By CLAUDIO KATZ*
The libertarian leads the fourth rehearsal of the reactionary attempt initiated by Rafael Videla, taken up by Carlos Menem and recreated by Mauricio Macri
Javier Milei is organizing a furious attack against popular achievements. He intends to establish a neoliberal model similar to what was imposed for decades in Chile, Peru or Colombia. He tries to alter the power relations that limit the despotism of capitalists, subjugating unions, weakening social movements and terrorizing democratic organizations. He seeks to introduce lasting hegemony of the powerful.
The libertarian leads the fourth rehearsal of the reactionary attempt initiated by Rafael Videla, taken up by Carlos Menem and recreated by Mauricio Macri. He has many kinships and differences with this trajectory.
It starts with significant electoral support. He won by 11 points in the second round, won in 21 provinces, almost tied in the Peronist stronghold of Buenos Aires and repainted the national map purple. He achieved these numbers with a small number of blank votes. This forcefulness was reflected in Sergio Massa's early recognition of the victory. Once again, predictions pointing to a close election failed.
Convergence with Mauricio Macri allowed this overwhelming victory. The libertarian maintained the support of his followers and joined the bulk of the conventional right. The neutrality promoted by the UCR and the Civic Coalition was not heard and Peronism added very few votes to the meager volume of its last votes.
The elections repeated what happened recently in Ecuador, where the center-left's initial victory in the first round was reversed by the unification of the right in the second.
Two expectations
Javier Milei is trying to forge an extreme right-wing force to sustain his aggression against workers. And 30% of loyal voters are the basis of this construction. It is a different pillar from the 26% that the PRO provided to its presidency.
The most common explanations for the first contingent highlight the emotional ingredients. They highlight the hatred, lack of politicization and irrational behavior that prevail in this sector. These characteristics are very present and in tune with the eccentric leadership of the next president. With Javier Milei, the worst of the options offered by a political-social system based on the tyranny of the powerful prevailed.
But the assessment of Javier Milei's electoral base in terms of mere boredom and protest votes prevents recording the motivations for this support. The libertarian turned “the political caste” into the scapegoat for all the country’s misfortunes. With this campaign, he achieved a cross-section of voters and a special sympathy among impoverished young people.
He used this flag to crush Sergio Massa, after having suffered a defeat in the presidential debate. This defeat, paradoxically, gave him strength, because his opponent confirmed the rejected image of a cunning professional politician, who concentrates all the baseness of “caste”.
Javier Milei channeled this rejection because it comes from a different environment. It is a outsider installed by the media to popularize the right-wing agenda. It spreads an ultra-liberal message with the unusual packaging of American anarcho-capitalism. The delusions of this current include biblical appeals and apocalyptic messages of purification. This crazy vision is inspired by calls for the purchase and sale of weapons, the creation of a market in human organs and the equate of equal marriage with a malaise similar to that caused by lice.
Instead of provoking the expected rejection from voters, these extravagances guaranteed the image of Javier Milei as a character outside the “caste”. His speech was associated with the resurgence of slogan "let everyone go”. This demand reappeared with the same anti-institutional tone as in 2001, but with content opposite to that revolt. Instead of promoting a protest against the powerful, it was manipulated to prepare an attack on social and democratic achievements.
Libertarian followers expect a drastic purification of the political system. This is the illusion that Javier Milei began to excavate, with his confabulations to distribute positions in the new government.
The second expectation that explains Javier Milei's success was his promise to eradicate inflation through the dollarization of the economy. The high cost is an intolerable disgrace that the population is eager to eradicate by all means. Fatigue with a scourge that disrupts everyday life led to adherence to the magical-expeditive solutions postulated by the libertarian.
Javier Milei did not present a single example of the viability of his proposal, but he introduced the illusion of a profitable functioning of the dollarized economy. He returned to the myth of Menemist convertibility, omitting unemployment and the productive regression that followed monetary stabilization based on debt and privatization. He also recreated the illusion of Argentine power at the end of the XNUMXth century, concealing that this agro-export prosperity only enriched the oligarchy, reinforcing the country's underdeveloped profile.
Libertarians have always presented their imaginary paradises as corollaries of a harsh adjustment. But their voters assume that the “caste” (and not them) will bear the costs of this sacrifice. This reverie will be demolished with the suffering that the new president causes.
Authoritarian presidentialism
Javier Milei longs for a political regime based on the fulminant dominance of the executive. He does not intend to annul Congress, nor eradicate the Judiciary, but he aspires to neutralize the centrality of both bodies. On several occasions, he has hinted at his intention to resort to a plebiscite to counter the blocking of his initiatives.
The libertarian will debut with a small group of legislators and without solid connections with the courts. His goal of authoritarian presidentialism is not in sight, but he has a plan to achieve a goal similar to Fujimori's trajectory.
Javier Milei will try to forge his own political-social base with public resources. He will attempt to transform the dispersed conglomerate of characters that constitutes Freedom Avanza in an apparatus of territorial weight. It will also seek to complement this construction with a network of pacts that are more solid than improvised alliances with their heterogeneous spectrum of partners.
The main alliance he initially articulated was with the militarist right of Vice President Villarruel. This agreement brought him minority support from those nostalgic for the dictatorship and great sympathy from the powerful, who approved the repressive bases of the next adjustment. The rampage that moves the libertarian requires gendarmes, sticks, bullets and prisoners.
Villarruel sided with Videla, putting an end to the ambiguities of Macrism. He intends to transform genocidaires into victims, through a replenished denialism that recreates the worst ghosts of the past. Its atrocious revisionism provides justification for the criminalization of social protest. Macri unsuccessfully attempted this movement, identifying popular resistance with the privileges of the corrupt.
Javier Milei will repeat this formula, demonizing those who “oppose change”. He will seek to silence dissenting voices with bans and cultural purges. The announced closure of Telam, National Radio e Public TV anticipate this attack. Villarruel is betting on the dismantling of all the democratic achievements of the last forty years, starting with the annulment of the trials of those committing genocide.
A second political agreement between the libertarian and Mauricio Macri aimed to add votes in the second round. The readings of this agreement highlighted the engineer's ability to deal with Javier Milei, molding the candidate's style, tone and aesthetics to the guidelines defined by the PRO teams.
But subsequent events confirm that the new president is not a manipulable character. He has his own plan that has already caused strong tensions with Mauricio Macri. Predictions that the next government will be a second round of Cambiemos are premature. The disputes over the cabinet and the leadership of the parliamentary bloc contrast the conventional right-wing profile sponsored by Mauricio Macri with the plebiscitary adventure promoted by the new president.
Javier Milei plans a third alliance with the Peronist right. He has already contacted Pichetto, Randazzo, Toma and Scioli for positions of high responsibility, reinforcing pre-election negotiations with Barrionuevo. For the same purpose, he assigned Schiaretti employees to ANSES [National Social Security Administration] and Transport.
This attempt aims to take advantage of a crisis in Peronism, which is strictly proportional to Javier Milei's triumph. If the libertarian had won narrowly, Sergio Massa would have been able to preserve the leadership he had achieved in the PJ, making the candidacy of a disintegrating officialdom competitive. But the crushing defeat of justicialism reopened all of that party's wounds. Javier Milei attracts the anti-Kirchnerist sector, which has matured a discourse that praises capitalism and is hostile to the helpless.
The libertarian presidency also brings an unexpected international trophy to Trumpism. Buenos Aires will become a frequent place for exponents of the brown wave and invitations are already circulating to receive Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, Kast and Abascal. The inauguration ceremony will be a summit of the global far right. The tensions generated by this alignment in the region have come to the surface and Bukele's praise contrasts with the harsh words of Maduro and Petro.
Javier Milei is committed to combining this international network with the construction of his own space in the country. Unlike his peers, he does not have a strong party or religious and military forces to support him. Furthermore, its own ideological worldview, based on the Austrian school of economics, anarcho-capitalism and Rothbard's paleolibertarianism, lacks links with the traditions of the Argentine right. Its active promotion of international connections aims to counteract this situation.
Thatcherism and Bolsonarism
The grouping forged by Javier Milei includes a wide variety of fascist groups, but his project is not fascist. Contains violent sects such as Revolution Federal, involved in the attempted murder of Cristina, and idiots who make threats with the Falcões Verdes logo. She also considers the possibility of sending provocateurs against opposition protesters (“orcs”).
But fascism, as a tyrannical regime based on the use of terror against popular organizations to subdue a revolutionary danger, is not on the immediate horizon. Javier Milei has a Thatcherite objective of changing power relations, breaking up the country's powerful popular organizations.
It will certainly seek to resolve some emblematic social conflict in favor of the dominant classes, such as the miners' strike in England (1984). Immediately, it will try to stand out in the clash that its mega-adjustment will provoke. The result of this first battle will be decisive in subsequent confrontations.
Jair Bolsonaro is the main antecedent and referent of Javier Milei. This affinity was made explicit in the accelerated invitation that the former captain received to participate in the inauguration on December 10th. This invitation affects Lula and the consequent link with Argentina's main economic partner.
Javier Milei praises the West, exalts the United States and theatricalizes his fanaticism for Israel with tributes to a medieval rabbi. He also speaks loudly against China, which is the biggest market for the country's primary products. Jair Bolsonaro used the same rhetoric, but ended up opting for pragmatism with Beijing, under pressure from Brazilian agro-exporters.
The libertarian debuts repeating the initial tone of the Brazilian military. He placed exotic individuals in key state management positions, in conflict with the experienced officials suggested by the establishment. A horse cloner at the head of Conicet and a lawyer with credentials issued by the media already emulate Jair Bolsonaro's scandalous appointments. The incipient tension with figures on the traditional right and the resentment of the mainstream media also bring the two processes closer together.
But Jair Bolsonaro is also the illustrative mirror of a frustrated authoritarianism. Like Donald Trump, his tyrannical ambition included a failed coup d'état that affected his career. The Creole libertarian hopes to avoid defeats of this type.
Explanations and comparisons
How can we explain the electoral success of a character as nefarious as Javier Milei?
Many evaluations list factors without prioritizing the causes of this result. The economic disaster caused by Fernández's government determined the libertarian's victory. Voters rejected an official system that tolerated inflation of 120% and increased poverty to more than 40%. The progressive discourse disguised an adjustment that generalized the status poor formal worker. Sergio Massa's promises were hardly credible and his opponent capitalized on this distrust.
The majority of the electorate held the government responsible for the economic collapse. The blame could have been attributed to capitalist groups or destitute pressures. The Venezuelan government and Cuban leaders doubled down on their opposition by demonstrating this type of intimidation, in economic conditions comparable to those in Argentina.
What pulverized Peronism at the polls was political inaction in the face of major economic deterioration. This paralysis began with the initial condescension in the Vicentín case and was consolidated with the submission to the IMF. Alberto Fernández's direct culpability is evident, but Cristina Kirchner's responsibility is no less relevant.
Cristina Kirchner gave up fighting the battle against economic degradation and limited herself to highlighting the adversities with elliptical messages. From the vice presidency, she could have introduced a change of direction, after the blunt warning that erupted in the midterm elections. At that moment, Javier Milei was just a small force in the making.
Cristina Kirchner also did not encourage an adequate reaction to the seriousness of the attempt on her life, and the final touch was the resignation of her candidacy. This attitude of resignation infected the militancy and demoralized its supporters. It was the opposite of the stance adopted by Lula to face Jair Bolsonaro.
The successful battle against the extreme right in Brazil, Colombia and Chile demonstrated that it is possible to defeat characters like Javier Milei when massive democratic reactions are articulated.
In recent months, these responses have emerged in the country, with initiatives from students, artists and neighbors. But this micro-militancy of progressivism was not enough to contain the purple wave, which crowned four years of frustration with the president chosen by Cristina Kirchner. The final verdict was anticipated by the contrast of the closing acts. Sergio Massa met with a small group of high school students, while Javier Milei filled the streets of Córdoba.
The result of the Argentine election has certain similarities with Jair Bolsonaro's victory in 2018. The same surprise (and discomfort) that generated that result is currently being experienced in the country. The fear aroused in Brazil by a deranged captain was inferior to the fatigue embodied in the figure of Fernando Haddad. And the frustrations accumulated with Dilma Rousseff were similar to the disillusionment with Alberto Fernández.
But it is also true that Jair Bolsonaro's disastrous government favored Lula's subsequent resurgence. This antecedent provides a certain warning against predictions of the inexorable decline of Kirchnerism and the definitive decline of progressivism.
The main common background in both contexts was the absence of significant social resistance. In Brazil, the 2016 wave of protests led to support for Bolsonarism, and in Argentina, the traditional strength of the union movement has been flattened over the last four years.
Interpretations and justifications
The extreme right's channeling of discontent with progressive governments is not an Argentine singularity. Javier Milei reproduces the same trends seen in other latitudes. He boasts of being the “first liberal-libertarian president in the world”, but variants of the same type have been ruling for some time in several countries.
It is true that the pandemic facilitated the avalanche of reactionary currents, but the officialdoms of this sign were equally punished by the impact of the infection. Alberto Fernández received the same discomfort that affected Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. This electoral repudiation did not extend, moreover, to all progressivism. López Obrador, for example, passed the test with flying colors.
Many assessments were made of the psychosocial effects of the pandemic and the emotional destabilization it generated among young people. Some interpretations believe that this commotion enhanced the self-destructive impulses that permeate society. But it is an abuse to extrapolate these assessments to the political field in order to explain Javier Milei's victory. The main causes of the success of the far right lie in the visible domains of economic degradation and political fraud.
It is clear that Javier Milei sailed from strength to strength, which the neoliberal ideological reaction against progressivism provides. The precariousness of employment and the erosion of State social benefits have deteriorated the positive image of public activity.
Libertarians took advantage of this erosion to propagate the myths of the enterprising and self-sufficient individual, without providing a single example of the viability of these beliefs. His praise of consumption also converged with these assumptions, because in the last two years it became an unexpected refuge to deal with inflation and the impossibility of saving.
Javier Milei benefited from a wave of conservative backlash. With this gale, he attacked “gender ideology” and “cultural Marxism”, anticipating inquisitorial attitudes. He will certainly put aside his odes to liberal tolerance, to implement the persecutions promoted by the cavemen on his team. Benegas Lynch has already launched a campaign to repeal abortion and attack the feminist movement.
It is clear that new media have had a huge impact on Javier Milei's success. He managed the platforms with great skill and had close collaboration with social media experts. He used this base – like his godfather Donald Trump – to spread fake news. He had even prepared a fanciful accusation of fraud to deal with adverse electoral results.
The libertarian also took advantage of the postmodern climate of dissolution of truth and loss of confidence in reason, to expose absurd proposals, contradict his statements and sustain inconsistencies without blushing.
Faced with the impact generated by his unexpected triumph, explanations have multiplied, which state causes without prioritizing the economic and political determinants of the purple tide. Peronism, in particular, is in a state of shock and its thinkers replace the concrete assessment of what happened with descriptions (inflation, debt), generalities (rise of the right) or mere justifications (pandemic, war, drought).
Others ask to postpone the assessment (“you have to think about defeat”) or avoid it (“to avoid further damage”). Some choose to criticize voters (“people make mistakes”), with a vision paradoxically close to the defamation of Argentina by the right (“shit country”). The political assessment of Kirchnerism, which they try to evade, is the only way to clarify the complex scenario created by Javier Milei.
The stormy debut with adjustment
No one on the extreme right has had to deal with an economic crisis comparable to that in Argentina. Here lies the big difference in relation to Jair Bolsonaro, and this singularity raises the main questions about the libertarian.
Under a sea of improvisations, Javier Milei has an adjustment plan defined in several stages. First of all, he will agree with the IMF to trample popular achievements. Rarely has there been so much initial coincidence with the Fund.
The cuts in the fiscal deficit and the emissions required by the agency – to accumulate reserves and guarantee the payment of creditors – converge with Javier Milei. The scissors demanded by Washington coincide with the libertarian's chainsaw. Its hostility toward China also allays the IMF's fears about Argentina's unpredictable maneuvers with the yuan, which prop up the Central Bank's dwindling reserves.
Milei's kickoff will be the great devaluation that Sergio Massa postponed and Mauricio Macri was unable to force through failed market coups. The official dollar would jump 100% to start approaching the parallel price. The libertarian tried, unsuccessfully, for Fernández to resign with this shock and Alberto only agreed to partially increase the exchange rate for exporters and tourism.
Javier Milei's mega-devaluation will cause very high inflation. The ongoing brutal markdown of prices and the widespread retention of goods anticipate this impact. Given that the libertarian has already announced that he will annul the price agreements, a climate of hyperinflation is beginning to appear.
The imminent surgery without anesthesia includes a drastic reduction in public spending that will impoverish the bulk of the population. The announcement of a possible suppression of the Christmas bonus is an indicator of the extent of these cuts. A similar blow would introduce the suspension of public works and the amputation of funds transferred to the provinces.
The implementation of such an adjustment will be guaranteed by the abrupt reduction in emissions. The recessive effects of this restriction would introduce a major turnaround in the economic situation. The disaster of recent years was managed by maintaining a level of activity that will now tend to collapse.
In the coming weeks we will see the impact of an economic war against the people. Milei, Bullrich and Macri tried to make the chaotic scenario fall on the current government, but everything indicates that this context will explode in December. The new government will have to face the consequences of its brutal adjustment.
Overrun with debt
The second phase of the Milei Plan involves the legislative approval of a neoliberal reorganization, far superior to what was attempted in the past. This package includes the dismantling of Aerolíneas, the elimination of 11 ministries, the privatization of the media, the deregulation of rents, cuts in transfers to the provinces, further reductions in pensions, some recovery of the private retirement system and a labor reform that eliminates compensation.
This legislative monstrosity has already been presented, but its promoters are hesitant to introduce it as a block (bus law) or sequentially. To avoid obstacles in the courts, the new minister Cúneo Libarona negotiates a certain amount of impunity in exchange for privileges for the judicial caste (end of political judgment for the supreme and occupation of vacancies by the Court's godchildren).
But the legislative approval of neoliberal counter-reforms depends on alliances made by a president who does not have a significant bench of his own. In disputes over the appointment of officials, Mauricio Macri uses blackmail by withholding this legislative support.
The third stage of the ongoing plan is dollarization, which Javier Milei presents as a strategic objective that is unlikely to be immediately implemented. It has a similar meaning to convertibility, as the basis of Menem's neoliberal reorganization. The libertarian does not give up imposing such a change in the monetary standard, but he cannot dollarize without currency.
This monetary mutation is also impossible with the mountain of pesos in circulation and the public debt bubble concentrated in the Leliqs. Dollarization would require the accumulation of currencies and the reduction of this mass of securities, after an economic tsunami that stabilizes the currency. For this reason, gradual dollarization (following the model of Ecuador or El Salvador) is conceived as the third moment of the libertarian program. Its immediate implementation would generate not only a currency explosion and a hyperinflationary collapse, but also the ruin of banks.
The institutions concentrate the mountain of Leliqs and work by renewing credit to the State, with very few loans to the private sector. A dollarization sustained by the abrupt reduction of these securities (through their conversion into another obligation) would affect both depositors and the banks themselves.
Javier Milei does not need currency for the future dollarization plan, but for the immediate start of his administration. This help is imperative. With the money lent in exchange for Leliqs, the State pays salaries, pensions and commitments to contractors and creditors. If it doesn't get some external oxygen, it will have to start with announcements to stop the current functioning of the public administration.
Only the most extremist sector of his team – which lost influence with the resignation of Carlos Rodríguez – is in favor of starting the adjustment with a collapse of monumental magnitude. Javier Milei seeks credit abroad to get around this adventure. Until now, it showed the loans negotiated by Emilio Ocampo with some institutions (Bank of America) and investment funds (Black Rock). But it seems that he opted for the money that Caputo, the architect of all the bicycles of the Macri era, would get.
The “Messi of finance” first transformed the country into the largest private debtor on the planet and then into the IMF’s main borrower. He is an expert in this play in the service of the Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan, which reappears emulating the return of the second Cavallo in the face of an economy on the brink.
No one knows how much money it would obtain and what guarantees would be given to creditors, but YPF's protagonism indicates that bankers were tempted by Vaca Muerta's assets. The productivity of this deposit is so high that it could transform the current energy deficit (4,5 billion dollars) into a huge surplus (17 billion dollars) by 2030. Javier Milei announced the privatization of the oil company (whose shares exploded in Wall Street) and placed a man from the Techint Group to manage the price release and further improvement of the company's flourishing balance sheet.
The vulture fund that claims in New York the payment of an unlikely debt with YPF has already agreed to acquire shares as a guarantee for future payments. There are other privatizations on the agenda (AYSA, railways) and a war has been launched for the most profitable companies (ARSAT), but Vaca Muerta (the second largest gas reserve in the world) is the jewel that Javier Milei is auctioning to debt the country for the umpteenth time.
If the libertarian manages to initiate monetary stabilization similar to that obtained with convertibility, he will resume the dollarization plan after a bi-monetary transition (increasing sectoral contracts denominated in currencies). The mixture of both variants would summarize the convergence of his plan with the models provided by Mauricio Macri's economists.
But what is most likely is a prior bursting of the speculative bubble in development, in time with the uncontrolled dance of names vying for positions in the economic sphere. Javier Milei is surrounded by adventurous financiers who have already demonstrated their incalculable ability to cause damage. Sturzenegger was the creator of the Lebacs (which preceded the Leliqs) and Caputo placed an incredible title that mortgaged the country for 100 years.
The dispute between financiers over the ongoing re-indebtedness generated a crisis of potential ministers even before their inauguration. With the fall of Ocampo, several candidates from Javier Milei's corner were left out (Piparo for ANSES, Villarruel for Security). At the same time, with the rise of Caputo, the Macristas gained space (Bullrich for Defense). The red circle prefers the most trusted PRO employees at the beginning of the administration. But the virulent disputes at the top predict a chaotic profile for the new government.
Resistances and erosions
The main limit that Javier Milei's bulldozer faces is popular resistance. In the past, this reaction prevented several attempts at regressive remodeling of the country. The libertarian will try to emerge victorious from the same confrontation that undermined his predecessors. He intends to change the relationship of forces that his masters were unable to change.
The social demobilization that has prevailed for several years counts in its favor. Only the piquetero movements remained on the streets, given the paralysis of union organizations. Milei is also favored by the magnitude of his electoral success and the recent memory of Alberto Fernández's failures.
But popular rebellions have periodically erupted in Argentina with unexpected intensity, and the recent experience of Ecuador is also very instructive. The neoliberal Lasso arrived trusting in his ability to overthrow and faced two impressive defeats, faced with a response from below led by indigenous organizations.
Javier Milei's mega-adjustment is threatened, secondly, by the uncontrollable dynamics of his measures. It will rehearse an adjustment upon adjustment that has few precedents. Traditionally, devaluations and large cuts in public spending introduced an abrupt deterioration in growing (or at least stagnant) popular income. Now, poverty wages and indigence subsidies will be dispersed.
Tariffs (and other prices that the establishment considers “delayed”) will increase in a framework of very high inflation, adding fuel to the fire. The chainsaw will amputate public spending, which has made it possible to sustain the level of activity through one patch on top of another.
The imminent combination of higher inflation with devaluations and recession portends the same turbulence that brought down other early forays of neoliberalism. Based on this experience, PRO economists designed several replacement programs (and ministers) for the first onslaught. It is not clear whether Javier Milei has a Plan B, given an uncontrolled sequence of currency and bank runs.
A third limit to the abuse is located in the eventual rupture of the alliance with Macri. The signs of this fracture emerged in the distribution of ministries and in the traditional dispute between Mauricio's conglomerate and its Techint rivals. The result of this fight is still unknown, but the libertarian's initial momentum was curbed by the former president's demands.
Macrista colonization of the new government is a possibility. But Javier Milei is not a passive character, nor a puppet of the Cambiemos. He has personality, defends the economic interests of his collaborators and embodies an extreme right project that is different from the conventional right. So far, he has promoted the opening of the economy and the cut of subsidies to state-linked companies that provide the Taliban with financial capital. On the contrary, Mauricio Macri continues to be a great lobbyist for the “contractist homeland”. An escalation of conflict between both sectors could erode both aspects of the neoliberal scaffolding.
The capitalist classes will support the adjustment while awaiting its results. This initial support could dilute the strong differences that emerged in the election campaign. Javier Milei acted as the exponent of investment funds, Patricia Bullrich of traditional financial capital and agribusiness and Sergio Massa was the card of industrial capital. But, as often happens after elections, everyone adapts to the winner, following the adaptation sponsored by the IMF.
In the final battle, Javier Milei joined his financial corner with the support of unicorns (Galperin), industry giants (Techint) and the bulk of agribusiness. Sergio Massa maintained the support of the industrial bourgeoisie (UIA) and businessmen with large State contracts (Eurnekian, Vila).
These alignments will be seriously modified by the surgery that the libertarian will introduce. The war for companies will leave people injured and the impact of the recessive adjustment on the business community is unpredictable. If the casualties are numerous, a challenge will begin from above over the very continuity of the neoliberal reordering.
Diagnosis during pregnancy
The predictions about Javier Milei's presidency are as risky as the polls that did not predict his landslide victory. This difficulty in prediction is due to the novelty of a new protagonist in the making. The far right entered the scene like an actor whose consistency is a question mark.
The political dispute no longer pits only Peronists, radicals and Macristas against each other. This significant mutation leads us to evaluate the current situation as the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new era. But it is premature to postulate that this historic turn began before we know the immediate effects of the new government. In a few months, we will know the extent of the changes affecting a country undergoing dizzying transformations.
*Claudio Katz is professor of economics at Universidad Buenos Aires. Author, among other books, of Neoliberalism, neodevelopmentalism, socialism (Popular Expression) [https://amzn.to/3E1QoOD].
Translation: Fernando Lima das Neves.
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