Daily Archives: March 27, 2024

Argentinas new president, Javier Milei, has been in office for just over 100 days. Since his inauguration on Dec. 10, Mr. Milei, a far-right libertarian, has been on a mission to end what he has described as an orgy of public spending by previous administrations that left him with the worst inheritance of any government in Argentinas history.

The extreme libertarian program that Mr. Milei says will make Argentina great again along with his unruly hair and tongue has attracted countless comparisons to Donald Trump and won him high praise from Mr. Trump and other powerful admirers. Elon Musk indicated that Mr. Mileis speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this year was so hot that it distracted from the act of sex.

But this political outsider is having a harder time convincing his fellow Argentines of his vision. A self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist, Mr. Milei won the presidential race in November on promises to end Argentinas sky-high inflation through a free-market transformation of the state. So far, hes failed to deliver: Inflation doubled during his first month in office, though it has slowed down recently. Poverty rates have shot up; retail sales have plummeted. Mr. Milei has both faced widespread protests on the streets and hit a wall in Congress, which has twice so far rejected the plans he says will transform Argentina into a world power once again.

All of these headwinds have left a troubling question hanging over his new administration: Who is the real Javier Milei? Is he the economic visionary who won over voters and prompted Mr. Musk to predict that prosperity is ahead for Argentina? Or is he the power-hungry villain that tens of thousands of Argentines now march against on the streets, chanting, The country is not for sale!

This much is certain: Mr. Milei is no Donald Trump. While his anti-establishment persona and inflammatory rhetoric invite easy comparisons to the former president, Mr. Milei is a product of a long South American history in which authoritarianism has been the norm and democracy the exception. Although he embraces some elements of the Trump populism flowing from North to South America including the Dont tread on me Gadsden flags he likes to pose with Mr. Milei is more archetypal South American caudillo, or strongman, than Trump aspirer.

Mr. Milei, like the Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chvez, his ideological opposite, is seeking extraordinary powers in the name of saving his country. For decades, Argentina has been held up by free-market economists as one of the worlds pre-eminent examples of how progressive economic policies can lead to disaster. The argument goes that while Argentina was ruled by conservatives in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was among the worlds top economies, before left-leaning governments came to power and bloated spending with unaffordable social welfare programs, generating Argentinas chronic inflation problem. In his Dec. 10 inaugural speech, Mr. Milei waxed nostalgic for this long-ago time, boasting with undisguised exaggeration that Argentina was the richest country in the world and a beacon of light of the West.

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Opinion | 100 Days of Javier Milei - The New York Times

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is reportedly considering making the switch to the Libertarian Party presidential ticket after struggling to get his name on the ballot in all 50 states.

Over the last few weeks, Kennedy has been in talks with Libertarian Party Chairwoman Angela McArdle over the third-party ballot process, Politico reported. Kennedy initially launched his campaign for the presidency as a Democrat but switched to running as an independent in October. While Kennedy is not a libertarian, as an independent, he has encountered several hurdles trying to get his name on the ballot and has sued several states for early deadlines which he has called unconstitutional.

Its go time, but if he whips as we call it whips for votes, then he could do it, McArdle said. Kennedy is a real dark horse.

Each state has its own laws on what is required for independent candidates to get their name on the ballot, causing candidates who belong to neither political party to face numerous ballot access challenges.

In many states, including Nevada, Kennedys petition secured the required amount of signatures but is still not eligible to be on the ballot because the petition did not include a vice president. The only state that has yet to confirm Kennedys name on the ballot is Utah.

Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party is already on the ballot in 36 states, according to Ballotpedia. A spokesperson for Kennedy said his campaign is keeping all options open.

However, Kennedys pro-Israel stance could be a major deal breaker for the Libertarian Party, whose members are anti-war, McArdle said.

Kennedy has been a staunch supporter of Israel, telling Reuters last week that Israel was a moral nation, and questioned the efficacy of a ceasefire in Gaza, saying that prior ceasefires have been used by Hamas to rearm, to rebuild and then launch another surprise attack. So what would be different this time?

I think to his credit, he does want to come to a consensus and find some agreement, McArdle said. So that argument may still be sorting itself out. But the majority of our members are going to say no to funding Israel and to enabling any of the death and destruction thats happening in Gaza. And its a pretty hard line.

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Kennedy has garnered enough signatures to get his name on the ballot in Nevada, New Hampshire, and Hawaii, according to his campaign. His American Values 2024 super PAC announced last month that Kennedys campaign had collected the required amount of signatures in South Carolina and in key swing states Michigan, Arizona, and Georgia.

Ron Nielson, a former campaign manager for libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson, told the Hill earlier this month that if he accepted the nomination for the Libertarian Party, that would probably change a lot of heads and that there are people in the movement that would support him.

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RFK Jr. in talks to run on the Libertarian Party ticket to ease ballot challenges - Washington Examiner

On December 10, 2023, Javier Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist, was sworn in as president of Argentina.

Milei, best known for the hair that he claims is combed by Adams Smith invisible hand and an eccentric and irascible demeanor, promised to end the countrys economic woesprevalent in the last 80 years but heightened in the last couple of decadesby launching a full-blown libertarian economic program of privatization, deregulation, and tight monetary policy. On the way, he would rid the country of the unholy marriage between socialism and wokeism that has assaulted Argentine institutions over the last 20 years.

After 100 days in power, has the wig, as he is known, laid the foundations for a libertarian populist revolt, or is his project showing early signs of foundering?

Milei is a culture warrior, which is why, despite being a radical libertarian, he has rallied conservatives and nationalists behind his agenda. But make no mistake: Most Argentines voted for him hoping he would fix the economic mess the country has been in since the early 2000s.

On the macroeconomic side, some of the measures are working. Monthly inflation fell in both January and February, after reaching its highest point in decades in December.

Milei promised to achieve a budget surplus (before interest payments) of 2 percent this year, after last years 3 percent deficit. So far, so good: The first two months of the year brought surpluses, the first in more than a decade.

Moreover, Argentina has an exchange control. Milei has not eliminated it yet, seeking to reduce the gap between the official and black market exchange rates (it now sits at around 20 percent) and improve the macroeconomic output of the country before eliminating it. Foreign reserves have increased by over $7 billion and the country-risk index has dropped significantly.

But this all has come at a cost.

Milei reduced energy and transport subsidies drastically. He also cut down on transfers to provinces. And, even though he has been raising spending on retirement pensions, he has done so by less than inflation, which means that, in real terms, he has also cut down spending.

In the first handful of days in his government, he devalued the peso by over 50 percent, causing inflation to skyrocket.

This has of course worsened the situation for Argentines, at least in the short term. Fifty percent of the country is in poverty and the economy is set to shrink by 4 percent in 2024.

Milei has been clear since day one that things in Argentina had to get worse before they got better; so far, his approval ratings are still relatively high, sitting close to 50 percent. He has achieved this because most Argentines believe the castethe left-wing elites of the countryare to blame for the economic woes.

How long will Mileis popularity last? That remains to be seen.

One of Mileis key problems is that he doesnt have enough parliamentary support for some of the most radical proposals in his agenda, such as labor reform and some deregulation policies. In fact, his party only holds seven seats in the Senate (which has 72 senators), and 41 representatives (which has 257), hardly enough to pass any kind of legislation.

He depends on PRO, the party of former president Mauricio Macri, some smaller parties that hold some seats in the House, and some breakaway members of opposition parties to pass legislation, which has proven difficult in his first 100 days in government.

In less than two years, Argentina has midterm elections, renewing parts of both houses of Congress. If Mileis plan to stabilize the countrys economy has not worked by then, he may suffer a defeat that will end up derailing the rest of his term.

In fact, Mileis lack of legislative support has not allowed him to take advantage of his popularity to pass essential elements of his agenda.

His first 100 days of government have been marked by two main measures: the Omnibus Law and the DNU.

Milei sent to Congress an all-encompassing bill with 664 articles that covered everything from fishing permits and privatization of state companies to shutting down the National Theatre Institute and reforming the pension system. This gave the opposition, and even some of his supporters, enough reason to pick the law apart, until Milei eventually withdrew it. He will likely try to pass it as individual laws, slowing down the process of reform.

Mileis DNU (Decreto de Necesidad y Urgencia, Decree of Necessity and Urgency in English) was passed in December and was almost as all-encompassing as the law above. It covered labor market regulations, increasing interest on credit card debt, and reforming pharmaceutical companies.

Being a presidential decree, it technically does not need congressional approval. However, if both houses of Congress vote against the measure, they can strike it down. The Senate already voted against Mileis decree, but until the House followsand it is unclear whether it will, as Milei might reform the decree to garner some supportthe decree remains on its feet.

Labor reform is key to Mileis success. After the state bureaucracy built by the Peronist left, the trade unions are perhaps the most significant element of the caste Milei seeks to tear down. Mauricio Macri, today one of Mileis most important allies, was president between 2015 and 2019 and tried to enact some of the same reforms; he was derailed by both the Argentine congress and the all-powerful labor unions that constantly called for strikes against Macri and to close main roads of the country.

Unions in Argentina are closer to a mafia than to organizations built to defend workers rights. For example, the truckers union has had the same president, Hugo Moyano, for 36 years. His eldest son is the vice president, while a daughter and a son are part of the work. Another son used to run a union for toll workers before becoming a congressman. The family has owned some of the most important football clubs in the country and has a political party close to the Justicialista Party, the traditional Peronist party in Argentina.

This family, allied with the traditional left of the country, is able to freeze the transport of food and oil in the blink of an eye, as they did under Macri.

Milei, so far, does not seem intimidated. He has shown a very un-libertarian impulse to wield state power to achieve his political endsand this is what scares the left and makes the populist right stand by his side.

Mileis long-term goal is dismantling most of the Argentine state. Make no mistake, he sees himself as an Argentine Reagan, tasked with becoming a libertarian hero. Many of his economic formulas seem to come out of the IMF rulebook, and he believes in international free trade with passion. Without the antics, Milei might seem like a product of an American think tank.

But what makes him different is his muscular use of state power. Milei is not afraid to wield public powerwhether with far-ranging decrees or by using legitimate force to stop protests that threaten the stability of the state and his reformsto achieve his political goals.

This has been particularly clear with unions: Milei tried to pass legislation to make union affiliation voluntary (it is currently compulsory and automatic) and also wants to allow companies to fire workers who take part in street blockades during protests. However, both are still frozen in the courts with all his labor reform until the Supreme Court decides on the matter.

Similarly, he has suspended all government publicity in media for a year, which was the main source of income for many privately-owned media outlets that served as parasitic propaganda entities on behalf of the government.

For years, Peronism enlarged the number and size of organizations that depended on the state through government funds or beneficial regulations. These organizations entered into a parasitic relationship with the caste. Milei has started eliminating these privileges. Lawyers are now not needed in some fast-track divorce procedures, which used to be an easy source of income. Artists relied on government funds to produce works that no one saw, and Milei gutted them. Fishermen and sugar producers relied on regulations, subsidies, and tariffs to sell their products, and unions depended on the automatic enrollment and payment of dues of their members to continue accumulating power.

Moreover, even though he is playing it smart (for example, by delaying the elimination of the exchange control or discussions on the dollarization of the economy), he is riding his popularity to enact the strongest, most painful reforms he needs to pass.

He does face a big challenge: If Congress stops his decree and does not pass his reforms (or they are stopped by the courts), Milei may run out of time. The Argentine people are becoming poorer by the day and their patience might not be great enough to wait until he can strike a deal in Congress or to see if he wins a congressional majority at the midterm elections.

He has floated the idea of holding a referendum to pass his reforms. Even if it is a non-binding consult, it might put enough pressure on some congress members to accept part of his reforms, and he seems popular enough to win such a referendum.

Also, his goal of maintaining a fiscal surplus might prove to be harder than expected. The recession is affecting tax revenues, and savings on energy subsidies were due to deferrals, not a budget reduction.

Milei has another front of opposition: provincial governors. None of them are members of his party, and many rely on generous discretional transfers from the central government, which Milei has reduced dramatically. Governors hold a significant level of power within their parties, meaning they can influence members of Congress from their parties to not negotiate with Milei and also continue challenging his agenda in the courts.

The last major challenge he faces comes from within: Mileis banner is the economy, but his brand also includes the fact that he is a culture warrior, which is why he was able to garner support from conservatives and nationalists despite his defense of gay marriage and drug legalization in the past.

He quickly delivered by closing the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, which was widely considered a do-nothing organ that existed simply to keep members of the ruling party as employees and fund left-wing propaganda. Milei also banned inclusive language and any reference to gender perspective in government documents and eliminated the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity.

Nevertheless, these were mostly symbolic measures. Milei has not been shy to use state power to cut relations with its parasitic entities and eventually reduce its size. On the socio-cultural side, he seems to do the same: eliminate, cut down, reduce. But if Milei wants to fight the culture war and enact a long-term change, it seems that negative movements, focused on reduction and elimination might not be enough.

If he fails at his task of reforming the Argentine economy, his presidency will end up feeling like a fever dream. And to succeed, he might have to let his populist impulses overtake his libertarian mind.

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One Hundred Days of Libertarian Populism in Argentina - The American Conservative

Last week, I started posting about my investigation into the apparent implosion of the Libertarian Party. You can read my previous posts here, here, and here. In this post, I try to draw some conclusions, and I hope to hear your reactions.

When you talk with leaders from each side of this conflict its clear that even though both camps are much, much closer ideologically than theyd admit, ultimately Aristotle was right humans are fundamentally political creatures. The entire episode reminds me of a conversation I had at one of my first Liberty Fund conferences when I was hired, directed by Pierre Lemieux. I was talking with a conferee who was eyeing me suspiciously and asked me, which economist I preferred, Mises or Hayek. I told him that as a political scientist I was more drawn to Hayek, and this prompted him to label me a socialist, turn away from me and find someone more orthodox to chat with.

The broad contours of a liberty-based political movement would be simply less government and more personal freedom and responsibility in realm x. One would hope people could compromise on the range of constriction on government and expansion of individual freedom somewhere between 100% and 5%. But for more than 5 decades the Libertarian Party has been unable to create a broad consensus on how to pursue those goals. That leaves the world without the prospect of seriously considering more liberty during public deliberations over governance alternatives. Elections, admittedly highly imperfect ways to decide governance, are worse for not providing voters with a wide range of options and choices. The frustration for observers and non-combatant libertarians in this conflict is that we face an upcoming election featuring two deeply unpopular, anti-liberty candidates. The fear that libertarians will findno representation in this election is not invalid.

Before the infamous Aleppo moment, there was a world in which Gary Johnson and Bill Weld might have done even better in 2016, regardless of who won. But after the meltdown, Welds statements were hardly consistent with what most libertarians believed. Frustration and unrest caught up with the Old Guard. Conversely theres no reason to believe that maintaining a hard core, dont tread on me, Rothbard/Paul line is the only way forward for the party. The question has been how to bridge that gap and maintain the energy and enthusiasm that the Mises Caucus brings with the mainstream demand for a more professional, unified LP during national and state elections. In theory, the two sides need each other. If Nick Sarwark and Steven Nekhaila are both right, the energetic, idealistic, younger crowd complements and needs some of the experience and pragmatism of the Old Guard. Conversely, the Old Guard wont win by strategy alone. There wont be success without a motivated core.

If recent events tell us anything it is during crises, periods in which voter dissatisfaction is at its peak, that non-mainstream alternatives are taken most seriously. For evidence of this, look no further than Javier Milei, who just became the president of Argentina, armed with many of the ideas of intellectual libertarian economists. His election only happens in a context that creates the unique conditions for a highly unconventional alternative an economic basket case. Is libertarianism likely to win in the short term? No. But one can easily imagine current fiscal and monetary policy leading us closer to a crisis, if not of Argentine proportions. Might that be the LPs moment?

One unique feature of the US is our federal system, and the LPs decentralized nature will provide an interesting experiment for comparing the two approaches. In theory, we should see if one model, the Old Guard or Mises Caucus, is more successful in state and local races over the next few election cycles. That might be a useful guide for the future of the party, and allow for different versions of the ideas to flourish is the remarkably diverse political geography in the US.

Or perhaps libertarianism, or the liberty movement generally, is ironically, simply unsuited to solve collective action problems. A group of strong-willed individuals- whether they are raised on Austrian economics, Ayn Rands novels, or John Stuart Mills defense of liberty with limits, will frequently disagree on the foundation of individual freedom and limited government, and not be amenable to compromise and consensus building. It is not merely cat herding; it is the equivalent to teaching a group of cats synchronized swimming.

Libertarians will be well served to heed the prescient words of James Buchanan on this matter. Buchanan wrote in 2005, that while collectivist ideas at that time were largely in disrepute, he believed that the appeal of such governance was undeniable because individuals typically want to evade personal responsibility for their personal circumstances and challenges. If the participants in this conflict looked in the mirror they might very well know deep down who to blame for the failure to coordinate and compromise. Its not the other side; it is themselves.

G. Patrick Lynch is a Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund.

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When Will the Libertarian Party Have Its Moment? - Econlib