Javier Milei, free-market revolutionary

Argentina’s president explains how he has overturned the old economic order

Sometimes familiarity breeds fondness. Not so for Javier Milei, Argentina’s president. After running the Argentine state for a year, his contempt for it remains “infinite”, he told The Economist in an interview on November 25th. Holding forth in his office in the Casa Rosada, the red-carpeted and marble-statuaried historic seat of power, Mr Milei has a presidential air. But when he explains the philosophy behind his radical experiment he sounds just like the “mole” that he claims to be, destroying the state from within. Any restraints on free enterprise push society towards socialism, he says. Even neoclassical economics, the framework that guides most economic policymaking, “ends up favouring socialism”. For Mr Milei the lesson is clear: “anything I can do to remove the interference of the state, I’m going to do.”

This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “True believer”

From the November 30th 2024 edition

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