{"id":288789,"date":"2023-11-27T09:02:13","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T08:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=288789"},"modified":"2023-11-27T09:02:16","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T08:02:16","slug":"why-milei-is-argentinas-last-best-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=288789","title":{"rendered":"Why Milei is Argentina\u2019s Last, Best\u00a0Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Science Matters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Ron Clutz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Finally, an intelligent explanation of why Argentines chose Milei as their champion.  G. Patrick Lynch cuts through the smoke and mirrors in his Law and Liberty article Misunderstanding Milei.<\/strong><\/a>  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took almost 80 years.<\/strong> That\u2019s how long Argentina\u2019s economy and society have been in free fall<\/strong>. In some ways, it\u2019s a testament to our greatest fears about democracy and self-government that no political leader had the political incentives and simple nerve to buck the status quo. Eighty years of relentless, grinding inflation and spiraling deficits, followed by defaults, currency devaluations, and restarts<\/strong> before November 19. But finally, the people of Argentina have rejected a failed status quo. Javier Milei publicly won a near landslide by Argentinian standards<\/strong>, and when one considers the probability of Peronist cheating<\/strong> at approximately 100%, the margin was likely much higher<\/strong>. Whether or not the alternative Argentinians have chosen will \u201cfix the situation\u201d is for now beside the point.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have exercised the one option they have\u2014rejecting the incumbents
for the promise of something different. That\u2019s all that democracy promises.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Javier Milei, who today is being called \u201cfar right,\u201d \u201cradical,\u201d and (by the very lazy) a \u201cfar-right libertarian,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0is now the president-elect of one of the greatest failed states of our lifetimes. It\u2019s hard to fully explain\u00a0how badly governed Argentina has been by its long line of Peronist governments<\/strong>\u00a0distinguished for their lavish spending, stunning corruption, autocratic tendencies, and economic nationalism.\u00a0The economic statistics are mind-boggling.<\/strong>\u00a0Defaults, regular annual inflation rates in excess of 100%, a resulting enormous welfare state, parasitic public sector unions, and largely complicit \u201ccentrist\u201d politicians: all these are now the\u00a0depressing landscape of the Argentine political economy.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Indeed, it was the world\u2019s 10th-richest country when Per\u00f3n took over. And Hong Kong was relatively poor. But look at what\u2019s happened over time. Per\u00f3n\u2019s statist policies produced a steady decline while Hong Kong\u2019s laissez-faire approach has now made it one of the richest jurisdictions on the planet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

However,<\/strong> if one did not live this reality but were to simply draw conclusions about the election and Milei from the international (particularly American) press,<\/strong> one might think Argentina had fallen into a state of collective delusion<\/strong>, choosing an insane, sideburn-covered Latin American version of Trump<\/strong> without any reason other than some vague references to inflation and debt payments. As the saying goes, the international press has buried the lede.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milei is trying to address the disastrous situation in Argentina, but outlets such as Reuters described it as \u201cshock therapy\u201d<\/strong> in a not-so-subtle reference to Naomi Klein\u2019s book Shock Doctrine. Klein argues that nature or war can create disasters and give opportunities for \u201ccapitalism,\u201d (anthropomorphized through Milton Friedman) to engage in exploitation by establishing extremist policies like private property rights and markets. In this case, however, it\u2019s the legacy of the exact policies that Klein and her ilk support that has created the unmitigated disaster.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money printing, a bloated welfare state, an emphasis on economic \u201cindependence\u201d
and other prominent leftwing economic prescriptions have made this disaster,
but the irony is lost on the folks at Reuters.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milei\u2019s main, nay fundamental, policy proposals are all in the context of this backdrop.<\/strong> His firm commitment to abolishing Argentine central banking and cutting social spending is straight out of Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman, and it is completely appropriate given the circumstances.<\/strong> The only way that an \u201canarcho-capitalist\u201d could be elected was in a situation of failed governance and welfare statism so dire<\/strong> that he could crack the door open slightly and introduce ideas unknown by the mainstream intelligentsia, let alone the average Argentine on the street.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The language used by the international media, the gigantic \u201cblob\u201d of interests<\/strong> in the World Bank and international aid community, and the mainstream economists who oppose him is designed to delegitimize Milei<\/strong>. They don\u2019t want another success story like Chile in the region. Two nations that adopt \u201cneoliberal\u201d policies that work mean their jobs and narratives are at risk. They are and should be terrified.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is their terms are like insults thrown around in a schoolyard.<\/strong> They are neither coherent nor consistent. Consider the three most prominent politicians to be given the \u201cfar right\u201d treatment<\/strong> by the mainstream press, El Salvador\u2019s Nayib Bukele, Italy\u2019s Giorgia Meloni, and now Milei.<\/strong> What do they have in common? Substantively the answer is very little. Bukele is engaged in a crackdown on gangs and crime<\/strong> that involves widespread violations of due process and civil rights, but has led to a plummeting of crime rates. Meloni is known as an anti-immigrant crusader<\/strong>, but she also supports the Ukraine war and like Bukele has sky-high approval ratings. Milei wants to abolish central banking,<\/strong> and while he\u2019s pro-life, he\u2019s also a bachelor who brags about his sex life and argues for open markets and trade with the United States of all places. Yet to a journalist in the legacy media, they are all part of what has become known as the \u201cfar right.\u201d<\/strong> Not satisfied that describing politicians as \u201cconservative\u201d or \u201cright\u201d is enough to scare their readers, the network news, national newspapers, and news services have decided to add a qualifier to the term. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The growth in the use of the term \u201cfar right\u201d is yet another example
how intellectual honesty, philosophical consistency, and respect
for liberal discourse are completely absent from our public debates.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when we see the media force these politicians into a two-dimensional straightjacket,<\/strong> it doesn\u2019t just present a problem of categories. It\u2019s also about the limits of elite background and education<\/strong>. As David Brooks\u2019 recent New York Times column rightly noted, the national news media are very much alike in background and education. The educational institutions that<\/strong> produced these figures support consensus views and expert policy creation<\/strong>, which accord with their own preferences. Briefly, that means government solutions to government problems<\/strong>. Those solutions involve hiring policy people to \u201cfix\u201d things. But what about when the consensus is wrong? What if the theory doesn\u2019t fit the reality?<\/strong> What happens when crime runs rampant in El Salvador despite the best intentions of Western policymakers? What happens when Argentina\u2019s central bank drives inflation to unimaginable levels at immense social cost? Unconventional answers emerge and democracy gives it energy.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The press and policy elites cannot address who Milei is or what he\u2019s proposing<\/strong> on the merits because it does not fit their world view<\/strong>. Hyperinflation<\/strong> is not caused by climate change, racism, or opposition to gender displacement. It is not a social construct or a random event, particularly when it happens continuously for almost 80 years and destroys a largely upper-middle-class society. It is the political and economic failure that results from political exploitation and central planning.<\/strong> The Argentine bureaucracy and the chattering classes have failed citizens for decades. We know the cause, and so does Milei.<\/strong> His opponents wanted to make things a little less bad, possibly for a few years until they once again made things much worse.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peronism is the abusive relationship, the addiction, the concept
that no responsibility is necessary after years of irresponsibility.
Milei is the medicine, and he will not be an easy pill to swallow.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The possibility of Galt\u2019s Gulch in Argentina is basically zero. He faces nearly intractable political challenges<\/strong> in achieving even a small percentage of his legislative agenda. And yet if he can achieve one goal he might allow Argentina to start down a different path<\/strong>. Dollarizing the economy might force the state into fiscal responsibility and end the monetary insanity that currently reigns. It will be painful, but<\/strong> perhaps not as painful as decades more<\/strong> of the numbing effect of more stimulus that ultimately debases the currency.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are no easy solutions here, which is part of the reason the media
and its stale-minded intellectual influences have no solutions to offer.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are left with nothing but vague language, scare tactics, and labeling.<\/strong> What took 80 years to destroy will take decades, perhaps centuries to recreate. Well before he won the first round of voting back in September, Milei was asked what his model for Argentina was. He replied, Ireland.<\/strong> Ireland of course famously cut taxes and regulation, freeing its economy and spurring rapid economic growth.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Argentina could do worse than Ireland, but anything
different than its current path will be an improvement.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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