Argentine Amnesia: Why Javier Milei is more mainstream than you might think

Javier Milei’s inauguration as President of Argentina (Photo: Republic of Armenia (President.am), licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, via Wikimedia Commons)

In November, Argentina joined the growing line of countries plunging themselves into the clutches of the far-right, electing an “anarcho-capitalist”, Javier Milei to head of state. With an agenda of extreme neoliberalism and the personality of a hand grenade, Milei appears to be a sharp break from the country's recent political direction. But an examination of Argentina’s recent history shows that Milei’s political programme does not represent something revolutionary in a country that has seen far-right demagogues and vicious neo-liberalism many times before.  

Between the 1930s and 1950s, Argentina underwent industrial development, the establishment of a welfare state, and the achievement of key social milestones, such as universal suffrage, much of which occurred thanks to Juan Domingo Perón, a nationalist former military-man who was elected on a programme of national and economic sovereignty. Perón’s industrialization-focused and developmentalist economics angered the Argentine establishment, whose riches came from agriculture, and international capital, and who wanted Argentina’s economy to be import-focused. To this day, whilst Peronism remains influential, and provides the intellectual foundation for many an Argentine political current, it remains the ideological boogeyman and scapegoat for all the country’s problems.  In 1955, Perón was overthrown and Argentina joined the IMF soon after.  

In 1976, the army, backed by the US, overthrew the government, which since 1955 had oscillated between civilian and military administration. Declaring the “National Reorganisation Process”, they began imposing neoliberalism by force. Disappearances, torture, rape, arbitrary detention, book burning, and surveillance became the norm, alongside extreme economic shock therapy that crippled Argentina’s manufacturing industry. The junta privatised key industries and public sectors, and de facto pegged the Argentine currency to the US dollar, destroying Argentine businesses, driving down wages, and causing mass capital flight. By 1983, Argentine foreign debt had mushroomed from 4.65 billion dollars in 1976 to 25.6 billion dollars.  

The regime collapsed following its failed invasion of the Falklands. Democratic elections followed but the fragile new consensus re-engaged with neoliberalism, leaving the legitimacy of the junta’s debt unchallenged. By 1989, the country was once more suffering hyperinflation and economic devastation. The 90s saw more of the same. Under Carlos Menem, a member of Peron’s Justicialist Party, many believed that there would be a return to the economic nationalism of Juan Domingo. Yet Menem, and his Finance minister Domingo Cavallo - who was president of the central bank in the latter years of the dictatorship - sought to extinguish fire with gasoline. There were mass privatisations, taxes and regulations were scaled back, and the Argentine peso was pegged to the US dollar. As long as the government could keep buying dollars, an exercise fuelled by the pillaging of Argentina’s public assets, the economy could continue to improve. Inflation, which was at 20,000% in 1990, went to zero; but briefly. The issue with dollarisation was that the Argentine domestic market was undermined by an influx of foreign goods.  

This could only go for so long. A new government at the turn of the millennium continued down the same path of cuts. Argentina plunged further into crisis, implementing the recommendations of the IMF. In 2001, Argentina defaulted on its debt. The crisis propelled the left-wing of the Justicialist Party to the presidency, under its leader Nestor Kirchner. With this new direction, Argentina renegotiated and paid back its debt to the IMF, poverty levels dropped sharply and Argentina’s social services were put back on their feet. Kirchner’s wife, Christina, succeeded him in 2007 and continued down the same path. Nonetheless, Kirchnerism faced many political and economic obstacles, notably a huge neoliberal media apparatus and big finance, which viciously fought back through legal, media, and political means. 

By 2015, Kirchnerism was voted out of office, and Mauricio Macri, the son of a junta-collaborating magnate, won the presidency. Macri blamed Peronism for all of Argentina’s issues and set it back on the path of neoliberalism. Argentina’s debt to GDP ratio went from 52.6% to 90.2% in 4 years. Argentina began paying predatory vulture funds that had profited off its economic demise, removed capital controls, and oversaw huge capital flight and yet another pillaging of the Argentine economy. In 2018, Argentina took a $44 billion IMF loan, which evaporated into the hands of speculators and oligarchs. All the while, Macri waged a campaign of lawfare against the opposition, and hindered the still ongoing process of justice against the Argentine dictatorship with whom his father had collaborated.  

In 2019 Macri was gone, but the economy was in tatters and the new president, Alberto Fernandez, belonging to the centre of the Justicialist Party, ruled with alarming incompetence. His inability to reverse Macri’s neoliberalism, and his incompetence in dealing with COVID, contributed to a sharp decline in his popularity. 

Javier Milei, meanwhile, who up to this point was nothing more than a niche figure, had been developing his career as an uncouth and volatile political conspiracist. Spouting rabid anti-peronist rhetoric, Milei’s lambasting of Kirchnerism was heavily platformed by the corporate Argentine media, and soon, he began performing well in polls, in what was beginning to look like a 3-way race between the Justicialist Party, the right wing Together for Change, and Milei’s far-right Libertad Avanza. A major blow for Milei’s opponents came when political rival Chirstina Kirchner, who remains very popular, was barred from running in a judicial coup. With uninspiring Sergio Massa as their candidate, the Justicialists won the first round of the election but lost the second, against a Milei who boasted the backing of South and North America’s far-right, as well as the Argentine neoliberal establishment, most notably Mauricio Macri.  

As president, Milei has already begun expediting his agenda, which is unsurprisingly as establishment as ever. He has appointed politicians from Mauricio Macri’s party to 3 key ministries. Like the juntas of yesteryear, he has already set the ball rolling for authoritarianism in anticipation for the deluge of anti-Milei protests. He is also trying to re-dollarise the economy, which, according to economist Ha-Joon Chang, could turn Argentina into “a US colony”.  

Western outlets can praise Milei all they want, but Milei’s economics are neither innovative nor beneficial. And yet, Argentines, especially the youth, see in Milei a last gasp effort for some kind of political shake up. When a desperate electorate is faced with uninspiring political choices, it will shift to the candidate that appears most anti-establishment. The left had no candidate in the 2023 election; and so the right took up the mantle, just as had happened with Trump and Bolsonaro. Milei is backed to the hilt by big finance and the Argentine political establishment; it seems there will be few obstacles to his agenda. But as Milei’s chainsaw descends upon a crippled and long dilapidated Argentine economy, one question remains; what is there actually left for Milei to find and pillage?