism.

That both former presidents expressed their support for Milei has a lot more to do with shared anti-socialist positions than any real congruence in their political philosophy.

Milei has himself rejected the right-wing label, and indeed, his classical liberalism (for which ‘libertarian’ in the American sense is a synonym) does not yield to a simplistic left-right analysis. Rather, it falls on the liberal end of an authoritarian-liberal scale, and on the progressive end of a conservative-progressive scale.

Sour-grape-ish

Milei does have some views that are questionable, or traditionally associated with the conservative right, such as his anti-abortion stance and his rejection of climate alarmism.

Neither define him, however, and both are issues on which libertarians can and do disagree.

By similar logic, Milei’s promise not to dismantle Argentina’s extensive social welfare programmes does not make him some sort of left-winger.

In focusing on incidental agreements between Milei and leaders like Trump and Bolsonaro, and ignoring the fundamental philosophical differences between the former’s individualist, free-market, small-government ideas and the authoritarianism, nationalism, populism and protectionism of the latter, the media does both Milei and their readers a great disservice.

That a politician does not perfectly reflect all one’s personal political or moral views is in any case far less of a concern when that very politician proposes as far as possible to keep government out of people’s personal affairs and to leave most of the world’s problems to the private sector.

‘When your response to everything that is wrong with the world is to say, “There ought to be a law,” you are saying that you hold freedom very cheap’, said Thomas Sowell.

Moreover, it seems extraordinarily petty and sour-grape-ish to complain about a few differences of opinion with a candidate who promises radical change in a country that is mired in economic crisis, thanks to the policies of its incumbent rulers.

Music to the ears

Sniping from the mainstream press aside, the rise of a truly libertarian president in one of the world’s most economically unfree countries should be music to a classical liberal’s ears.

Who doesn’t want to radically slash the size of government? Who doesn’t question the inflationary monetary policy of highly indebted countries? Who doesn’t want to see free enterprise flourish, and witness the departure of a government that strangles business with red tape and taxes, and tries to pick winners by throwing subsidies at favoured companies?

On the face of it, this should be an excellent experiment to show whether the libertarian prescriptions for government do, indeed, produce a better outcome than the socialist quagmire in which Argentina has been stuck for so long.

Pain and gain

Practically speaking, however, there are reasons to remain skeptical.

First, we’ve only seen Milei’s talk, and not his walk.

Second, making drastic changes in the structure of a country’s government and economy, as Milei proposes, will be painful.

It is arguable that the short-term pain is justified by the long-term gain, but electorates are rarely forgiving to those who inflict necessary pain. Witness Margaret Thatcher, who saved Britain from the socialist economic malaise of the 1970s, but remains hated to this day by those who bore the brunt of her reforms.

Dollarising an economy does not produce immediate results, for example. It can take years before the stabilising effect of dollarisation filters through to low inflation rates. It can, however, immediately harm people and even increase poverty levels, depending on the exchange rate at which existing deposits are converted.

Drastically reducing the size of government will also face much immediate opposition, especially from civil servants who stand to lose their jobs.

Privatising healthcare, education or other government functions is also fraught with transition difficulties. Much depends on exactly how such privatisation is carried out. It can fail, and even if the eventual outcome is a success, it could cause years of disruptions and dissatisfaction.

Then there are the entrenched patronage networks of the incumbent socialist government, who will be highly upset – and fight back vigorously – when the taps of corrupt fiscal spending get turned off.

Finally, few voters have the patience to wait five or ten years for radical free-market reforms to have a positive impact, and Argentina’s president only serves a four-year term before facing the electorate again.

Legislative opposition

A further obstacle to Milei’s reforms is that he will not be the philosopher-king of every libertarian’s dreams. He will not be a dictator.

He will simply be the head of the executive in a constitutional parliamentary democracy, with strictly circumscribed powers.

And the elections did not result in a similar landslide in the legislature.

Argentina has a 72-seat Senate, or upper house, and a 257-seat Chamber of Deputies, or lower house. Together, they make up the Argentinian National Congress.

In both houses, Milei’s libertarian coalition, Liberty Advances (La Libertad Avanza, or LLA) took more seats from the conservative coalition, Together for Change (Juntos por el Cambio, or JxC), than from the socialist Peronista coalition, Union for the Homeland (Unión por la Patria, or UxP).

In the Senate, this leaves the Peronistas as the largest coalition, with 32 seats. It would need 37 seats to command an outright majority. The conservative coalition, JxC, retains only 27 seats. As the third-largest party in the Senate, Milei’s LLA only has six seats, which even in coalition with the conservatives is not enough for an outright majority.

In the lower house, the picture is similar. UxP has 104 out of 257 seats, JxC has 93, and LLA has 38. The only difference is that here, a JxC and LLA coalition can command a simple majority.

This leaves Milei at the mercy first of the conservatives, who would welcome market-oriented reforms and a departure from socialism, but by their very nature would be reluctant to endorse Milei’s more radical, disruptive proposals. Once Milei has cleared that hurdle, he needs to gather a majority in the upper house, which will be even harder.

Argentina is also heavily indebted, including to the International Monetary Fund, and creditors are likely to have a say in how the country is run. Anything that scares them will raise the cost of credit, which Argentina can ill afford.

Wait and see

Once the initial euphoria of seeing a true libertarian in power has cleared, then, we are left with the sobering realisation that Milei may not be able to achieve anywhere near as much as he has promised.

Turning failing countries around is not for the faint-hearted, and it always comes with social upheaval and economic pain.

Even if Milei gets the good ship Argentina pointed in the right direction again, the prevailing winds and currents may still dash it – and its captain – upon the rocks.

Read also:

*Ivo Vegter is a freelance journalist, columnist and speaker who loves debunking myths and misconceptions, and addresses topics from the perspective of individual liberty and free markets.

This article was first published by Daily Friend and is republished with permission

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Title:

Content: Overview:

Argentina's latest presidential election offers plenty of sensational fodder for the presses. But there's a deeper issue here, a politics of desperation, that we would do well to watch as it rises in the world.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

On November 19, Argentina elected Javier Milei as its next president, to take office this December. His politics have been compared to those of Donald Trump (in his showmanship) and Jair Bolsonaro (in his rightwing extremism and denialism), but his ideas go further than both. Milei calls himself an anarcho-capitalist (a form of libertarian), whose stated aims are “blowing up” the central bank, changing the Argentinian peso for the dollar, permitting the private sale of human organs, and closing ministries for education, health, women, and culture while slashing welfare payments.

Milei has also been called a “minarchist” for his minimal-government belief that the state’s only purpose is to protect citizens’ rights to free action. To this end, proposed bans on abortion and loosened gun laws run in lockstep with his acceptance of trans identities and desire to legalize more drugs. He denies the scale of Argentina’s brutal history of state terror in 1976 to 1983, and when he first rose in the polls, there was a panicked rush among citizens to change their pesos for dollars, fearing economic disaster.

So why did he win?

And not just by a hair, but with 56% of the vote against his runoff opponent, Sergei Massa?

The historical underpinnings run deep, but human behavior in response to the current economic moment is also not complex. Urban poverty hit 40.1% in 2023, as inflation reached 50.7% earlier this year. When the official exchange rate was devalued by 22% the day after the primaries (in which Milei’s popularity caused panic), it caused a 12.4% inflation spike. This is in an enconomy where some 48.1% are informally or self-employed, and thus without salaried protections against the greatest financial hits.

An outsider expecting rational economic actors might assume that if Milei’s presence in the polls only destabilized an already precarious situation, surely humans would avoid voting for him again. But the logic of longstanding financial stress runs deeper than traditional economic configurations of the “rational actor”: when there is no confidence in existing state structures, perhaps it is best to pull off the bandaid quickly. The immediate pain will be hard, but maybe, just maybe, the destruction of the old order will bring about something new.

This is the politics of desperation and disillusionment.

The world would do well to pay attention to its rise.

Argentinian histories of low confidence in the state

There’s a famous, apocryphal, and above all cruel expression in economics: “There have only been four types of economies in the world: advanced, developing, Japan, and Argentina.” The point driven at here is that Japan seemed to rise from the ashes, with everything working against it, after World War II and even now with an aging workforce. Meanwhile Argentina, a country with a natural bounty, seemed to destroy confidence in itself at every turn.

This is a cruel expression for a few reasons: one being that Argentina is not alone even in South America, as a country with great internal resources that has struggled to turn its holdings into wealth for its citizens. Another reason is the why. While Japan recovered from WWII by growing a commercial empire through top-down industrial relationships with surrounding countries, Argentina under labor-nationalist Juan Domingo Perón had the audacity in the 1950s to try to nationalize its British-owned railways. This choice met with swift reprisal from Western powers, thereafter unwilling to invest. Before World War II, Argentina had relied heavily on military rule. After inflation spiked and labor strikes surged as global investors pulled out, it was back to decades of fraught authoritarianism.

One of the worst coups started with a 600 percent inflation surge in 1976. That seven-year period yielded up to 30,000 disappeared human beings during the state’s “Dirty War” against leftists, and ended only after the military attempted to take the Falkland Islands from the British. This failure would yield the modern democratic state, but with a low opinion of both the military and the bureaucracy. In 1989, ahead of a massive inflation crisis of up to 4,900 percent, only 30,000 out of 30 million citizens were paying income taxes.

Now, inflation can address domestic debt, but Argentina’s massive fiscal deficit was informed centrally by external debt, in dollars to the rest of the world. During the banking crisis of 1990, banks forced client deposits into bonds under the BONEX Plan, essentially taking citizens’ savings from them with a promise that their investment in the future of the country would pay off. Citizens were not happy about this, of course.

The government then introduced the Convertibility Plan in 1991, which tried to peg the Argentinian peso to the US dollar at a 1:1 rate. This process involved Argentina embracing US neoliberal state policies: relaxing labor protections, massively privatizing industries, and otherwise bringing the world back into Argentinian markets. Did the plan reduce inflation? Yes. It also raised unemployment, reduced wages, and stratified class outcomes. And it led to more austerity measures over time, because the government’s debt kept rising, forcing more of the annual budget into “debt servicing” to other countries.

Being open to world markets also meant being more vulnerable to their downturns, such as a major wobble in 2001, which sparked labor collapse and food riots in Argentina despite its local wealth of grain and beef. The peso was unpegged in 2002, after the government had restricted bank withdrawals to keep citizens from “financial flight” into other currencies and markets. Once the peso was floating freely, though, people panicked anyway. After years of seeing the dollar as the more valuable and stable currency, they rushed to exchange their holdings (which were now all in pesos) back into US dollars by other means. That rush caused another inflationary spike.

Argentina underwent two major debt restructuring deals in that decade, but they just created more problems. A deal in 2001 allowed Argentina to pay interest only to those who had opted in to the restructuring plan, and the exclusion of “holdouts” was reasserted after 2010, when the debt plan was agreed upon by 93% of bondholders. The remaining 7% weren’t having this, though: a few hedge fund creditors sued the Argentinian government for breach of a principle of equal treatment for bondholders, pari passu. The South District Court of New York agreed with them, and even though Argentina tried to continue paying its “holdin” creditors, as per the debt restructuring plan, those payments were not permitted until Argentina paid the holdouts, too, in compliance with the court’s rulings.

Argentina was forced into a massive default in 2014. And again in 2020. And this year, analysts believe it’s on track for another soon.

Why? Because Argentina’s banking system isn’t an independent force. It is yoked to a highly litigious set of international players, and vulnerable to every global market crash as well.

Seen this way, why wouldn’t the average Argentinian want to bring it down?

Dollarization and other flawed promises

The complex problem for Argentinians voting out of desperation is twofold:

For one, as much as they might associate the days of the dollar with a period of relative stability, it was never a simple matter of pegging one currency to another. The arrangement expressly came with Argentina’s willingness to embrace neoliberal policies that yielded stark divides in civilian life and other market outcomes. For Milei to “dollarize” the country now would require a similar willingness to play ball with international institutions and their policy demands. The moment the peso is eliminated, by being exchanged in its entirety for dollars, Argentina cedes a great deal of financial policy to external players.

And yet, that is precisely the issue currently plaguing Argentina’s banks.

But also, not just Argentina, despite the glibness of the apocryphal economics saying.

The problems of our global financial system are serious enough that they will require a much more holistic reckoning with the consequences of fifty years of neoliberal policy. In July, a UN joint commission released “Soaring Debt Threatens Global Prosperity”, a report that highlights the staggering rates of debt servicing endured by 40% of the developing world. If these debts were simply between states, that would be one matter, more easily resolved; but the hyper-privatized yet undertaxed nature of our global economy has the vast majority of these countries forced into austerity measures to pay off complex debts to groups like the hedge fund creditors who pushed Argentina into default in 2014.

In other words, this will keep happening until we develop policies that can offset the private-investment predation currently facing many countries in precarity.

The second problem is one that Colombia also experienced this past year, when many on both the left (with excitement) and the right (with trepidation) expected the first leftist president to bring about dramatic reforms: Milei is just one person in his government. Just as Gustavo Petro found himself embroiled in parliamentary quarrels between competing groups, so too does Milei’s victory not come with the resounding legislative presence needed to steamroll all his grand plans into operation. He, too, is going to have to negotiate.

In practice, this means that Argentinians currently thrilled by the possibility of change are again going to meet with disillusionment. Either Milei will pull off his dollarization, and they will learn that this move makes the country no less vulnerable to global shocks and creditors, or he won’t, and amid his interim achievement of “easier” goals (e.g., the demolition of whole ministries), Argentinians will experience socioeconomic shocks that again bring them to the streets in protest… or else to live, having nowhere else to go.

GLOBAL HUMANIST SHOPTALK M L Clark is a Canadian writer by birth, now based in Medellín, Colombia, who publishes speculative fiction and humanist essays with a focus on imagining a more just world.

He proposed drastic spending cuts, including abolishing several ministries and slashing welfare payments.

The executive issued an 83‑page Necessity and Urgency Decree and a large omnibus bill to repeal hundreds of laws and facilitate privatizations.

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Content: Argentina’s Javier Milei’s “Instant Democracy” and Neoliberalism

Javier Milei, YouTube screen grab.

Self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” Javier Milei became the president of Argentina in December 2023 promising “drastic” measures to temper the inflation crisis that has gripped the country. In the weeks since his election, Milei has brought forward an ambitious neoliberal restructuring program encompassing almost every aspect of the government.

Milei’s agenda confronts considerable opposition in Congress, where his governing coalition, Libertad Avanza, holds only a fraction of the seats. To adjust to these circumstances, Milei has cultivated a strategy of “turbo-politics,” bypassing legislative processes that risk delaying the implementation of his state reorganization plans.

Milei’s approach to Congress is symbolic of a decades-old strategy I have elsewhere called “neoliberal parliamentarism.” This concept describes a pattern of deliberate efforts to reform or subvert legislative institutions as a means of facilitating neoliberal reforms that do not have sufficient popular support to be actualized through usual democratic channels. These changes, even when temporary, often leave long-term scars on institutions by weakening norms of institutional forbearance.

The Emergency Decree and the Omnibus Bill

Milei has followed this blueprint, insulating the core elements of his agenda from democratic influence. The dismantling of the Argentine state began in earnest in mid-December when the executive branch presented an 83 page Necessity and Urgency Decree (NDU) aimed at repealing over 300 various laws and regulations, facilitating the privatization of core public assets.

This “mega-decree,” Milei claimed, was necessary to “start to undo the huge number of regulations that have held back and prevented economic growth”. It includes sweeping economic deregulation, such as the elimination of regulations on Argentina’s supermarket laws, which required the guarantee of low prices on basic products. It also includes measures to eliminate rent controls. Suggested labour reforms to cut pregnancy leave and increase the job probation period were suspended by the courts in January 2024.

Less than a week after issuing the NDU, the executive branch sent a massive omnibus bill titled Foundations and Starting Points for the Freedom of the Argentine People to Congress for consideration. The bill bundles the major elements of Milei’s neoliberal restructuring initiatives under the heading of a single piece of legislation with 664 articles. It will enable the government to carry out, in a matter of weeks, what would normally take years to achieve if these reforms were considered independently and subjected to the usual legislative scrutiny.

Reforms from the 351 page bill include an extraordinary provision declaring a state of public emergency on matters related to the economy, fiscal balance, social security, defence, health, and administration.

The emergency declaration delegates more than 1,000 extraordinary powers from the legislative to the executive until December 31, 2025, with the possibility of a two-year extension. This provision would enable Milei to make major reforms without having to consult Congress, thus eliminating a major hurdle to the implementation of neoliberal reforms.

Authors of the bill are attempting to facilitate the privatization of 41 state-owned companies across various sectors including energy, aviation, port administration, and agriculture. They also enable the reorganization of public administration, including embedding regulatory cuts from the NDU into law.

Additionally, the omnibus legislation proposes substantial reforms to environmental protection laws. These changes include the weakening of the Glacier Protection Law, allowing the mining of sensitive “periglacial” areas. The bill is presently being rushed through the legislative process by way of Extraordinary sessions of Congress, leading to marathon sittings during Argentina’s usual summer recess period.

“It’s impossible for people to have an idea of the enormous number of proposals Milei has sent,” said Ricardo Gil Laverda, a constitutional lawyer and former Argentine Justice Minister. “They cover dozens and dozens and dozens of laws, often on deep topics.”

To influence negotiations, Milei has threatened to put forward a non-binding referendum if the opposition parties do not agree to the main terms of his restructuring plan. Milei has also threatened to take away social welfare rights from protesters who block streets.

Despite these efforts, however, the reality of Milei’s lack of Congressional support has led him to compromise on some elements of his agenda as it makes its way through the legislative process. Although the structure of the bill remains, opposition politicians have made more than 100 changes to it, including curtailing the scope of the President’s emergency powers to one year rather than two, and retaining YPF, the national oil and gas company, in public hands, despite allowing most other state-owned companies to remain subject to privatization.

Neoliberalism and the Decline of the Legislature

Argentina is not unique. This most recent example of legislative subversion is a familiar tactic used to accommodate neoliberal restructuring, that has been utilized repeatedly by neoliberal reformers in recent decades, including the IMF-sanctioned omnibus bill rammed through Greece’s parliament in 2014.

This approach to the legislature is the consequence of the political limitations of neoliberal policy, which is opposed by considerable segments of society. A blueprint for this strategy is spelled out by former New Zealand Minister of Finance Roger Douglas in his 1993 book, Unfinished Business. The book recalls lessons from his experience implementing a neoliberal agenda dubbed ‘Rogernomics’ in the 1980s against the headwinds of widespread social and political opposition.

Douglas claimed it is “uncertainty, not speed, that endangers the success of structural reform programmes.” Neoliberal reforms should not be passed incrementally, but as a rupture, moving in “quantum leaps” to overcome popular opposition.

Democratic processes are typically slow and deliberate, designed to enable the legislative body to scrutinize the executive, foster compromise, and encourage debate. It was necessary, therefore, to streamline the democratic process to ensure that politicians could neither interfere with, nor demand meaningful changes to, neoliberal reorganization efforts.

Neoliberal governments should confront the legislature, not as an essential element of the process of democracy, but an instrument used by politicians and vested interests to interfere with the operations of the marketplace. “Speed is essential. It is almost impossible to go too fast,” Douglas said. “Once the programme begins to be implemented, don’t stop until you have completed it.”

This tactic did not occur in a vacuum, but emerged intrinsically from the content of a neoliberal theoretical framework that views democratic institutions as an additional layer of state administration to be overcome. Neoliberal thought is deeply skeptical in the capabilities of reason to infer or predict causality. Given the limitations of the mind, society should be governed, not by conscious modelling and careful planning, but according to spontaneous or “invisible hand” forms of social organization, which are the outcome of independent, unplanned individual decisions.

This position is most clearly expressed by Friedrich Hayek, who claimed that parliamentary sovereignty was in fact the “root of the evil” in modern society, since it facilitated the growth of the state. Legislatures constituted one limb of what Milton Friedman called the “iron triangle” of politicians, bureaucrats, as well as corporate and individual special interests that were perpetually reliant upon the government for rents, and therefore had an interest in obstructing market reforms.

‘Instant Democracy’ and the Rise of ‘Neoliberal Populism’

What should we make of Milei’s approach to Congress, then? Is it reflective of a new pattern in neoliberal governance, or merely the extension of an old one? The answer is both. While Milei’s approach clearly shares categorial similarities with the neoliberal legislative blueprint built for speed, his blending of these ideas with a coarse, populist rhetoric grounded in anti-statism, signifies an intensification of these patterns.

Milei’s populist neoliberal worldview contributes to a rising trend among far-right governments around the world to use this rhetoric to rationalize the subversion of democracy. This kind of “neoliberal populism” conflates democratic institutions with political actors, claiming that they are instruments of obstruction for self-serving politicians and bureaucrats.

This is a view Milei has proudly declared. “For me, the state is an enemy, as are the politicians who live off it,” he said. “We will put an end to the parasitic, stupid, useless political caste that is sinking this country.”

Grounded in the same logic as neoliberalism’s conventional demand for freedom from the state, democratic institutions increasingly appear as impediments to the logic of the marketplace. The elimination of cumbersome legislative processes, then, removes the obstacles that restrain market forces, generating popular economic independence, and restoring common-sense. This inverts the logic of democracy, making it appear as though executive rule is necessary to protect the interests of “the People” from Friedman’s “iron triangle.”

The anti-parliamentarism at the core of the neoliberal theoretical outlook has increasingly transformed into a populist program that mobilizes a general dissatisfaction with politicians against democratic institutions as such. Neoliberal politicians, such as Milei, use this reasoning to manufacture the conditions for the ongoing use of emergency powers and the concentration of authority in the executive branch.

The global elite, sensing “the smell of a big privatization wave coming,” are said to be “infatuated” with his take-no-prisoners approach to Congress. Thus, although not a new phenomenon, Milei’s brand of “instant democracy,” which conceives of speed and flexibility as the essence of legislative governance, has the support of both the financial elite as well as a growing populist dimension, giving it the hallmarks of a burgeoning political movement of the most regressive kind.

As the institutional forbearance that restrained most neoliberal governments to stay within the confines of liberal democratic constitutional structures continues to give way to a logic that sees the legislature as subordinate to the market, it is likely that we will continue to see the erosion of democratic standards.

Tom McDowell is a Lecturer in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University. He is the author of Neoliberal Parliamentarism: The Decline of Parliament at the Ontario Legislature (University of Toronto Press, 2021).

What does Milei promote in terms of healthcare and education?

The omnibus would enable privatization of dozens of state firms and delegate over 1,000 extraordinary powers to the executive until December 31, 2025.

Milei has adopted "turbo-politics" to bypass Congress and has threatened referendums and sanctions to pressure opponents.

His governing coalition lacks a Senate majority and controls only a plurality in the lower house, forcing negotiation and causing legislative defeats.

Title:

Content: Javier Milei against democracy

Argentines must be patient since Javier Milei can only rely on them, not on all those supposed representatives of the people.

The Argentine president suffered a setback again after the Senate rejected the mega-decree to deregulate the country. However, for the package aimed at removing the suffocating state bureaucracy to be effectively rejected, it would also have to be rejected by the Chamber of Deputies.

As expected, the libertarian targeted the senators who voted against the decree, who were not only Peronists of various currents but also some radicals.

"Let the political class decide which side of history they want to be on," said the president. He added that it is an attempt to undermine the so-called May Pact, an agreement that Javier Milei seeks to reach with the governors of the provinces and the mayor of the city of Buenos Aires so that economic freedom reigns in Argentina instead of socialism, which has destroyed the country's economy and isolated it from the world.

Milei knew that rectifying the economy would not be a walk in the park since, although he is president, his party does not have a governor, a mayor, or a majority in any chamber. This is all amid a tough but necessary adjustment to settle the country's accounts and allow it to grow again. Therefore, if it had not been for the support of the citizens, it would surely have fallen by now.

The president, a complete outsider, must have a "political waist" to reach consensus. That is, he must enter the thick, contaminated and cumbersome mud of Argentine democracy in order to implement his plan.

But who makes up this democracy that they ask so much to respect? With whom do they ask you to reach a consensus? Well, with the same ones who have trampled on the constitution, the forms, the division of powers, etc. Those who went for everything without respecting absolutely anything today whiningly ask to be taken into account when making decisions. However, if any of the measures are effectively unconstitutional, it is not something that a legislator should decide since that is what the Supreme Court is for, right?

Javier Milei has to fight against all who make up this democracy, go through the impassable swamp that the Argentine bureaucracy represents, and that many need him to continue, even if that means hyperinflation, misery, unemployment, crime, etc. We could say that the ideal slogan for socialism would be "the worse, the better." In this way, they have the perfect excuse to intervene in the economy and in the lives of everyone in order to maintain the power and business of politics. That is, they want a country of militants, not workers. A country of officials who "love" the poor but not enough to lift them out of poverty. A country where resentment is more important than self-improvement,  where restrictions are more important than freedom and crime is justified and success demonized.

In the government, there is now an honest man who makes mistakes, whose ways are, at times, questionable, but who sincerely wants to fix the country. Who is a great economist and was able to predict with impressive success all the disasters that were coming to Argentina in previous administrations. Who has enough courage to confront the interventionist dinosaurs who seek to repeat failure, using democracy or the constitution as an excuse when it suits them, despite the fact that the majority of the supposed representatives of the people are the same ones who stand in the way of the president carrying out the changes that the majority of Argentines voted for. What democracy are they talking about?

Javier Milei, with his mistakes and successes, is on the side of the free world at a global level. He is cleansing the State of wasteful militants, reducing spending and stopping emissions. He is trying to repeal laws that have been resounding failures while being mercilessly attacked by the press, by opposition politicians who are actually coup plotters, by artists and leftist militants who only seek to continue parasitizing.

Argentines must understand that if the economic improvement takes longer than desired, it is because the dinosaurs that make up this democracy are muddying the playing field, so progress cannot be made, and they have to go back.

Argentines must be patient since Milei can only rely on them, not on all those supposed representatives of the people. The solution may take a while, but don't let it fail. This government is the last hope for Argentina. Do not miss such an opportunity, which may occur only once in history.

His economic moves include devaluing the peso, cutting interest rates, and vows to stop money‑printing to reduce inflation.

Title:

Content: Milei Experiment

In the tangled web of Argentine politics and economics, one figure has emerged as both a lightning rod for controversy and a beacon of hope ~ President Javier Milei.

In the tangled web of Argentine politics and economics, one figure has emerged as both a lightning rod for controversy and a beacon of hope ~ President Javier Milei. His first 100 days in office have been marked by a whirlwind of fiscal manoeuvres, bold policy shifts, and commitment to economic reform. But as Argentina teeters on the edge of uncertainty, Mr Milei’s ambitious agenda raises questions even it offers solutions. At the heart of Mr Milei’s strategy lies a radical departure from conventional wisdom.

Brandishing a chainsaw as a symbol of fiscal austerity, he has pledged to slash spending and achieve a budget surplus, a feat unheard of in a country plagued by decades of fiscal mismanagement. His unorthodox approach has garnered both praise and scepticism, as Argentines grapple with the harsh realities of rising poverty and economic contraction. The cornerstone of Mr Milei’s economic vision is the elimination of money-printing and the pursuit of a unified exchange rate. By devaluing the peso and cutting interest rates, he aims to rein in inflation and restore confidence in the economy.

Yet the path to stability is fraught with pitfalls, as the spectre of recession looms large and investors remain wary of the government’s opaque monetary policies. While Mr Milei’s commitment to reform is commendable, his political isolation poses a significant obstacle to meaningful change. With little support in the Argentine Congress and a fragmented coalition, he faces an uphill battle. The recent defeat of a sprawling omnibus bill highlights the challenges ahead, as competing interests and entrenched political factions threaten to derail Mr Milei’s ambitions. Moreover, the uncertainty surrounding Argentina’s future monetary regime adds another layer of complexity to the equation. Will Mr Milei pivot towards dollarization or pursue a more gradual approach to currency reform? The lack of clarity on this front only serves to fuel investor anxieties and exacerbate economic volatility. Amidst these challenges, Mr Milei’s fate hangs in the balance. How much economic pain can Argentines endure before turning on their unconventional leader? And can Mr Milei muster the political support needed to navigate the treacherous waters of Argentine politics?

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In the end, the trajectory of Mr Milei’s presidency hinges on the delicate balance between economic resilience and political manoeuvring. Should he manage to maintain public support and secure crucial alliances, Mr Milei could emerge as a formidable force in next year’s mid-term elections. However, any slip in popularity could spell disaster for his ambitious agenda, opening the door for his adversaries to dismantle his presidency. Whether Mr Milei’s gamble will pay off remains to be seen. But one thing is certain. In a country accustomed to political upheaval and economic turmoil, the journey towards reform is bound to be fraught with uncertainty and adversity. Only time will tell whether Mr Milei’s vision for Argentina’s future will lead to prosperity or further hardship

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What economic issue did Milei want to address?

Analysts warn full dollarization would cede monetary control to the US, require 35–50 billion dollars in reserves, and raise vulnerability to external shocks.

Title:

Content: Argentina election: Javier Milei's radical proposals face test of reality

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Javier Milei, the anti-establishment politician who cruised to victory in the Argentine presidential election last week, has courted intense controversy with radical, provocative policy proposals and statements.

This led many detractors of the self-styled "anarcho-capitalist" to call his candidacy a "leap into the void".

Now, with the mop-haired president-elect only two weeks away from taking over Latin America's third-largest economy, many are asking, how will his policies and positions face the test of reality?

Taming inflation takes time

Javier Milei had proposed to dollarise the economy and eliminate the Argentine Central Bank as a strategy to "kill" hyper-inflation. This meant making the US dollar the national currency in place of the Argentine peso, whose value, Mr Milei said, had been "melting like blocks of ice in the Sahara".

One obstacle is that ditching the Central Bank and making the US dollar legal tender would need approval from the Argentina's Congress and could even require changing the constitution.

Although Mr Milei convincingly won the presidency, his Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) movement is barely the third largest political force in Congress. This suggests difficult negotiations might be in store.

Some economists have also questioned whether Mr Milei's plans are feasible, saying they would weaken his government's ability to manage domestic monetary policy.

Having the US dollar as the Argentine currency would effectively leave interest rate policy in the hands of the US Federal Reserve. Argentina's economy would be more vulnerable to external shocks involving the US dollar, for example sudden rises in prices for oil and fuel imports, which could make internal adjustments even more painful inside the country.

Sceptics also point out that Argentina would need to have in hand the US dollars to replace the pesos. Experts believe this could require anywhere between US $35bn to $50bn which indebted Argentina currently does not have and may not be able to borrow easily.

Mr Milei himself has admitted his "shock adjustment" economic stabilisation recipe could actually take up to two years to bring down inflation. "Saying anything else is lying," he said.

A climate sceptic?

Another topic that had made media headlines was Mr Milei's apparent declaration of himself as a climate change "sceptic", that is, someone who denies the role of humans in global warming.

"I do not deny climate change. What I am saying is that there is a temperature cycle in the history of the Earth... Therefore, all those policies that blame humans for climate change are false," Mr Milei said during a presidential debate last month, causing much commentary and criticism.

In his proposed government programme, one of the numerous ministries he had said he planned to axe would be the existing environment ministry.

Such apparent climate scepticism risked putting Mr Milei sharply out of tune with an international majority of governments and leaders who plan to gather at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai soon to seek urgent solutions to the problems of climate change and global warming.

Pragmatism and the Pope

Before he was elected, Mr Milei virulently attacked Argentine Pope Francis, calling him a "Jesuit who promotes communism", and even the "representative of the evil one [the Devil] on Earth".

Such statements caused frictions with the local Catholic Church and the Vatican.

However, this antagonism appeared to miraculously dissipate only days after his election win, when Mr Milei had what he called a "very friendly" phone call with the Pope, whom he addressed as "Your Holiness", inviting him to visit Argentina in 2024.

Asked in a TV interview about this change of heart, Mr Milei conceded that, when one is president, "there are some things that require greater doses of pragmatism".

No break with China and Brazil

Before his election, Milei had signalled he could freeze ties with Brazil and China, Argentina's two top trading partners, on the grounds that he did "not make pacts with communists".

"I am going to be aligned with the United States, Israel, and the free world," he said.

Not surprisingly, this assertion caused consternation in Beijing and Brasilia, as well as in Argentina.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson was quoted as warning that it would be a "huge foreign policy mistake" for Argentina to cut ties with countries such as China and Brazil.

Mr Milei's predecessor, outgoing left-wing President Alberto Fernández, had carefully nurtured ties with Beijing and had welcomed an invitation to join Brics, the China-led group which also comprises Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa.

Experts questioned the wisdom of dismantling a relationship that clearly brought benefits to Argentina, and not only by China being a top market for Argentina's soybean, meat and grains.

China was also helping to prop up Argentina's financial reserves with a major currency swap deal - significant support for a country already heavily indebted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Days after the election, however, there seemed to be clear signs that no major break in relations was planned. The president-elect received a personal letter of "congratulations and good wishes" from Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mr Milei himself made a point of thanking Xi on social media.

Mr Milei's pick for foreign minister, Diana Mondino, also dismissed as "nonsense" any suggestion that there would be a rupture in "commercial relations" with China or Brazil.

In Brazil, Mr Milei's invitation for former President Jair Bolsonaro to attend his 10 December inauguration was interpreted as "unfriendly" towards Brazil's current left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

But Milei has since said Lula would be "well-received", if he wanted to come.

Dictatorship denial

Mr Milei and his vice-presidential running-mate Victoria Villarruel also ignited intense controversy during the campaign with their position regarding Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship.

Defying traditional positions held by Argentina's government and society for the last 40 years, Mr Milei caused outrage by contesting the generally accepted estimate of those abducted and "disappeared" in the dictatorship - 30,000 - asserting the actual number was closer to 9,000.

The candidate argued that the political violence of the 1970s in Argentina was a two-sided "war" in which "the forces of the state committed excesses but the terrorists [anti-government guerrillas] ... [also] committed crimes against humanity".

This equivalence of presentation of the two sides raised howls of protest from groups like the Plaza de Mayo mothers and grandmothers of disappeared persons.

This was just another striking way in which the Milei-Villarruel duo were trying to shake up the political status quo in Argentina. The next four years will show if they can do it.

His agenda has sparked mass protests and legal challenges, and some proposed labor and environmental deregulations were suspended or limited.

Title:

Content: Streets of Argentina Ablaze with Dissent as Milei’s Controversial Reforms Ignite Outrage

In a stunning turn of events, Argentina has become a battleground for public discontent following President Javier Milei’s introduction of a series of controversial proposals. Thousands of Argentinians have taken to the streets, enraged by the president’s push for drastic cuts to public spending.

Milei’s latest measures, unveiled on Wednesday evening, aim to revolutionize Argentina’s struggling economy through a variety of initiatives. These include deregulating the government and opening up state-run industries for privatization in order to spur both exports and investment.

However, the people’s outrage has manifested in widespread protests, often met with a heavy police presence. Gathering in front of the Argentine Congress, hundreds of demonstrators made their opposition to Milei’s proposals known.

Undeterred by the dissent, Milei appeared on national television to defend his agenda and offer reassurances of a prosperous future. He asserted, “Our objective is to rebuild our nation, restore individual freedom and autonomy, and dismantle the myriad of regulations that have impeded our economic growth for far too long.”

Acknowledging the mounting protests, Milei’s security minister, Patricia Bullrich, announced new measures aimed at maintaining public order. These measures grant federal forces the power to disperse protesters blocking streets without requiring a judicial order, and authorize the police to use video or digital evidence to identify and hold accountable those obstructing public thoroughfares. Moreover, the legislation empowers the state to apportion the costs of mobilizing security forces to the protesters themselves.

Milei’s presidential victory was built upon a campaign centered around reducing public spending. Since assuming office, he has already made significant changes to the country’s financial landscape. The value of the Argentinian currency has been adjusted, contracts of public employees with less than one year of service have been terminated, and the prices of basic services and public transportation have seen notable increases.

FAQ:

Q: What are President Milei’s proposals?

A: President Milei’s proposals include deregulating the government and allowing the privatization of state-run industries to boost exports and investment.

Q: Why are Argentinians protesting?

A: Thousands of Argentinians are protesting against Milei’s proposals due to their belief that the drastic cuts to public spending will adversely impact their lives.

Q: How is the government responding to the protests?

A: In response to the protests, the government has announced new measures to maintain public order, empowering federal forces to disperse protesters without a judicial order and enabling the identification of those obstructing public thoroughfares through video or digital means.

Q: What changes has Milei already implemented?

A: Since taking office, Milei has adjusted the value of the Argentinian currency, terminated contracts of public employees with less than one year of service, and increased the prices of basic services and public transportation.

(Sources: Information gathered from local news outlets)

How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

Scholars argue these fast, market‑oriented reforms risk weakening democratic institutions and concentrating executive power under a neoliberal parliamentarism model.

In sum: Milei is pursuing radical libertarian, market‑oriented reforms that dollarize currency, shrink the state through privatisation and ministry cuts, and centralize executive authority, with contested economic and social consequences.