Argentina’s Milei Keeps Up Reform Momentum
On Tuesday, Argentina’s central bank freed the nation’s currency, the peso, to float against the U.S. dollar. It was a small “Liberation Day” for President Javier Milei, who is steadily liberating the crisis-ridden country from the bureaucratic stranglehold of the Kirchner years. A refreshing counterpoint to the bleak realities of the Old Continent.
Socialist economic models have a built-in expiration date. When they inevitably collapse, it falls to free-market reformers to clean up the immense mess left behind. They are the janitors of economic history. In Argentina’s case, Javier Milei — armed with a metaphorical chainsaw — took on this Herculean task in December 2023. So far, it’s fair to say he’s off to a strong start. (RELATED: The Chainsaw Blues Brothers Return)
A Small “Liberation Day”
This past Tuesday saw another important reform milestone: a small “Liberation Day” for the Argentine peso, which is now allowed to float within a band of 1,000 to 1,400 pesos per U.S. dollar. After an initial drop of about 10 percent on Monday, the peso stabilized within the designated corridor. It appears Milei’s market liberalization and state reduction are building trust among investors and markets. The importance of this step should not be underestimated. (RELATED: A Strong Economy Needs a Strong Demography)
The peso became a symbol of the catastrophic failure of the Kirchner era, a time of harsh Argentine socialism. Under Néstor and Cristina Kirchner (2003–2015), Argentina devolved into a swamp of subsidies, price controls, and currency restrictions. Their so-called “national populism” — a euphemism for cronyism and state dirigisme — culminated in a hyperinflation of 211 percent in 2023 and a Kafkaesque multi-exchange rate system. Citizens fled the crumbling peso for U.S. dollars or hard assets wherever possible, predominantly via black markets that the repressive system was powerless to suppress.
A Libertarian Turn
It took eight long years after the Kirchner catastrophe for Argentine voters to finally pull the emergency brake in 2023 and hand government power to an avowed libertarian. (RELATED: Capitalists Who Believe In Capitalism Are The Good Guys)
Milei, infamous for his bombastic chainsaw-wielding campaign — symbolizing a radical break from bureaucratic suffocation — has launched a remarkable reform drive. With surgical precision, he slashed the bloated ministerial bureaucracy from 18 to eight ministries, cut subsidies, and presented Argentina’s first balanced budget in decades. Crucially, he dismantled price controls and removed ideological and bureaucratic overgrowth, freeing the economy.
Success followed swiftly: after six consecutive quarters of recession, Argentina’s economy grew by 3.9 percent in the last quarter of 2024. For the current year, the central bank, which Milei has not yet abolished, projects a 4.8 percent expansion. These are remarkable numbers, especially considering Milei’s government has also managed to halt hyperinflation, bringing it down toward the 2 percent range. Even the painful, but economically necessary, 50 percent devaluation of the peso in 2023 was weathered by businesses and households without major disruption. A strong record after little more than a year in office!
Argentina’s Trump?
Milei’s efforts are reminiscent of those undertaken by U.S. President Donald Trump. In the United States, too, there is growing recognition that the system cannot continue along its current unsustainable path. The sweeping cuts led by Elon Musk’s newly created DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) unit — a task force dedicated to dismantling bureaucratic overreach — have triggered a profound shift in public discourse about the role of the state. (RELATED: DOGE Exposes Waste and Constitutional Drift)
For the first time in a long while, Americans, whose nation was founded on the ideals of liberty and skepticism of government, are once again seriously debating the dangers of bloated bureaucracy and invasive economic interventions.
Through the exposure of the USAID scandal, DOGE has drawn a direct line between the state’s socialization tendencies and the global media’s narrative-building efforts. A bitter realization has set in: American taxpayers, without their knowledge or consent, were bankrolling a massive propaganda machine aimed at undermining conservative politics and bourgeois values around the world.
A Cultural Shift Underway
Rarely have we seen the leftist-statist media sector so agitated as it has been since Donald Trump’s second term began. It seems the executives at CNN and elsewhere can sense that the cozy years of endless government subsidies are drawing to a close. (RELATED: Uncle Sam Just Conducted Its Final April 15th Pledge Drive for PBS and NPR)
Simply put, Trump has thrown down the gauntlet to the left’s propaganda apparatus, and few seem willing — or able — to pick it up. Times will get tougher when campaign cash no longer flows effortlessly from the pockets of the middle class into the coffers of countless left-wing NGOs and media outlets that have worked tirelessly to weave the twisted ideas of woke globalism into the cultural fabric. (RELATED: Trump Should Shutter USAID — Development Economics Is a Hotbed for Corruption)
In this light, the return to free markets and (aspirational) minimal government heralds a profound cultural shift that will unfold over time. The revival of personal responsibility, the reemergence of the family as the only true “social safety net,” and the liberation of art from one-sided state funding will dramatically alter the societal climate.
A return to meritocracy, to classical bourgeois values, could spark a generational leap forward. The break from bloated socialism and the all-controlling welfare state will feel liberating to many. It has a multiplier effect — freedom is contagious in the best sense. Trump and Milei may well have initiated a new era: the rebirth of a free, value-based society.
Europe: Stuck in the Past
But this wave of reform faces powerful enemies, particularly evident in recent European trade disputes. Brussels’ frontlines are exactly where one would expect: deep within the regulatory machinery of the internal market. Climate regulations, harmonization mandates, and special levies like the CO2 tax have concentrated the bureaucratic might of the European Union. Breaking this grip will be a Herculean task. The bureaucratic apparatus draws strength from powerful industrial lobbies and a frictionless media machine that has successfully steered an entire continent toward “climate socialism.” (RELATED: Climate ‘Changists’ Cashing In, European-Style)
It stands as the antithesis of the Milei spirit: digital surveillance money, digital identities, individual CO2 taxes — Europe has lost itself in a frenzy of control mania, thoroughly misreading the signs of the times.
For those reading the political winds carefully, the urge for freedom and the return of the citizen society are unmistakable. At this pivotal moment, Europe stands not as a beacon of progress but as a bureaucratic relic clinging to the ruins of a failed model.
READ MORE from Thomas Kolbe:
Europe’s Business Leaders Have Had Enough
The Euro’s Paper Empire: Germany’s Big Bond Gamble
The post Argentina’s Milei Keeps Up Reform Momentum appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.