The Milei Phenomenon: About Gaucho Paleolibertarianism

Abstract

Javier Milei’s candidacy emerged in the midst of a crisis of political representation with a more innovative electoral offer in form than in content defined by his ideological debts with the Austrian school of economics and the libertarianism of Murray Rothbard, but also with Menemism and the global extreme right of which it represents a sui generis variant. As an anarcho-capitalist economist, doctrinaire paleolibertarian and de facto minarchist, Milei is an instrumental figure who accentuated the polarization in society by revitalizing the antagonism between the individual and the State, a framework from which he would promote a shock therapy that aims for a guarded generalized commodification by a repressive state apparatus that, in practice, represents a contradictio en adieto: an illiberal libertarianism that seeks to dismantle the State by using it. The right-wing populist strategy adopted by Milei contrasts the limits of the democratic order with the expansion of negative freedom from an ultraneoliberal and patriarchal perspective that took advantage of the ravages of the pandemic and digital resources, to spread a discourse against caste and a radical individualism that It especially challenged young people, the self-employed and an impoverished middle class. The famous chainsaw would thus be a metaphor not only for cuts to public spending but also for the liberticidal repression that also implies a questioning of the consensus established after the fall of the dictatorship and a closure of the political cycle that began in 2001.