Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
Know Your Enemy Latin America correspondent David Adler returns to breakdown the (terrible) election results from Argentina, where Javier Milei, a deranged disciple of Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, and Austrian economics, who consults his cloned dogs for political advice and promises to tear down the Peronist state with a chainsaw, has won the presidency.
David is the General Coordinator of the Progressive International, and despite what he tells people at parties, unrelated to Sam.
Further Reading
Quinn Slobodian, "Monster of the Mainstream," New Statesman, Nov 20, 2023
Murray Rothbard, "Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement," Rothbard-Rockwell Report, Jan 1992.
John Ganz, "Murray Rothbard's America," Unpopular Front, May 30, 2022.
Manuel García Gojon “Will Argentina’s Next President Be a Rothbardian?” The Mises Institute, Jul 4, 2022.
Philipp Bagus, "Javier's Milei's Populist Strategy in Argentina Is Working," The Mises Institute, Sept 14, 2023.
Havir Mihle combines these two very distinct components of his project in this party, La Libertale Vansa, Liberty Advances. So one of them is the kind of Austrian libertarian tradition. So this anarcho-capitalist markets solve everything approach. Mihle is very firm about this. So whether it's selling children, whether it's selling organs, whether it's selling guns, whether it is health care, or whether it's education, or whether it's housing, markets should be solving these things, not the state. Mihle has said openly and repeatedly, the state is my enemy. If I had to choose between the mafia and the state, I would choose the mafia because at least they have a code. So at least they have a way of managing the market, where the state is arbitrary, confiscatory, and inefficient is Mihle's argument. I mean, you see him on television and he's screaming and wailing about the shithead leftist, the shithead collectivists, and how they'll rob you dry, and how any collective effort is just theft and they're going to kill you. And the only way to reorganize society is by completely dismantling, taking this chainsaw to the state, which has been his primary campaign symbol and companion, is this roaring chainsaw to say, no, we've got to basically cut down the state not just to size, but to nothing, basically, and privatize, as he's now confirmed his intention to do everything from the state oil energy company to the state public broadcasters, to schools, and even the central bank. But then there's always this backing, there's always this reference, there's always this background portrait of the real, in Spanish we'd call, like, political, the real power, which is US power. And so it's no coincidence that Mihle who rails against the central bank for these libertarian reasons, you know, they're printing money, they're ruining the economy, they should be completely liberalized, you know, we should shut down central bank, he's fully intends to, whether he'll be able to do a different question, right? But what does he want to do instead of this? He wants to dollarize the economy, right? He wants to peg the peso to the US dollar. Even today, he posted some meme to his Instagram, like a sort of AI-confected cartoon of him holding a chainsaw in the background, it's gerbil sonaro in Donald Trump. So there is this projection of kind of, you know, national pride, and you know, we're gonna make this into a great experiment for these libertarian ideas, but always with this idea that we're going to do it as the little sibling of the US. So that's why Harvard Mihle has said, even before I get into office, I'm going to make two international trips, one to the US and one to Israel. [Music]
KYE Latin America correspondent David Adler returns to breakdown the (terrible) election results from Argentina.
