Argentina has formally announced it won't join the BRICS bloc of developing economies. Friday's announcement is just the latest in a dramatic shift in economic policy triggered by Argentina’s new far-right President Javier Milei.
Javier Gerardo Milei[note 1] (born 22 October 1970) is an Argentine politician and economist serving as the president of Argentina since December 2023. Milei has taught university courses in macroeconomics, economic growth, microeconomics, and mathematics for economists. He has written numerous books on economics and politics, and also hosted radio programs on the subject.
As we can see he’s basically accomplished veteran of all levels of economics. And regardless of capitalist economics being more or less worthless scam, there are countries run by it and not having nosedive into fascism and slavery in a week. Therefore we can assume that either he faked his entire career and nobody noticed that or he is doing what he’s doing completely on purpose.
Just take a look at how Argentina is faring right now and you can connect the dots to see he’s not in any point a good economist, or an economist at all.
Considering his academic career, he has to be at least well regarded by academia circles. It does not of course preclude he is outright incompetent hack, but it stronly point out that he’s established figure in mainstream economics.
Of course he wouldn’t be first and not the last of “great economists” that run a country into the ground, but just as in case of people like balcerowicz or chicago boys, it’s not because incompetence but because dogmatically following utter nonsense and being the pawn to imperialism (to be fair at this point the question of competence stops being relevant).
I fully agree that Milei is at best dangerous to Argentina, but the country’s economy has been kinda fucked up for a while. Inflation has been mad and growth has been generally negative for at least a decade
It looks like I actually replied to the wrong person accidentally. I had meant to post that under Virkkunen’s comment rather yours. I do agree with you though
The problem is that the election was between Captain Anachrocapitalism and a continuation of Peronist policies which included a lot of government intervention.
He was won because he ran against everything the government represented.
Maybe organizing workers into political representation. I know it’s not easy, but desperate voting for a fucking ancap just to get a change from bad to much worse is not it, unless someone is accelerationist.
I’d say I’m more afraid he’s also a talented enterpeneur for a product of his speeches and personality. I’ve met some people called visionaires, and I’m sure he may be one of these. They are not necessary bad in their field, but their word is taken for granted in too many indisciplinary cases and they are succesful at selling it at many conferences worldwide. He may be a really talented economist, or a man that just have an instinct to getting a career here, it doesn’t matter. That characteristics just makes him more likely to succeed at elections, winning the public.
More important to my judgement of him is that he uses a populistic platform of redoing everything from the ground up in an instance. I get people got fed up with previous governments, but nothing good happens overnight. It’s a big red flag. Even if he’s trully the savanth scientist who planned it all himself for 20 years and get it all perfectly right, the amount of changes themselves would cause a crisis. And him accepting it, not seeing it or serving some lobby makes him not a president material equally.
Argentina needs a first step away from peronism and millei was as good as any. Sure he won’t complete any major transformation but avoiding that first step because change can’t be done well is also a misleading argument
Literally first paragraph from his bio in wiki:
As we can see he’s basically accomplished veteran of all levels of economics. And regardless of capitalist economics being more or less worthless scam, there are countries run by it and not having nosedive into fascism and slavery in a week. Therefore we can assume that either he faked his entire career and nobody noticed that or he is doing what he’s doing completely on purpose.
Even better: he faked his entire carreer AND he’s doing everything completely on purpose!
Is he a good economist, though?
I mean, I can write books and host radio shows about quantum mechanics if I want. And I’m no physicist.
But regardless, if he’s a climate denier, that’s all I need to know.
Just take a look at how Argentina is faring right now and you can connect the dots to see he’s not in any point a good economist, or an economist at all.
Considering his academic career, he has to be at least well regarded by academia circles. It does not of course preclude he is outright incompetent hack, but it stronly point out that he’s established figure in mainstream economics.
Of course he wouldn’t be first and not the last of “great economists” that run a country into the ground, but just as in case of people like balcerowicz or chicago boys, it’s not because incompetence but because dogmatically following utter nonsense and being the pawn to imperialism (to be fair at this point the question of competence stops being relevant).
I fully agree that Milei is at best dangerous to Argentina, but the country’s economy has been kinda fucked up for a while. Inflation has been mad and growth has been generally negative for at least a decade
Yes, but neoliberal shock therapy is not gonna make it better. If you look at history of neoliberalism, it made everything worse every single time.
It looks like I actually replied to the wrong person accidentally. I had meant to post that under Virkkunen’s comment rather yours. I do agree with you though
But what is going to make it better?
The problem is that the election was between Captain Anachrocapitalism and a continuation of Peronist policies which included a lot of government intervention.
He was won because he ran against everything the government represented.
Maybe organizing workers into political representation. I know it’s not easy, but desperate voting for a fucking ancap just to get a change from bad to much worse is not it, unless someone is accelerationist.
So once you organize, what do you do?
What policies do you implement?
They scream for they do not know
“The Economy” is about as hard a science as play-dough. It’s all just made up bullshit.
I’d say I’m more afraid he’s also a talented enterpeneur for a product of his speeches and personality. I’ve met some people called visionaires, and I’m sure he may be one of these. They are not necessary bad in their field, but their word is taken for granted in too many indisciplinary cases and they are succesful at selling it at many conferences worldwide. He may be a really talented economist, or a man that just have an instinct to getting a career here, it doesn’t matter. That characteristics just makes him more likely to succeed at elections, winning the public.
More important to my judgement of him is that he uses a populistic platform of redoing everything from the ground up in an instance. I get people got fed up with previous governments, but nothing good happens overnight. It’s a big red flag. Even if he’s trully the savanth scientist who planned it all himself for 20 years and get it all perfectly right, the amount of changes themselves would cause a crisis. And him accepting it, not seeing it or serving some lobby makes him not a president material equally.
Argentina needs a first step away from peronism and millei was as good as any. Sure he won’t complete any major transformation but avoiding that first step because change can’t be done well is also a misleading argument