The eccentric far-right populist Javier Milei has failed to win the first round of Argentina’s presidential election, with the centrist finance minister Sergio Massa unexpectedly beating his radical challenger.
Supporters of Milei, a potty-mouthed political outsider described as an Argentinian mashup of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson, had hoped he was heading for a sensational outright victory similar to Bolsonaro’s shock triumph in Brazil in 2018.
Comparing Milei to Trump or Bolsonaro is very, very misleading.
Milei is has radical capitalist / free market ideology, but is far removed from social conservatism.
Just to give you an idea, he wants to close the argentinian central bank and kill the national currency or let it kill itself with a free floating exchange rate.
Such a move is the opposite of what alt-right / fascism would do which seeks governmental control of media, industrial and financial institutions.
If anything, the current ruling party “Union for the motherland” (Union por la patria) openly advocates and defends Peronism which is a sort of decaf fascist ideology heavy in nationalism and populism thinly clothed in laborist rethoric to make it seem left wing. Current ruling party which btw has lead the country to over 300% inflation (if you take the free exchange rate as a reference since the official exchange rate is manipulated and it is illegal for argentines to freely buy foreign currency except for a small token amount).
Just to make it easier to understand. If you’re familiar with the political compass:
These are three very very different quadrants.
I know nothing about economy, but isn’t a bad idea to put all your chips into a currency that you do not hold any control over?
As Vis mentioned, it is the better option if the government can’t stop itself from printing money and fucks everyone over.
This is the inflation rate of Ecuador before and after they adopted the dollar in 2000.
Milei now wants to do the same. At least this way people will be able to save (and spend their savings), and the government will have to be fiscally responsible.
The world has run directly or indirectly on gold (which can’t be printed) until 1973, so it’s definitely possible for an economy to work with a currency you can’t print.
Ecuador and Puerto Rico already did it. Panamá did something similar.
I totally understand the initiative. Corruption can be so damn high, that you trust gringo central bank more than any institution of your own country.
edit: typos
Did you conflate Puerto Rico with Costa Rica? Puerto Rico uses USD, and has since the late 1800s when they became a territory of the US.
Puerto Rico is a literal colony. Not the best example
I think they may have confused Puerto Rico with Costa Rica? Costa Rica devalued their currency around 2013-2014 IIRC, and they don’t use USD the way PR does.
Puerto Ricans are (admittedly disenfranchised on the federal level) full USA citizens – they’re Americans. They have self-rule insofar as any other state does, freedom of movement in the USA, etc.
The USA has had colonies in even the “recent” past, but nothing that can really be called that these days.
Nope, Puerto Rico is a colony. They lack many rights US citizens have, have nothing to do culturally with the rest of the country and have been so since 1898, with many attempts by the government to erase Hispanic culture. The USA should leave Puerto Rico immediately, just like the UK left India
About that …
I’ve spoken to actual Puerto Ricans and many of them think pro-US parties are being paid and boosted for obvious reasons
Excelent example as it implies the damage to sovereignty it takes.
You know. Pros and cons…
Not really. Puerto Rico’s use of USD is much closer tied to the fact that it’s citizens are full US citizens. It’s not like we bought them or they collapsed and eventually fell under our control. No we went to war with Spain, mostly to get Cuba, and they were one of the islands we got when we won. They became a territory that’s capable of statehood while other winnings like Cuba and the Philippines were released and as they became sovereign states adopted their own currency. The only states we purchased were in the middle of the mainland, under the gold standard, and because Napoleon was broke.
Well we also bought Alaska from Russia for dirt cheap and Putin made some butthurt comment about it recently.
Puerto Rico has been using the United States dollar as its official currency since 1898. This change occurred when the United States took control of Puerto Rico as a result of the Treaty of Paris, ending the Spanish-American War. Since then, the U.S. dollar has been the official and only legal tender in Puerto Rico, and the island’s monetary system is fully integrated with that of the United States. Puerto Rico did not choose USD. It was chosen for them when Spain ceded their American colony to the US.
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El Salvador was the other one aside from Ecuador and Panamá.
Puerto Rico is a us Territory and uses USD. Costa Rica has their own currency with cute sloths and monkeys on their notes.
Trusting the central bank of a country that gave permission, founding and training to the military juntas all over South America to commit crimes against humanity is pretty darn stupid if you ask me…
we have problems with governments over printing. this shit has happened again and again for decades and it won’t stop.
Yes, but the alternative is what we have now.
Normal people have zero control over the US Dollar, but also have zero control over the Argentinian Peso… and the Argentinian Peso has 140% inflation per year.
Milei probably has a small resemblance with DT. Maybe just a small percentage, but that is enough to call him a Full DT by the press in the rest of world. It is just cheap press.
The guy has a lot of cons and pros. But he is not a DT. He is mainly an economist. Not a businessman.
Argentina as always is a sinking ship with a lot of holes. Every year there are more holes. They still have not found a party that can close those holes. And there were only 3 big parties.
Perhaps a new party (like the one from Milei) manages to start closing some of those holes. Perhaps they keep opening holes like the current party. Even if you put the best party ever made, it would take 15-30 years maybe more to recover. You have a lot of adults that never worked (legally) and live from the state. It takes time to educate the new generations letting them know that money is not always a free thing that comes without working. (And you cannot tell them “now you have to find a job” in the short term otherwise the country will go violent. Therefore no matter how far right the party is. It always end up adapting to a situation to control the masses that requires socialism).
Time will tell about what will happen if the same party (probably was the worst government in the past 30 years) wins the election. But nowadays the country is at worst since I was born. 40% poverty (oficial, real is perhaps higher ), 100+% annual inflation (not even the old 20-30% annual). It is probable that the current government will never leave and will stay on power just like it happens in many other countries, like Venezuela. (While it is still a totally different country, we always compare to Venezuela because the current party always liked Venezuela as a role model to follow).
I hope not! But with 40+% poverty… soon there will not be enough tax payers to cover the costs but maybe hyperinflation puts a stop to the excess of public spending (printing ARS money) to solve any problem.
Well, I’d say it’s just their straightforwardness and their “showmanlike” attitude
And the wacky hair.
Are there even politicians in Argentina that aren’t socially conservative? He is by default
Yes, I was very confused by the “far-right populist” descriptor. Those are two very opposite words.
I disagree with your assessment that far right and populist descriptors are opposites. Admittedly, there’s a degree of subjectivity in definitions here, but my understanding is that conventional scholarship has coalesced around a definition of Populism that is agnostic of the left/right spectrum.
For example, this journal article from 2012 defines it as “a thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, the ‘pure people’ versus the ‘corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the general will of the people”.
If you care to read a little more, the authors break down their definition into it’s constituent pieces and provide context, but the important piece is that you can see how populism can come from both the left and the right.
As examples, we can look at, say, the Occupy Wall Street movement from a while back. Very much spawned from left leaning ideology, but it’s defining feature was casting the “corrupt elite” (in this case, the fabulously wealthy) against the general people (i.e. the 99%). On the other side of the coin we can look at Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. The image he wants to cultivate is that of an outsider, someone not tainted by the corruption of the Washington elite. That resonates with a sunset of the population.
Both of these movements have radically different goals and politics, but the framework of those arguments follows the same general template.
I apologize for the US-centric examples, but that’s what I know. As consolation, the article I linked to is specifically a comparative study of European vs Latin American populism.
The poor and middle-class, you know, the majority of the population, have been beaten down by the “corrupt elite” for centuries. The problem with using a term like “far-right populist” is that the far-right are always on the side of corporate interests, additional corruption of government to weaken its power, and anything that would further promote the already fucked wealth gap we have between the rich and the poor. They are the corrupt elite!
Just using your example of Trump’s MAGA movement, Trump is just a grifter trying to promote an image of an outsider, but he very much isn’t one. Calling somebody a “far-right populist” is lying about what their true goals are. It is an oxymoron.
People from the Occupy Wall Street movement, even as misguided and directionless as that movement was, were trying to reduce the power of corporations through their protests. They weren’t lying about being populists.
A better example would be somebody like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, whose actions and voting record are consistent with ones who are trying to take power from corporations and give it back to the rest of the public.
Far-right is when I don’t like, idiot