On Saturday, American Greatness posted an article about what has happened in Argentina since Javier Milei took office.
The article reports:
We were promised an absolute bloodbath.
During the 2023 election in Argentina, politicians, academics, journalists, and commentators lined up to denounce populist candidate Javier Milei and his plans for “shock therapy,” symbolized by the chainsaw he had taken to brandishing ominously on the campaign trail while shouting, “¡Viva la libertad, carajo!” (“Long live liberty, damn it!”)
Just days before Argentina went to the polls, more than a hundred economists, including superstar Thomas Piketty, published an open letter. They said a win for Milei would “inflict further devastation and social chaos” on a country that was already devastated and in chaos. His plans for dollarization and severe cuts to public spending would “increase already high levels of poverty and inequality and could result in significantly increased social tensions and conflict.”
The article reports what has actually happened:
More than two years after Milei became president, we now have a pretty clear idea of who was right and who was wrong.
This week, in response to new figures from Argentina’s statistics agency, The Washington Post declared, in an op-ed, “Free market Argentina proves capitalism is the answer to poverty.”
The new figures show Milei has reduced the country’s poverty rate from 53 percent to 28 percent—a massive reduction.
By drastically cutting state subsidies and laying off 60,000 public-sector workers, Argentina achieved its first-ever fiscal surplus in 123 years. Inflation collapsed from an insane 200 percent to 33 percent. Growth is at 4.4 percent and predicted to outpace the average rate in Latin America over the next two years.
There remain significant challenges, of course. A poverty rate of 28 percent and inflation at 33 percent are still bad and too high; they’ll need to be brought further under control. Milei also faces a “battle” over unemployment. With his cuts to public-sector jobs, the unemployment rate now sits at 7.5 percent. The Post is confident, though, that “market forces” and an “expanding private sector” will soak up the laid-off workers. Massive deregulation—Minister of Deregulation and State Transformation Federico Sturzenegger has cut more than 14,000 regulations so far—“will stoke private investment and growth.”
The Washington Post is right: “It is rare that we get to witness such a radical experiment in real time.” Milei has provided inspiration to insurgent right-wing parties across the Western world, including Reform and Restore in the U.K., both of which are looking to make serious cuts to government spending and also to break the overweening power of civil servants and bureaucrats. The enormously bloated public sector will be a major barrier to implementing a genuine right-wing agenda in the U.K.
We now know what works–let’s put it to work in America.





