Javier Milei, who says he is an anarcho-capitalist, has been elected president of Argentina’s government. It is difficult not to applaud the defeat of his opponent from the populist party that robbed Argentines for decades. Still, I previously suggested that we should not get our expectations too high. If Mr. Milei asked my advice, I would give three general recommendations.
First, be careful how you talk. It is difficult to think individualist and to teach liberal individualism if you speak collectivist. Consider an example from the Wall Street Journal story of yesterday (and this morning) on Mr. Milei’s election (“Javier Milei, a Self-Described Anarcho-Capitalist, Is Elected President of Argentina,” November 19):
Milei’s proposals include … prioritizing commerce with capitalist nations like the U.S. over China.
There are no quotation marks so Milei may have expressed this idea in different terms. The translator could have interpreted it with his own usual way of thinking, or it could be the journalist (or editor) who unconsciously transcribed it in collectivist-talk. The government of a free country does not (except perhaps in wartime) “prioritize commerce” with anybody anywhere; the government is content to leave each of “its” own citizens (or group of citizens) free to import from whom he wants and export to whom he wants if he finds agreeable the terms offered by the other party (even if the latter is coerced by his own illiberal government).
My second recommendation relates to the interface between deeds and talk. Like any politician in a not totally free country—an understatement for Argentina—Milei will have to make compromises. Public choice theory taught us much on the constraints and incentives of politicians who need the support of special interest groups asking for favors and privileges. These demands are more difficult to resist the more dependent people have become on government. Milei will often have to compromise his classical-liberal or a fortiori anarcho-capitalist ideals, if that is what he truly pursues. What’s important, I think, is that he explains openly and clearly that anything he does and should not do is only a short-term compromise in order to continue the pursuit of individual liberty. He should explain that the welfare state is only kept in place to the extent that it is necessary during the transition to the liberty and prosperity that will make it gradually obsolete. And so forth.
This does not imply that reducing and eliminating inflation, which is officially at 143% per year, is not a pressing task. It is, and some other priorities will have to wait. If he fails in taming inflation, he will fail everywhere else. But I am focusing here on general, “methodological” recommendations.
Third, I would recommend Mr. Milei to stay away from bad companions. He should be careful not to be compromised by people whose opinions are obviously inconsistent with the long-term goal he is (presumably) pursuing. This includes the extreme right and the extreme left. The fact that he is described as a “radical libertarian” and “far to the right” fuels a dangerous confusion (see, for example, “Radical Libertarian Javier Milei Elected President of Argentina,” Financial Times, November 20, 2023). “I am very proud of you,” Trump pedantically told Milei from his social network platform. “You will turn your Country around and truly Make Argentina Great Again!” Like classical liberalism, libertarianism is beyond left and right.
For what they are worth, I would argue that these recommendations are valid for any politician in the world who takes liberal ideals seriously.
READER COMMENTS
Craig
Nov 20 2023 at 11:25am
“This does not imply that reducing and eliminating inflation, which is officially at 143% per year, is not a pressing task.”
Below is google results for annual inflation rates in Argentina which do not include the most recent spike in inflation in 2023 as noted well above 100%
2022 94.80 %
2021 48.41 %
2020 42.02 %
2019 53.55 %
2018 34.28 %
2017 25.68 %
2016 26.50 %
2014 23.90 %
2013 10.62 %
2012 10.03 %
2011 9.47 %
2010 10.78 %
2009 6.28 %
2008 8.58 %
2007 8.83 %
2006 10.90 %
2005 9.64 %
2004 4.42 %
2003 13.44 %
2002 25.87 %
2001 -1.07 %
2000 -0.94 %
1999 -1.17 %
1998 0.92 %
1997 0.53 %
1996 0.16 %
1995 3.38 %
1994 4.18 %
1993 10.61 %
1992 24.90 %
1991 171.67 %
1990 2,313.96 %
1989 3,079.81 %
1988 342.96 %
1987 131.33 %
1986 90.10 %
1985 672.18 %
1984 626.72 %
1983 343.81 %
1982 164.78 %
1981 104.48 %
1980 100.76 %
Note the reduction in the 1990s which was the result of pegging the peso to the dollar. Ultimately the Argentine people have lost confidence in the Argentine government to regulate the value of currency. Of course I’m not so sure placing their confidence in the US government will necessarily be better and I’m also not entirely sure if the plan is to officially ‘dollarize’ or if getting rid of the currency and letting Argentines choose which currencies they want to use, whether it be the yen, dollar, euro, real etc would be left up to them and the result is that the dollar is the de facto currency in parallel circulation at the moment?
“Third, I would recommend Mr. Milei to stay away from bad companions.”
My current impression of the election results is that he will not be enjoying a congressional majority. His plans will be filtered by the necessity of forming some kind of parliamentary coalition with what you would likely describe as ‘bad companions’ — I would suggest perhaps not to allow the better to become the enemy of the perfect?
Pierre Lemieux
Nov 20 2023 at 11:49am
Craig: I agree with much of what you are saying, except for a few points. The rate of inflation I used is the one reported for October (year on year) by the Financial Times. I don’t know either what is Milei’s exact intentions concerning the currency but letting individual Argentines choose which currency they want to use would obviously be the way to go, which would nearly certainly lead to dollarization. Indeed, in the Argentine parliament, Milei will have to make compromises. I would still claim that he should try not to find his parliamentary allies at the bottom of the barrel. But if he has to, he should announce that this is just a short-term compromise to preserve his long-term goals as I explained. My bad-companion warning was more targeted at shady figures outside the Argentine government, with special references to totalitarians, autocrats, and autocrats-to-be in other countries. In battles of ideas, imperfections are unavoidable but the perfect is the goal.
Jose Pablo
Nov 20 2023 at 1:48pm
My bad-companion warning was more targeted at shady figures outside the Argentine government, with special references to totalitarians, autocrats, and autocrats-to-be in other countries.
That’s interesting. Why not?
I mean, liberal / anarchist goals can be postponed / compromise as a required route to the desired end goal, but the only “feature” of a liberal ideal that cannot be postponed /compromised is a temporary recourse to “totalitarianism”?.
That seems arbitrary, at least. And history seems to be against the idea: in Chile it took a dictatorship (a pretty bad one) to get out of a disaster similar to Argentina’s. In Ecuador the military took control of the government a couple of years after dollarization of the economy.
Maybe a kind of “dictatorship of the proletariat” (“dictatorship of the liberals”? sounds like an oxymoron, but …) is required to transition from deeply dysfuntional economies to anarcho-capitalist ones (or even liberal ones).
After all, “revolutionary violence” is a concept not really new to anarchism.
Democracies can’t even get rid of “little privileges” like the Jones Act, trade licenses or trading tariffs. The idea that the brutal re-distribution of welfare required in Argentina can be done by a democratic government is, I think, wishful thinking.
Anyone betting?
robc
Nov 20 2023 at 1:01pm
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ECU/ecuador/inflation-rate-cpi
Inflation rates in Ecuador, 1960-.
They dollarized in 2000, the graph shows why they those to do it. It took a few years to get inflation under control, but its been very low since then. Ecuador has plenty of other economic problems, but inflation is not one of them.
Craig
Nov 20 2023 at 1:06pm
Hmmm, just curious why would there be a difference between the US inflation rate and Ecuador’s inflation rate post-dollarization?
robc
Nov 20 2023 at 2:32pm
I was wondering the same thing. I guess for the same reasons that price inflation doesnt exactly track monetary inflation.
Jose Pablo
Nov 20 2023 at 6:41pm
Inflation is significantly different in different countries using the euro: from -0.3% in Netherlands to 9.0% in Slovakia, 7.1% in Slovenia or 5.7% in Austria (and that is after some convergence from a peak in differences).
Pierre Lemieux
Nov 20 2023 at 8:52pm
Don’t forget that inflation indexes are, by their very nature, very imperfect as they catch changes in relative prices besides inflation (which is an increase in the general level of prices). I find it puzzling that this relatively simple idea is so little understood, including by economists.
Jose Pablo
Nov 20 2023 at 1:20pm
The president of a democratic country can, very easily, be unable to build a wall or forgive student loans. Actually, it should be unable to do a lot of things. That’s a feature not a bug.
So, Milei can be a democratic president or advance his agenda, but not at the same time.
Pierre Lemieux
Nov 20 2023 at 8:47pm
José: You raise a difficult question. It depends on what “democratic” means. Taken in the sense of political competition to favor some citizens to the detriment of others–the sense of Anthony de Jasay–you are right: the democratic state is a drudge that uses more and more of its power to satisfy more and more contradictory demands and dissatisfied clientèles. If “democracy” is taken in James Buchanan’s sense, of a regime where “each man counts for one, and that is that,” which means a regime governed by rules that are (theoretically) unanimously agreed to, then there may be some room for a “constitutional revolution.” A constitutional revolution is difficult to pull, as discussed by Brennan and Buchanan. It’s far from clear that Milei could pull that. As for anarchy, my guess is that in Argentina, it would rapidly descend into a Hobbesian “war of all against all,” probably soon replaced by a military dictatorship.
Jose Pablo
Nov 20 2023 at 7:47pm
Macri was a much more reasonable figure that tried market oriented reforms in Argentina with a much stronger (and better organized) political support. It ended in failure.
Argentina is now in an even worse situation (they are experts in putting themselves in worse situations). It is difficult to see why Milei can success where Macri failed.
Mactoul
Nov 20 2023 at 11:33pm
It isn’t clear why radical libertarian is a bad word (or a mislabel) as applied to Millei while anarcho-capitalist is a good word.
I wish you would clear continuing confusion about classical liberalism/anarchism. Is (classical) liberalism merely a compromised version of (pure) anarchism? Or do they differ fundamentally.
Historically, anarchism grew out of or at least in close proximity to socialist/communist movements. In the Spanish Civil War, the anarchists were found in the Republican camp which was dominated by Communists. Anarchists were rather in the news prior to the first world war given their tendency to throw bombs and knife European royalty.
Mactoul
Nov 21 2023 at 2:27am
What is government of a free country allowed to do? By the standards that look askance at any collectivist talk (and how is government possible while excluding all collectivist talk?), I suppose nothing.
And by such standards, there has never been any free country and, I may add, not likely to be anytime soon. And this implies that liberal freedom can not take any credit for past three centuries of prosperity, rife as they were with collectivist, tribalist, imperialist and worst of all nationalist talks.
Thomas Strenge
Nov 21 2023 at 11:32am
Realpolitik will intrude on what Milei can accomplish, but arguably the most important thing for a leader is to establish a vision. Milei’s vision is clear, and the leftists are finally struggling to articulate a counter argument. Let’s enjoy this brief moment.
Thomas Strenge
Nov 21 2023 at 1:25pm
Booh for editing my reply. I was quoting Mikei. And given the fact that leftists often hijack the moral high ground by accusing libertarians of wanting to starve poor people to death, etc, the epithet is well deserved.
Pierre Lemieux
Nov 21 2023 at 3:09pm
Thomas: One problem is that if the rightist understood anything about libertarianism and a fortiori anarcho-capitalism, they would have as much trouble articulating a counter-argument. Or else, most rightists may just assume that they will eat Milei alive.
Mactoul
Nov 22 2023 at 1:17am
Science journal Nature calls Milei Argentina’s new anti-science president.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03620-3?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=56e40b801d-briefing-dy-20231121&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b27a691814-56e40b801d-49350336
Craig
Nov 22 2023 at 9:33am
I’m seeing persistent references to him in the press as a ‘far-right’ ‘and/or ‘extremist’
From what I have seen of him he does seem to have an edge to his personality for sure. Saw one video of him with a chainsaw which was a bit off too.
Pierre Lemieux
Nov 22 2023 at 9:54am
Mactoul: Be prudent, though, when you read fashionable publications whose writers have not yet discovered individual liberty and the individualist-economic way of thinking (and it is not because you show-off “science” in the title of the publication that they are necessarily Enlightenment thinkers). From Discourse, here is an antidote to what the establishment says about Milei: https://www.discoursemagazine.com/p/the-roar-of-the-argentinian-lion. It’s short and well wort reading.
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