Don’t Cry For Argentina

Some encouraging news for economic freedom and sanity is coming from, of all places, Argentina. That country has long been notorious for rotten economic policies—mainly high taxes, crushing regulations and, most infamously, chronic bouts of hyperinflation. A century ago, Argentina was one of the richest, fastest-growing countries in the world; today, it ranks around 70th-richest. As the peso plummets in value in the latest round of debilitating inflation, more and more Argentinians are experiencing poverty.

But a dramatic turnaround may be in the offing. In August’s national presidential primary, candidate Javier Milei stunned everyone by receiving more votes than either of the two establishment candidates. A run-off is coming in October.

Milei’s platform is an eye-opener. He wants to abolish Argentina’s central bank and replace the peso with the dollar. He advocates for massive tax cuts for this grossly overtaxed economy. He’s proposing to take a chainsaw to government spending and to slash the country’s bloated bureaucracies.

Such drastic surgery is needed to get this beleaguered country on the road to sound free-market prosperity. Argentina is blessed with abundant natural resources, rich agricultural land and an educated population. There’s no reason it can’t rapidly become a stellar economic success story. Such an achievement would stand as a badly needed model for a continent falling further under the sway of far-left and increasingly dictatorial governments.

After the 1920s, Argentina was cursed with a lethal brew of fascistic nationalism and socialism that has continued to this day. All of its previous liberal institutions were destroyed.

Milei himself held such views as a young man, but as he observed the awful results, he began looking for alternatives. He read the free-market works of such noted economists as Ludwig von Mises and came to a profound understanding that capitalism has been the best slayer of poverty in human history. Milei has even named his dogs after free-market economists, including Milton Friedman. He impishly won’t comb his hair after a shower, letting “the invisible hand,” as he puts it, do it instead.

Although a political outsider who is a first-term member of Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies, Milei decided to make the case for a radical free- market antidote to a troubled nation as the candidate of the libertarian party. Voters are responding positively.

Of course, the political establishment is appalled. So is much of the international media, which portrays Milei as a far-right demagogue. The real demagogues are all those Argentinian leaders who have brought this country to its sorry state, primarily General Juan Perón, who first seized power in the 1940s. Perón was an open admirer of Italy’s fascist dictator, Benito Mus- solini, and made Argentina a haven for Nazi war criminals after WWII.

If Milei is victorious, he will have an advantage when facing formidable foes like the country’s powerful unions, which are determined to stay on the ruinous road of the past. He will have won a mighty mandate by laying out a clear economic agenda.