Javier Milei’s recent address at Davos is impressive. It’s also a very timely reminder of many important lessons that are often forgotten.
The Argentinian president presents free enterprise not merely as an efficient economic system, but as a moral and institutional order rooted in Western ethical traditions. Rejecting the supposed tradeoff between justice and efficiency, Milei explains that true economic efficiency emerges only from institutions grounded in private property, voluntary exchange, and the non-aggression principle. In his view, policies that reject principles in order to pursue short-term political advantages are not only immoral but dynamically inefficient, ultimately leading to economic and social collapse. Free enterprise capitalism, Milei contends, is the only system that is both just and capable of sustaining long-run growth because it respects natural rights and enables entrepreneurial discovery.
Milei places economic growth squarely within an institutional and values-based framework. Growth depends on dynamic efficiency: the ability of institutions to reduce uncertainty, protect property rights, and allow entrepreneurial creativity to scale through capital accumulation, innovation, and the division of labor. He contrasts this commitment to free markets with socialism and heavy regulation, which suppress increasing returns and kill growth by punishing profits and blocking the diffusion of economic benefits. Argentina’s recent reforms, such as mass deregulation, fiscal stabilization, and a deliberate retreat of the state from economic control, are presented as real-world applications of these principles. For Milei, values are not an ornament to economic policy but its foundation: Societies that uphold liberty, property rights, and moral restraint create the institutional conditions for sustained prosperity, while those that abandon these values invite stagnation and decline.
The whole speech is here, and it’s worth a read.