**Key Sentences Extracted (Based on relevance to Javier Milei’s policy agenda, economic reforms, political and institutional changes, and potential impacts):**

1.

“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.”
2.

“As the nascent administration begins to put its ‘chainsaw’ austerity plan in motion, society will begin to feel the pain of the extreme measures and its tolerance will be tested, as will Milei’s and his team, at the center of which once again sits ‘Toto’ Caputo.”
3.

“The minister announced a series of measures aimed at achieving a fiscal surplus in their first year in office including aggressive budget cuts and tax hikes.”
4.

“Milei had warned that we would have to suffer on our way to libertarian utopia.”
5.

“Assuming the impact of his economic plan is as painful as it seems, the level of social conflict will likely rise dramatically.”
6.

“Argentina’s New Libertarian President, Javier Milei, Is on a Collision Course With His Country’s Powerful Labor Unions.”
7.

“Unions have promised a ‘total strike’ across the country Wednesday to protest Mr. Milei’s efforts to rein in a once-powerful central government and put Argentina on a path to prosperity.”
8.

“It is primarily the austerity measures, growing poverty and worsening food insecurity that the 8M feminist strike will denounce this week.”
9.

“Ministers claim these closures and austerity cuts are needed to fix the ailing economy, but the main attacks on women and LGBTIQ people have come from the president himself.”
10.

“Milei becomes the first libertarian president, not only of Argentina, but in the world.”
11.

“He said he would do away with the central bank and dollarise the Argentinian economy.”
12.

“‘The model of decadence has come to an end’, he told his supporters.”
13.

“For me, the state is an enemy, as are the politicians who live off it,” he said.

**Key Sentences Extracted (Based on relevance to Javier Milei’s policy agenda, economic reforms, political and institutional changes, and potential impacts):**

1.

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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“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.”
2.

Title:

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).

“As the nascent administration begins to put its ‘chainsaw’ austerity plan in motion, society will begin to feel the pain of the extreme measures and its tolerance will be tested, as will Milei’s and his team, at the center of which once again sits ‘Toto’ Caputo.”
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Will Javier Milei Be Able To Blame Economy Minister ‘Toto’ Caputo Once The Going Gets Tough?

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Paradoxically, the word that appears to define Argentina’s (and the world’s) first ultra-libertarian president is pragmatism. Initially seen as a positive characteristic allowing the economist to shake off some of the fringe characters and ideas that made up his La Libertad Avanza coalition, Milei’s pragmatism could also lead to negative outcomes if his plans don’t work out.

The economist-president was smart in creating an electoral alliance with Mauricio Macri and Patricia Bullrich, along with PRO party hardliners, and later moved strategically to show independence from the former president to avoid being portrayed as a puppet, like his predecessor. He gave Bullrich the Security and Defence Ministries, minimizing Vice-President Victoria Villaruel’s power and therefore her dictatorship-denying influence, particularly over the security forces. He also sealed a deal with Luis ‘Toto’ Caputo – a leading economic figure from the Macri’s 2015-2019 administration – behind the ex-president’s back, apparently distancing himself from certain extreme measures proposed during the campaign such as dollarization and torching the Central Bank —where the economy minister’s business partner Santiago Bausili at financial consultancy Anker Latinoamerica has taken the reins.

While Caputo had fallen into disrepute, his recycling by Milei didn’t spook the markets initially, or certain sectors of society and the media that appear to have already aligned themselves with Milei. As the nascent administration begins to put its “chainsaw” austerity plan in motion, society will begin to feel the pain of the extreme measures and its tolerance will be tested, as will Milei’s and his team, at the center of which once again sits ‘Toto’ Caputo.

Toto was the first to face the music and lay out an economic plan for the Milei administration, even before the president who mustered the courage only when he announced the DNU emergency decree that came before the Omnibus law. During the first announcement, Caputo sought to deliver a didactic message that made clear the weight of the situation left behind by the Fernández-Fernández administration (“la herencia”). He looked uncomfortable, just as he did during his previous public service posts where he avoided the media and is said to have left the government suffering from panic attacks. His decision to take the “electric chair” ministry remains bewildering. The minister announced a series of measures aimed at achieving a fiscal surplus in their first year in office including aggressive budget cuts and tax hikes.

Caputo’s announcement represented the first time that Milei’s plans were laid out in any sort of detail beyond a declaration of intentions. While in line with the campaign promise of reducing the state’s obligations by more than five percent, the severity of the devaluation of the official peso-dollar exchange rate (120 percent taking it to 800 pesos) and the rest of the measures has set off alarms. Most prices have risen aggressively over the last several weeks, particularly gasoline and food, indicating inflation will spike and could persist. The December reading already hit 25.5 percent, and many expect similar numbers for January. At the same time, it is becoming apparent that forcing the “caste” to absorb the totality of the austerity plan is logically contradictory, as it inevitably affects the everyday citizen which is evident in subsidy reductions and cuts in social spending. Milei had promised he’d rather amputate his arm than raise taxes, but he’s raised export duties and the PAIS tax which pushes the value of the dollar even higher for certain transactions.

The ‘caputazo’ (as the plan is being jokingly called) replaced pure austerity with a mix of higher taxes together with spending cuts and the “dilution” of part of the deficit through high inflation. The next few months will see runaway inflation run even farther away and put intense pressure on the population, as wages and salaries fall even farther behind. Milei had warned that we would have to suffer on our way to libertarian utopia. Leftist social movements and unions have already begun to mobilize against the government, including a general strike at the hands of the General Confederation of Labor. Given Bullrich's hardline predisposition, these were peaceful marches. Will they remain so in a few months if the middle class joins in, desperate to make ends meet?

Once again, the question of Milei’s pragmatism will be front and center. Assuming the impact of his economic plan is as painful as it seems, the level of social conflict will likely rise dramatically. At the same time, he needs to continue to negotiate legislative support for his ambitious reform package, which initially seems to rest on the possibility of an “anti-Peronist” front as seen in the Senate first and at the commission level in the Chamber of Deputies later. How much will society accept that it voted Milei for an orthodox austerity plan that directly hits its purchasing-power? Will the charismatic libertarian be able to retain public support, or convince his voters that excruciating pain is a necessary condition for economic redemption? How long will Caputo resist this time? And if the plan doesn’t work, how much of the blame will Milei be able to pin on the financial trader?

At this point, we have many more questions than answers.

This piece was originally published in the Buenos Aires Times, Argentina's only English-language newspaper.

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How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

“The minister announced a series of measures aimed at achieving a fiscal surplus in their first year in office including aggressive budget cuts and tax hikes.”
4.

What issue did Milei want to address without printing money?

“Milei had warned that we would have to suffer on our way to libertarian utopia.”
5.

“Assuming the impact of his economic plan is as painful as it seems, the level of social conflict will likely rise dramatically.”
6.

“Argentina’s New Libertarian President, Javier Milei, Is on a Collision Course With His Country’s Powerful Labor Unions.”
7.

Title:

Content: Argentina’s New Libertarian President, Javier Milei, Is on a Collision Course With His Country’s Powerful Labor Unions

Unions have promised a ‘total strike’ across the country Wednesday to protest Mr. Milei’s efforts to rein in a once-powerful central government and put Argentina on a path to prosperity.

Argentina’s new Libertarian president, Javier Milei, is on a collision course with his country’s powerful labor unions, a conflict that will come to a head Wednesday when the unions have promised a nationwide “total strike” to protest austerity measures enacted by Mr. Milei since he took office last month.

Union leaders speaking to the Financial Times say they expect as many as 200,000 people to take to the streets of Buenos Aires because the new president is “breaking the social contract” by passing an emergency decree that rolled back worker protections, deregulated many industries and began allowing employees to opt out of union-provided health care.

Around 40 percent of the country’s 13 million workers belong to labor unions that have for decades enjoyed considerable political clout under successive governments headed by leaders of the Peronist movement launched by strongman Juan Peron in the 1950s. That power evaporated overnight when Mr. Milei moved into the Casa Rosada, Argentina’s equivalent of the White House, on December 10.

The leader of Argentina’s Construction Workers Union, Gerardo Martínez, told the Financial Times that he hopes the strike —the earliest ever faced by a newly elected president — will force Mr. Milei to roll back some of his reforms and come to the bargaining table with the unions.

“We are aware that inflation [needs to come down.] We are embarrassed to have a country with this level of poverty,” Mr. Martínez said. “But we can’t accept that the cost of reaching economic stability falls solely on the backs of workers and the middle class.”

The tousle-headed Mr. Milei, who famously brandished a chainsaw during the campaign while promising to slash government spending and eliminate entire departments, has made good on some of those promises early in his tenure. He has slashed energy and transport subsidies and sent a bill to Congress that would privatize many of Argentina’s poorly managed state-run enterprises.

Mr. Milei already has backtracked on other issues, however, in an effort to secure the support of moderates in Congress, including taking off the table a plan to privatize the state-run oil giant, YPF.

While perhaps not exactly enamored by some of his fellow countrymen, Mr. Milei has become the darling of international free-marketeers since his full-throated defense of capitalism and the power of entrepreneurship to lift countries out of poverty during the annual World Economic Forum at Davos last week.

In a speech that has since been translated into dozens of languages, Mr. Milei stunned the normally left-leaning audience at Davos by blaming the decades of economic malaise that has plagued Argentina on the “collectivist” policies of his predecessors. Government, he said, is not the solution to what ails societies. Government is the problem, he said.

“The case of Argentina is an empirical demonstration that no matter how rich you may be, how much you may have in terms of natural resources, how skilled your population may be, how educated, or how many bars of gold you may have in the central bank — if measures are adopted that hinder the free functioning of markets, competition, price systems, trade and ownership of private property, the only possible fate is poverty,” he said.

As much as 40 percent of Argentina’s population is described as living in poverty, and inflation is currently running at a rate of 211 percent annually, the highest rate in 32 years. In Latin America, only Venezuela faces worse inflation than Argentina.

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How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

Who has opposed Milei's proposed layoff order?

“Unions have promised a ‘total strike’ across the country Wednesday to protest Mr. Milei’s efforts to rein in a once-powerful central government and put Argentina on a path to prosperity.”
8.

How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

Who has opposed Milei's proposed layoff order?

“It is primarily the austerity measures, growing poverty and worsening food insecurity that the 8M feminist strike will denounce this week.”
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Content: Skip to content Skip to footer

Argentines Take Feminist Strike to the Streets on International Women’s Day

Activists demand an end to austerity measures, growing poverty and worsening food insecurity under President Milei.

Argentinian women from all walks of life will take to the streets nationwide on 8 March, International Women’s Day, as part of a feminist strike calling for an end to the country’s growing poverty, which already affects 57% of the population of 46 million.

The protesters’ “most important demand” is a solution to Argentina’s “food emergency”, said María Claudia Albornoz, an activist from La Poderosa, a group that defends the rights of the five million people living in the country’s 6,500 slums, or villas miseria (misery villages).

Three months after right-wing libertarian president Javier Milei took office, Argentina’s ever-increasing food inflation has reached 56%, according to the latest analysis from La Poderosa. Government data shows the country’s annual inflation rate is 254%.

Real-terms wages and pensions are deteriorating, and people go to supermarkets not knowing whether the money in their pockets will be enough to buy foods they could afford just a few days ago.

Shoppers have one certainty, though: what were once basic goods such as shampoo are now luxury items. The small local grocery stores that allow their customers to pay on an informal trust-based credit system now keep track of only the items and quantities purchased, no longer bothering to note down the prices that are constantly rising.

The spiralling cost of living has been worsened still by Milei’s cuts to ‘ollas populares’, community kitchens run by social, civil and religious organisations, which are a last resort for the most impoverished families.

There are around 44,000 of these kitchens across Argentina, which were able to produce around 10 million meals a day last year.

Since then, Milei’s administration has stopped the government packages of non-perishable food staples, such as pasta, rice and yerba mate (a traditional herbal drink) being sent to these kitchens, arguing that it must conduct an audit on how they use these resources.

The cuts have led to “a very desperate situation”, said Albornoz, whose group La Poderosa runs 158 kitchens nationwide.

“Without these basic food staples, we cannot cook,” she said. “This causes us enormous distress, sadness and pain, because we can’t feed our families, a role that is very much attached to women and gender non-conforming people.”

Protesters have taken to the streets nationwide to demand the cuts are reversed, but the government has doubled down.

Ministers claim the kitchens’ volunteers — many of whom are part of larger groups of organised unemployed, informal workers and leftist activists known as ‘picketers’ — are committing “extortion” by using food to lure people to their protests. They say they made the cuts to end this practice, advising people to enrol in the government’s food support program rather than relying on the community kitchens.

The minister of human capital, Sandra Pettovello, even mocked protesters as they gathered outside the ministry, saying: “Boys, are you hungry? Come one by one and I’ll write down your ID number, your name, where you’re from and you’ll receive help individually.”

But four days later, as more than 10,000 people lined up to meet her, Pettovello signed a $210,000 food assistance agreement with the Christian Alliance of Evangelical Churches of Argentina. “No longer will the picketing organisations be in charge of distributing food and social plans paid for by the national state with the money contributed by working Argentines,” she said.

Shifting Priorities

It is primarily the austerity measures, growing poverty and worsening food insecurity that the 8M feminist strike will denounce this week.

For the first time since feminists began holding open decision-making assemblies in 2015, participants have agreed to make tackling hunger the demonstration’s priority.

Organisers have drafted a manifesto to read out during the demonstration, which includes statements aiming to challenge ‘libertarian’ ideas advocated by Milei, such as: “With hunger and without rights, there is no freedom” and “Enough of austerity and repression”.

Assemblies allow any civil society group or individual to present their concerns to be discussed. They have achieved something that no other social movement in Argentina has managed to: working together to tackle issues of reproduction of domestic and community life, as well as formal and informal work.

But in previous years, the assemblies’ middle-class feminists, who are more likely to be educated, have sought to give priority to protests on issues such as access to abortion, femicides and gender-based violence.

Now, as the country’s economic situation has worsened, their goals have shifted. They are now in agreement with working-class feminists, who have long argued that food security must be their top concern.

“What seems to me to have changed this year is that we are a priority,” Albornoz said. “Feminists were able to begin to reach a consensus on issues that we, the slum dwellers — the people who cannot cover the basic food basket — consider a priority.”

The food basket Albornoz referred to are the essential food items required to sustain an adult for a month. These cost $110 when converted from pesos at the official exchange rate, more than half the average monthly earnings of a person living in an urban area ($218).

The assemblies allow villeras (women who live in slums), feminist academics, trade unionists and LGBTIQ people to share their lived experiences and political thinking, which has enabled the feminists to agree on strategies of resistance.

This is more important than ever, as the misogynist discourse Milei regularly touted during his election campaign has in recent months materialised as an avalanche of regressive measures stripping away the rights of women and LGBTIQ people.

The president has scrapped the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity, replacing the entire department with an undersecretariat for protection against gender violence in the newly created Ministry of Human Capital.

His government has also ended two support programmes for victims of gender violence — one that sought to strengthen their economic independence, and another that provided psycho-social and legal help — and fired many of the public employees who worked on the hotline for counselling and assisting victims.

It also closed the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, and banned the use of language that is inclusive and gender-neutral in public offices or documents. Defending the move, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said inclusive language was being weaponised as “a political business”.

The government has further plans to weaken or dismantle legislation that feminists fought for, such as the 2019 Micaela Law, which introduced mandatory training in gender and gender violence for all public servants and the Law on the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy, which legalised abortion in 2020.

Ministers claim these closures and austerity cuts are needed to fix the ailing economy, but the main attacks on women and LGBTIQ people have come from the president himself.

In his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in mid-January, Milei spoke of “the cruelty of the bloody agenda of abortion”, said gender inequality no longer exists and branded feminism “a ridiculous and unnatural fight between men and women”.

Feminists fear the president’s misogyny, combined with his cuts, mean Argentina is “heading towards a scenario of worsening violence in general and gender violence”, according to Raquel Vivanco, who founded the Observatorio Ahora Que Sí Nos Ven (the Now That They See Us Observatory), which tracks femicides in the country.

“These structural conditions of extreme poverty and unemployment, as they increase inequalities, create more violence that can in turn increase numbers of femicide statistics,” said Vivanco.

There were 42 femicides in Argentina in January and February of this year. The observatory recorded the highest-ever number of femicides (297) in 2019, which was rightist president Mauricio Macri’s last year in office and was characterised by austerity policies that were harsh but not as extreme as those being introduced by Milei.

“Left With Absolutely No Rights

Though widespread hunger and attacks on women’s rights are the protesters’ main priorities, they also want Milei to address his measures of ‘economic terror’ and his denials that gender inequalities exist in Argentina.

Lucía Cavallero, a sociologist and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires and a member of Ni Una Menos (Not One Less), a group that fights gender violence, told openDemocracy about the dire economic situation in Argentina.

“There is an unprecedented devaluation of the peso, a deliberate freezing of wages and social subsidies, so inflation is brutal, and a perverse discourse of warning that it could be worse,” she said. “Added to all this is the deregulation of the economy in almost all areas.”

The government’s own data shows that one million people fell into poverty every month for the past three months. Albornoz believes these figures are an underestimate, though, telling openDemocracy that La Poderosa’s analysis indicates an increase of six million impoverished people in the past two months.

Argentina’s school year recently started, forcing many families to try to find creative solutions to not being able to afford school supplies, which cost an average of $150, or uniforms.

The best case scenario saw children reuse items from previous years or pick up supplies from the donation drives that took place across the country. At worst, though, “mothers said they would have to choose which children to send to school because they don’t have the school supplies or the smocks to send them all,” said Cavallero.

The effects of this economic and political turmoil are also being seen in housing, particularly since the government repealed the law regulating the rental market on 29 December.

“It left us tenants with absolutely no rights,” said Tamara Lescano, an activist from the social movement Inquilinas Agrupadas (Tenants United). “The lack of a legal framework enables real estate abuse”.

Rental contracts now have no minimum period and are able to be terminated at landlords’ discretion, without a need to consult the tenants or give a reason for the eviction — which was previously illegal. Landlords can also include unreasonable clauses in the tenancy agreements.

Lescano said the private rental sector in Argentina, which already encompasses some 10 million people, is growing — yet fewer and fewer landlords own more properties than ever.

Inquilinas Agrupadas receives an average of between 40 and 50 requests for advice every day, mainly from women with dependent children, pressured by their mostly male landlords.

“They Are Coming For Us”

The 8M strike faces a fresh challenge this year. Four days after Milei took office, his government outlawed any public protest involving the blocking of roads with a new ‘anti-picketing’ protocol that contains specific clauses allowing the police to criminalise, persecute and stigmatise protesters.

“They identify you in the marches, they take pictures of you, they film you. When we mobilise, the police, who are very violent, quickly repress us,” said Albornoz.

“This has already happened at various times,” she added, referring to hundreds of protests against Milei’s austerity measures that have been organised by different social organisations across the country in recent months.

The protocol also allows the government to issue protest organisers with hefty fines, deprive demonstrators of social aid, and punish parents or guardians who take minors to the marches.

These measures are attempts to intimidate the poorest, many of whom are women, said Gabriela De la Rosa, a member of the Polo Obrero, a social organisation affiliated to Argentina’s Trotskyist Workers’ Party, which runs 3,000 community kitchens nationwide.

“The movement of the unemployed is made up mostly of women comrades, who mobilise with their entire families because they have no one to leave their children with in order to demand food for their children,” De la Rosa told openDemocracy. “On the picket lines, in the encampments, in the mobilisations, the families often have a pot to eat, and at home, they don’t.”

As well as the risk of harsh policing, Argentinian feminists worry their protest could turn violent — fearing Milei’s repeated attacks, coupled with food insecurity and the general uncertainty caused by inflation and low wages, have set the stage for social unrest.

“There is fear of what might happen in the 8 March demonstration,” Albornoz acknowledged. “We have been holding assemblies to dispel this fear and to make the women understand that if we don’t take to the streets and defend our rights, we are going to lose much more than we have already lost.”

The feminists “will take all possible precautions” to avoid violence in the 8 March demonstration, said economist Candelaria Botto, the director of Economía Feminista, which seeks to expose gender inequalities in the world of work and business.

“But we know that we have to be there, on the streets, because they are coming for us.”

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“Ministers claim these closures and austerity cuts are needed to fix the ailing economy, but the main attacks on women and LGBTIQ people have come from the president himself.”
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“Milei becomes the first libertarian president, not only of Argentina, but in the world.”
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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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“He said he would do away with the central bank and dollarise the Argentinian economy.”
12.

dollarizing the Argentinian currency
closing the central bank

“‘The model of decadence has come to an end’, he told his supporters.”
13.