Dissing Davos Elites
Not all was globalist and radical-left lunacy at Davos. Argentina’s flamboyant new libertarian president, Javier Milei, was invited to Davos to share his perspective, and he didn’t disappoint. In a blistering 23-minute speech, Milei gave a clinic on free-market economics and the benefits of capitalism, and contrasted them with the failures and evils of socialism. He attacked cultural Marxism as well, singling out two of the Left’s most sacrosanct of sacred cows, abortion and radical environmentalism, for their destructive nature.
Nor is Milei just a theorist. Beyond his professorial mannerisms, he and his 47 million compatriots know from bitter personal experience the fruits of collectivism and radical left-wing social policies. Argentina, as Milei loves to remind his audiences, was once one of the world’s wealthiest and freest economies. During the second half of the 19th century and into the early 20th century, the South American republic, like the United States, was a prodigy of individual liberty and economic growth. Its guiding light was a brilliant constitution inspired by Juan Bautista Alberdi, the foremost luminary of Argentina’s republican founding fathers, the “Generation of 1837.” Under its excellent new constitution, Argentina became a magnet for European talent, and by the early 20th century, “as rich as an Argentine” had become a popular compliment across the English-speaking world.
But something happened in the paradise on the River Plate. After World War I, the corrupt growth of collectivism arrived in Argentina and took root, growing ultimately into the hybrid of socialism and fascism known as Peronism. While never sliding into full-blown Marxism, Argentina embarked on a program of runaway welfarism and radical social reform that destroyed the wealth of the country and drove many of its best and brightest abroad, where their talents would be better remunerated. Over the last several decades, Argentina has suffered from ruinous bouts of inflation and hyperinflation that have wiped out savings and destroyed the social fabric. Argentina’s calamitous economic collapse from 1998-2000, the so-called Argentine Great Depression, triggered an unprecedented nationwide crime wave whose most noteworthy characteristic was rampant, random kidnappings as a strategy to earn quick money. The current round of hyperinflation is drawing comparisons with the debacle of a generation ago — and has convinced many Argentines, at long last, to return to their libertarian roots.
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