A war of ideologies is raging today in Latin America. Some nations, such as Honduras and Brazil, are lurching in the wrong direction, toward the empty ideologies of socialism and collectivism. Others, such as Argentina and El Salvador, are moving toward greater economic freedom and prosperity.
Collectivism has destroyed the economies of far too many nations in Central and South America. But in sharp contrast, newly elected President Javier Milei of Argentina has emerged as a rhetorical leader modeled after President Ronald Reagan. He is attempting to fight to save the Western world from the economic pandemic of socialism, which makes poverty worse everywhere it appears.
In 1987, President Reagan announced his Economic Bill of Rights, arguing that “freedom is not created by government, nor is it a gift from those in political power. It is, in fact, secured, more than anything else, by those limitations…placed on those in government.”
Reagan spoke of a 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson, who led a philosophical revolution that led to the Bill of Rights. Reagan argued that our Founders recognized four core economic freedoms — the freedom to work, the freedom to enjoy the fruits of one’s labor, the freedom to own and control one’s own property and the freedom to participate in the market.
The only true cure for poverty is free enterprise capitalism, which Milei wholeheartedly embraces. Indeed, the parallels between Presidents Reagan and Milei are unmistakable.
It is remarkable that we have waited almost a quarter century for the Reagan revolution to reach Argentina, whose new president is pushing hard to restore economic freedom.
Just 110 years ago, Argentina was one of the world’s 10 wealthiest countries in terms of per capita income. Collectivist leaders subsequently took control and drove its economy into the ground. It has never recovered. The most recent period of instability has featured inflation greater than 50 percent since 2019, with inflation greater than 100 percent for 2023.
Fed up Argentine voters decided that Milei’s solution to stagnation was the right one.
“Thirty five years after (Argentina) adopted the model of freedom, back in 1860, we became a leading world power,” Milei recently stated at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “And when we embraced collectivism over the course of the last 100 years, we saw how our citizens started to become systematically impoverished, and we dropped to spot number 140 globally.”
Argentina is one nation that had to hit rock bottom to start the process of clawing back the economic freedoms that will help Argentina’s people to rebuild.
Milei has become the pre-eminent world rhetorical leader defending free markets and opposing socialism. His speech to the WEF in Davos was one of the most inspirational defenses of economic freedom given in contemporary history.
According to a transcript provided by the WEF, President Milei made the strong case that “far from being the cause of our problems, free trade capitalism as an economic system is the only instrument we have to end hunger, poverty and extreme poverty across our planet.” He pointed to the statistic that in 1800, about 95 percent of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, and that that number had dropped to 5 percent by 2020.
Using per capita GDP as a measure, he pointed out that “after the Industrial Revolution, global per capita GDP multiplied by over 15 times, which meant a boom in growth that lifted 90 percent of the global population out of poverty.”
Milei has lived under the economic oppression of Argentina’s long list of socialist governments. He recognizes that the socialism creeping into Western Hemisphere governance has stifled prosperity.
Right-leaning American politicians should follow Milei’s lead. They should abandon Big Government ideas cloaked in economic populism and nationalism.
Many Republican politicians embrace the idea of social engineering through the tax code. Others push for price controls on pharmaceuticals and oppose foreign investment. One of the most popular ideas that embodies Big-Government conservatism is to impose high tariffs on imports. These end up failing to create American jobs, but they certainly do hit American consumers with substantial new tax burdens.
All of these ideas seek to impose Washington’s preferred economic and social outcomes on the American people, but they ultimately lead to lower productivity, less economic freedom, and less prosperity for everyone.
Elon Musk said it best when he argued that Milei’s speech was a “good explanation of what makes countries more or less prosperous.” Milei has, in a short time, become the world’s foremost apostle of free markets, and its foremost opponent of collectivist economic policies.
We need more world leaders like Milei to stand up and fight to make people’s lives better.
Cesar Conda is former chief of staff to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and former assistant for domestic policy to Vice President Richard B. Cheney. Brian Darling is former counsel to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
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