I recently traveled to Buenos Aires to investigate the so-called crisis of the Javier Milei administration, and I am entirely exhausted by the working class's absolute refusal to see the big picture.
The mainstream press will tell you that Argentina is buckling under the weight of crushing poverty, widespread cabinet scandals, and a deeply fatigued electorate. They will point out that the president's approval rating is slipping as his chainsaw austerity measures slice into the bone of the country's social safety net. But as I sat across from Javier in the presidential palace, watching him perfectly slice a bife de chorizo while explaining the theoretical beauty of an unfettered market, I realized the international media has this entirely backwards. The problem is not the shock therapy. The problem is the patient's terrible attitude.
Let's be honest, it is incredibly difficult to execute a visionary anarcho-capitalist experiment when the people participating in it keep complaining about the price of milk. Throughout our lunch—which I paid for in pristine, hyper-inflated pesos out of sheer respect for the local currency dynamics—Javier confided in me about the immense burden of leadership. It is lonely at the top, especially when the bottom refuses to stop holding general strikes. He is trying to dismantle the administrative state to usher in an era of pure liberty, and all the voters want to talk about is their inability to afford bus fare. It is a stunning failure of civic imagination.
Take the recent hysteria regarding the Ministry of Human Capital. The press had a field day when it was revealed that millions of pounds of food meant for soup kitchens were sitting rotting in warehouses while poverty spiked to 55 percent. The outrage was deafening. But as I explained to a very receptive room of mid-level deputies later that afternoon, withholding free carbohydrates is actually the ultimate form of tough love. Hunger is the universe's oldest entrepreneurial incentive. By keeping those warehouses locked, the administration wasn't starving the poor—they were incubating five million potential gig-economy founders.
Pundits on the Sunday shows have recently suggested that the president is praying for a "Messi miracle"—some spectacular, sports-driven distraction to pacify the masses, much like the 2022 World Cup. This is precisely the kind of small-minded thinking that has held Latin America back for a century. Lionel Messi plays a child's game on a patch of grass. Javier Milei is playing four-dimensional chess with the sovereign debt of a G20 nation. If anything, Messi should be praying for a Milei miracle to distract from the fact that Inter Miami's defensive line is a structural disaster.
I floated this theory during a closed-door meeting with the administration's inner circle, and the relief in the room was palpable. Finally, someone from the outside who understood the optics. The president's allies are deeply tired of being asked to apologize for policies just because they occasionally result in widespread destitution.
The Argentine working class simply lacks the macroeconomic literacy to appreciate how flawlessly their pensions have been liquidated.
Exactly. You cannot build a utopia without breaking a few eggs, and you certainly cannot do it if the eggs immediately march on the congressional plaza to demand a living wage. When I brought up the recent corruption scandals that have allegedly ensnared several of his cabinet members, Javier simply petted one of his cloned mastiffs and sighed. We both knew the truth. What the entrenched left calls "corruption" is merely frictionless capital allocation moving at the speed of free enterprise. It is a feature, not a bug, of a system unshackled from burdensome regulatory oversight.
This is the kind of uncompromising policy that Donald Trump and the broader MAGA movement rightly recognize as the future of governance. Milei is not merely a regional ally; he is a vanguard. When the two men embrace at conservative conferences or trade compliments on social media, it is a recognition of shared burden. They both understand that saving a nation often requires making its inhabitants incredibly miserable for an indefinite period of time.
As my black car sped toward Ezeiza International Airport, weaving effortlessly through a crowd of tear-gassed teachers demanding back pay, I felt a profound sense of sorrow. Not for the teachers, obviously, who really should have diversified their portfolios before taking public sector jobs, but for Javier. He is offering Argentina the gift of total, unregulated freedom. It is a tragedy that they are too hungry to say thank you.