The Peronist spell may have finally been broken.
Argentina voted on Sunday to elect Javier Milei to be the next president in a 56–44 landslide over Sergio Massa, the sitting economics minister.
Milei, a free-market economist, is an ally of both the U.S. and Israel and a sworn adversary of China and Latin American leftists. His plan to dollarize the Argentine economy will blunt China’s effort to undermine the U.S. currency. As analyst Juan P. Villasmil puts it: “Argentina’s economy is the second most powerful in South America, so having it led by an openly pro-US leader in a continent filled with socialists isn’t bad news.”
Milei describes himself as an Austrian economist, but there is also some Chicago School influence. He named two of his dogs after Milton Friedman and Robert Lucas, and a third after Murray Rothbard.
Elon Musk and other U.S. business leaders are already looking forward to an open and more free Argentine economy. Milei has a strong team of advisers from free-market think tanks and has forged an alliance with establishment conservative parties to help him govern.
Milei certainly has a lot of work to do.
Argentina’s economy is a basket case with a gaping hole in it. Inflation is expected to hit 200 percent. Over 40 percent of the population is classified as living in poverty. Argentina has defaulted on its international sovereign debt three times in the last 20 years.
As I noted in my November 18 column, Argentina a hundred years ago was one of the six wealthiest countries in the world. It has sunk to 66th, below Mexico and just above Russia. The slide began in 1946 when the socialist Juan Perón took over the country. Juan and Evita Perón’s heirs remain in charge today, the Peronists having won ten of the last 13 elections.
But the spell may have finally been broken. Peronism has lost its claim to represent the poor and the working class. Milei won big in both working-class suburbs and lower-income rural areas. He swept the votes of young people. The one place he underperformed was in the posh districts of Buenos Aires, many of whose denizens have found a way to benefit from the crony-capitalist system of the Peronists.