Javier Gerardo Milei's chainsaw
By: Luis Beltrán Guerra G. - 07/01/2025
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In the last presidential elections in Argentina, Javier Milei was elected President, nominated by the party “La Libertad Avanza” created as an electoral alliance in 2021, becoming a “party of national scope” in 2024. The “libertarian President”, as he defines himself, has been in government for a dozen months and a few days, a period in which he has shouted on more than one occasion, if not all, “Long live freedom, damn it!”
More than one person, including us, has been struck by the actions of the First Magistrate. In 2023, in fact, we wrote the essay “The Libertarians of Libertarianism” stating that the world continues in search of “good government” and that a diversity appears, “in the context of “minarchism”, to a “minimal” one, the desideratum of the liberal foundation. And that in the context of the trend, it would be logical for the State to monopolize defense, protection and justice, but, without making its own, since it would be erroneous, what concerns the materialization of “social welfare” and much less under monopolistic formulas. The supporters of “minarchism” are described as “libertarians”. Those who advocate for a free society, of cooperation, tolerance and mutual respect. And in the midst of the diatribe, we almost say that Javier Gerardo Milei seems convinced that “it is perhaps in the interest of humanity to govern itself.” Well, the damage done by third parties has been enormous. A position, by the way, with quite a few supporters.
One year into his government, it is worth asking whether the constitutional regime legitimises the President to advance neoliberal policies, which seemed to have been decisive in his election, a result that, by the way, did not fail to surprise more than one person (“Argentina embraces the extreme right. The economist Javier Milei, 53 years old, has swept the second round of elections this Sunday). Well, perhaps, to the surprise of many, the Magna Carta does not seem to formally contemplate a particularised economic system, which gives the impression that it has been left to the discretion of the executive power, in coordination with the legislative. Perhaps a reaffirmation of popular sovereignty, as well as the guidelines for its exercise.
In this context, the considerations formulated with respect to the Argentine constitution by Juan Bautista Alberdi in his acclaimed work “Programmatic solutions for the political organization of the Republic” must be kept in mind. It is heard that his vision crystallized in the Constitution of 1853, in order to limit the powers of the State, guarantee individual rights and create conditions for the material and social progress of the country, distorted for decades, leading us to economic crises, political instability and widespread poverty. This is affirmed by Rodrigo Piernas Adolfato, a Brazilian politician, for whom, by the way, Milei’s scheme is the right one for Brazil. With reason, some sources describe Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, together with Javier Milei, as supporters of minimal government. And not “the distributive state”, censured by the academic Raquel Merino Jara (Liberalism: from the Minimum State to the Maximum State, Juan de Mariana Institute).
It is also worth noting, of notable utility in relation to the Supreme Law with respect to “economic policy”, that Dr. Horacio A. García Belsunce, Professor of the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences (UNLP), states that constitutions establish the legal regulation of society as a whole, as well as of the individuals that comprise it and, in both cases, in order to their political, economic and social relations, establishing those that govern “the economic regime” from which we extract “the modality” that the constituent has adopted. And that if this is not indicated exactly, one must resort to the deductive method to determine it, namely: 1. Market economy, 2. Social market economy, 3. Mixed economy, 4. Centrally planned economy and 5. The socialization of the means of production. The provisions of most constitutions, as the academic reiterates, must be understood as offering a margin of discretion to the public power, strictly speaking, sovereign, in order to carry out the economic program that best suits the reality of the country. Therefore, it must be assumed that it is objectivity that determines the applicability of the most beneficial methodology in light of the diversity of peoples. In Argentina, the professor adds, this conclusion is what seems to be deduced, even, from the preamble of the Supreme Law. It institutionalizes the concept of freedom by reaffirming the objective of “ensuring the benefits of freedom” as the purpose of the constitutional state, of legally organizing a society of a pluralistic nature, in contrast to a monolithic and totalitarian State where the government and the State are everything and the individual nothing. It seems appropriate to read carefully what could be described as the academic's conclusion: "Applying the political and economic principles of the historic constitution led, as previously mentioned, in the last decades of the last century and in the first decades of this one to place Argentina among the first powers in the world for its economic, social and cultural level, result of a government action inspired by: 1. That without the strictest respect for the legal order of a state of law, neither liberalism nor any other economic system finds legitimacy in its action or perspectives in its development and 2. Man and the society he integrates constitute the highest goal of the State above other structures destined to serve it and not to serve themselves as a way to ensure general well-being, supreme guarantee of the National Constitution. Which, God willing, we hope will remain intact over the years to continue governing the destinies of present and future generations.
A friend from Buenos Aires, with whom we had a conversation regarding Milei's methodology, after having observed that he used more than once the words “che, si, claro, listo, dale” and “sos hermosa”, the latter when he was greeted by a beautiful woman, who had been his last “fidanzata”, did not fail to reiterate the need to keep in mind the analysis of Alejandra M. Salinas, professor at the Catholic University of Argentina (October 2024) in the extremely decisive essay “Populism and Libertarianism”, in which she raises the question of whether to classify Milei as “a libertarian economist thrown into the political arena, with the probable intention of eroding democracy from within and returning to forms of political and state violence”, an assumption that she ends up denying. The academic seems to lean towards the thesis according to which if the First Magistrate has not put aside, nor will put aside, “the liberal democratic political order” conceived according to principles and norms established in the Constitution, and his political logic rests on the respect of those values, he cannot be considered either an exponent of the extreme right, or a populist leader. Argentina, without a doubt, is subject to political rationality, a direction that it seems to have lost in the last long decades. It opposes all construction of collective identities (such as that of the people), offers an individualistic normative perspective and defends the institutions of a limited liberal democracy and the global market economy. “The anti-caste discourse,” concludes the professor, questions the usual practices of the political class without the intention of questioning or replacing the existing institutional system. The term “caste” (synonymous with partycracy) corresponds to an anti-elite, not anti-system stance.” Thus concludes the distinguished professor.
God willing, the shake-up that President Milei is trying to promote with respect to “the disastrous policy of bribes to win votes and obtain private benefits” will lead to unraveling the tangles that have tied Latin America up like a cake for some time now.
The intensity with which the Argentine President plans his measures has found in the rich Spanish language the mechanism of “a large saw with a motor and parts similar to teeth mounted on a continuous chain, used especially to cut trees.” Those who remember his presidential campaign should not forget the “chainsaw” that he used to display.
In his speech to the union, the press notes that the President did not end his speech with the typical phrase “Long live freedom, damn it.” An expression that leads one to wonder if the First Magistrate had memorized Article 190 of the Magna Carta, according to which he was elected: “The private actions of men that in no way offend public order and morality, nor harm a third party, are reserved only to God, and exempt from the authority of the magistrates. No inhabitant of the Nation will be forced to do what the law does not command, nor deprived of what it does not prohibit.”
The Argentine disaster is no different from that of the rest of the countries in the region. In our country, Venezuela, which is heading, in a few days, as it should not, towards a kind of “slaughterhouse”, for which many, both there and from other latitudes, pray to the Lord, expressing: “We trust in you, who are our only hope.” And tell us, please, Lord, who will rule the mountains.
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