In Argentina, men and women who call themselves “liberals” have long been notorious for applying exclusively to economic matters the principles they say they embody, which is why in the not that distant past so many of them supported highly illiberal military dictatorships led by generals who told them they wanted to favour private enterprise.
Like them, the nation’s “libertarian” leader Javier Milei is far more interested in dealing with economic problems than in encouraging freedom of speech or strengthening the rule of law. This is a big mistake: to a considerable degree, a country’s economic performance depends on the values and norms of the society that is responsible for it.
The President evidently sees no contradiction between his willingness to remove all the many obstacles that are holding back the economy and his increasingly vigorous attempts to control what people think by making life more difficult for what in some circles are derided as “the legacy media,” those antiquated artefacts such as newspapers and magazines which are doing their best to adapt to the digital age that arrived with the Internet and deprived them of important sources of income. Much to the disgust of Milei and others – who want to see them replaced by the “social media” that they, with the help of platoons of hired trolls, have learned to manipulate – the publications they dislike mostly refuse to give up the ghost. Instead of dying or seeking life-support from those in power, they continue to go about their business in the traditional way and make an effort to distinguish between fact and fiction, honest opinions and mere propaganda.
The chief targets of the campaign Milei is waging against the press are not the leftist or Peronist outlets which are stridently against what he is up to but newspapers and the television programmes they have spawned that are of a liberal orientation and support almost all his economic measures. For his own reasons, he takes it for granted that they are all in the pay of sinister, presumably political, organisations which are linked to the old corporatist order that he is determined to dismantle.
Is this what Milei truly believes? It would certainly seem so. Hardly a day goes by without him accusing well-known journalists of being bribe-taking “extortionists” who – like members of the despicable “political caste” he says they belong to – contrive to get their grubby hands on money provided by the taxpayer by threatening to unveil secrets important people would prefer to keep hidden. In an effort to put an end to such scandalous behaviour, the government has just made it more difficult for journalists, or anyone else, to access information that until a few days ago was open to public scrutiny.
Up to a point, Milei’s economic views have much in common with those of Mauricio Macri. This is why many would like to see his makeshift political party, La Libertad Avanza, team up with the former president’s PRO to form a broad-based centre-right movement capable of carrying out the ambitious reforms that would be needed to put Argentina’s economy in working order. In other respects, however, the two parties are very different. If Milei’s rhetoric is anything to go by, the movement that has formed itself around him is far more authoritarian than Macri’s. Awareness of this has made many people suspect that it is edging its way towards an alliance with Kirchnerism.
Talk about this has been encouraged by Milei’s attitude towards the Supreme Court, which, along with former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, he would like to see expanded by incorporating judges who are prone to take a flexible view of misdemeanours committed by prominent politicians. While the economic policies Cristina adopted after beginning her long reign over Argentina are miles to the left of those Milei is so devoted to, she did back her fellow-Peronist, former president Carlos Menem, when – with initial success – he swung sharply to the economic right by passionately embracing for a while a close relative of neoliberalism. Obsessed as she is by the many legal problems she faces, Cristina could revert to being the person she was three decades ago if she thought it would save her from being clapped in irons for stealing huge sums of money when, for her, the going was good. Here, the judicial mills grind very slowly, but they have not yet ground to a halt.
Is Milei a democrat? Probably not; it is increasingly clear that, by instinct, he is an authoritarian who does not take kindly to even mild criticism. According to some reports, he is liable to explode with anger when inquisitive journalists ask him how his dogs – his “four-footed sons and daughters” – are getting on. He also dislikes having his handling of the economy questioned. Instead of responding with reasoned arguments, he berates those who dare to do so, calling them, among other things, “fiscal degenerates.” No doubt this goes down well with his fan base which, like Donald Trump’s, greatly enjoys hearing the boss tear into his adversaries, describing them as vermin or words to that effect. But perhaps it would be better for everyone if he adopted a less virulent style than the one we have become accustomed to. When he was on the way up, his verbal pyrotechnics were not only entertaining but also politically helpful, but now that he is firmly ensconced at the top they are off-putting.
For Milei’s ambitious programme to have any chance of succeeding, he will have to convince the movers and shakers of big money throughout the world that, under him, Argentina has become a mature democracy in which legal rights are rigorously respected and that she is virtually certain to be one for many years to come. If the word gets around that almost everything depends on personal likes and dislikes or an eccentric much given to childish tantrums, this relatively modest goal will remain out of reach.
Milei prides himself on his ability to attract the attention of fabulously rich foreigners, but though many applaud his furious tirades against anything he thinks has been contaminated by leftist thinking, so far hardly any have been willing to entrust him with much money. Perhaps this will change in the coming months, but for it to do so Milei would have to calm down a bit and desist from behaving like a would-be dictator of a mystical bent who listens to voices in the sky and is determined to smite hard anyone he suspects of harbouring dangerous thoughts.
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