As hundreds of thousands marched through the capital to protest sweeping education cuts, the libertarian president applauded the sudden lack of electricity in lecture halls as a vital curriculum update.
BUENOS AIRES — The scent of grilled choripán and damp wool hung thick in the autumn air over the Plaza de Mayo on Tuesday. As hundreds of thousands of students, professors, and labor union members marched to protest the severe defunding of Argentina’s public universities, President Javier Milei observed the unrest from the Casa Rosada, reportedly thrilled that the nation’s youth were finally receiving an adequate education.
The University of Buenos Aires, a sprawling public institution that has produced five Nobel laureates, recently cut power to its hallways and restricted elevator use to preserve its inflation-ravaged budget. Milei’s administration, which views the state as a criminal enterprise and taxation as theft, has frozen university funding at 2023 levels despite annual inflation exceeding 280 percent. Rather than back down in the face of the largest protests of his presidency, Milei has characterized the dark, unheated lecture halls as an essential pedagogical upgrade.
By removing their electricity, heating, and salaried professors, we have freed these young minds from the oppressive, Marxist paradigm of subsidized learning.
Down on the Avenida de Mayo, medical students in white coats linked arms with philosophy faculty, holding aloft battered paperback editions of the national constitution. Behind the heavy iron gates of the executive mansion, administration officials watched the vast sea of organized literacy, quietly calculating the spot market value of the unburned kindling.