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I have been considering several critical remarks made by high ranking members of two of the more important leading groups on the global scene at the annual congress of global leading forces, the World Economic Forum held in Davos Switzerland. I have to this point considered the remarks of Chinese Premier Li Qiang (here), and those of EU Commission President Ursula von de Leyen (here). The focus of these remarks turned on the theme for the 54th annual conference--Rebuilding Trust. Today I consider the somewhat remarkable address (Spanish version here; English version here) presented by Javier Milei, President of the Republic of Argentina, a newcomer, and member of the global South (though not of what the leading forces of the global North generally stereotype as orthodox Global South).
The remarks are fascinating (in the ancient sense of bewitching) and thus remarkable (in the sense of especially worth of remark), if only for their quite useful way of drawing more fully the contrasts of perception very much on display this year--especially around the concept and symbolism of "trust" (as belief, confidence (eg Latin: fiducia; Old Norse traust "help, confidence, protection, support," but also faith and faithful (eg Latin: fides). The contrasts were stark:
Chinese Premier Li Qiang (here) offered trust in a vanguard state representing global leading forces dedicated to the realization of normatively identifiable objectives;
EU Commission President Ursula von de Leyen (here) offered trust in a techno-bureaucracy guiding a rationalized process embedding normatively infused values.
Both infused those abstract proffering with meaning heavily dependent on the way each rationalized the world through the premises of their respective political-economic-social models. Despite the differences, both visions converged around the need for guidance, correction, and shaping as a function of objectives overseen by a shepherding collective.
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President Milei shifted focus of trust away from the constitution of leading forces guidance collectives to the masses; and from control/nudging organs and vanguards or techno-bureaucracies, all of which he asserted were structurally untrustworthy. While he might have placed his trust in consumers of economic productivity or in labor as a factor in its production, both driving a wobbling collective movement representing the infinitely iterative consequences of individual human interaction, he did not. Instead, and like his peers in China and the EU he also sought refuge in a vanguard--the more rationally anarchic vanguard of global so-called capitalists. Again, like his Chinese and EU counterparts, the focus was on oracular totems: concrete expressions of the essence of the signification of trust in human collective social relations. China and the EU spoke to political vanguards and institutionalized techno-administrative organs. Their totems were the legitimacy of leading forces vanguards and the disciplinary normativity of administered risk. For China the signifying totem was socialism represented by the new prosperous state as a guardian of the global order in the new historical era; for the EU the signifying totem was democratic administrative supervision overcoming the threats of risks (especially Russian militarism and the corruption of AI). Both were unified by the fundamental objective of ordering from a center. For President Milei, that totem was capitalism, represented by the anarchy (an ordering without a center) of the market but driven by capital. Its unifying effects, in turn, are conceived as ordered around the consequential effects of individual pursuit of personal interest within networked collectives of political, social, religious, and cultural power manifested through institutions also maximizing interests within competitive markets of their own. For Milei, then, trust was centered on the self, and the self is primarily the capitalist self, personal and aggregated productive forces pursuing their own interests disciplined by the aggregated interests of others; everyone else follows.
It follows that though Milei appears to deliver a radical critique of the traectories of social organization of economic activity, he conforms to the premise of collectivity. The radical turn, perhaps, lies in what President Milei understands as difference between the untrustworthy coerced public collectivity of public vanguardism and public administrative supervision, on the one hand, and the trustworthy collectivity built around aggregations of individual choice--even where that choice may be severely constrained by contextual circumstances. It is in this sense, then, that President Milei, like Premier Li Qiang and EU Commission
President von der Leyen share a point of convergence in the context of
trust. All three of them point to collectives for trust leadership--and
in the process suggest those collectives not worthy of trust. Where
Premier Li Qiang focused trust on a vanguard; where von der Leyen
focused on the process of risk guided by a techno-bureaucracy, President
Milei focuses trust on production undertaken driven by capital (human and otherwise) and tested in markets
substantially free of the state and its vanguards.Trust in leadership, trust in oversight, trust in production--these are the manifestation of trust on offer. One focuses on the trustworthiness of a collective entrusted with a collectively shared embrace of a human trajectory towards something ultimate; the other focuses on the trustworthiness of a collective that is meant to safeguard within a collectively defined pen the fences around which are meant as much to keep things out as to keep those protected in; and the last focuses on the trustworthiness of those who hold economic capacity, an anarchic collective of productive forces that drive institutional ecologies from the sides (not the bottom).
1. Collectivism is the root of all evil; "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains" (Marx, Communist Manifesto Chp. 4). Milei's discursive style appears deliberately to avoid the elegance and subtleties that high level officials tend to adopt, like the poetry of the 16th and 17th century Spanish Hapsburg court in Madrid, as a sign of solidarity with their global peers. of the high level officials. It is meant to function like 20th century brutalist architecture (once much prized, then despised, and now in old age prized if only for its nostalgia for an age impossible to recapture). It is, in this sense, as brutally effective, and discursively aligned with, Marx's Communist Manifesto. But where Marx and the Communists reified Communism, the "spectre haunting Europe" into the totems of class struggle collectivization against feudalism and bourgeois error, Milei reanimated the the spectre of Capitalism haunting the West into the totems of proletarian struggles against the institutionalized feudalism of post-Marxist collectivization which enriches the vanguard and the techno-bureaucracies while it impoverishes those in whose service they operate.
Today I'm here to tell you that the Western world is in danger. And it is in danger because those who are supposed to have to defend the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that inexorably leads to socialism and thereby to poverty. [hoy estoy acá para decirles que Occidente está en peligro, está en peligro porque aquellos, que supuestamente deben defender los valores de Occidente, se encuentran cooptados por una visión del mundo que – inexorablemente – conduce al socialismo, en consecuencia a la pobreza.] (Milei Remarks Spanish version here; English version here).
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The villain, collectivism: "We're here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world. Rather, they are the root cause. [Nosotros estamos, acá, para decirles que los experimentos colectivistas nunca son la solución a los problemas, que aquejan a los ciudadanos del mundo, sino que – por el contrario – son su causa.]" Ibid. The motives are mixed--either from seeking to do good in a disastrously bad way, or more pragmatically, from the desire to "belong to a privileged caste" [de querer pertenecer a una casta privilegiada]" (Ibid.). One has now flipped hierarchies of exploitation and their object. At the same time, one has satisfied the ancient desire of the human within collectives--to aspire, as Nietzsche suggested in the context of norm controlling religion, to the role of priest (Twilight of the Idols). It is, in fact neither the vanguard, nor the revolutionaries, nor the techno-bureaucrats that one ought to trust; one ought to trust oneself.
Yet one might stop here to consider what exactly is the nature of the collectivization that so irks President Milei. He has no fear of coordinated action, or of aggregation of human resources toward a shared objective (especially if that objective is wealth enhancing). He objects, instead to coercive collectivization--collectivization from outside. To that end, to enhance collectivization driven from the bottom, it is necessary to unmask the forces of coercion, and then to de-fang them. And for President Milei, the primary source of coercive collectivization in the current era is the state. That coercion can be as readily manifested through the operations of a vanguard in the process of socialist "communization", as it can be manifested through the process of indirect nudging of a regulatory techno-bureaucracy. That can be no trust in the face of coercion. But there can be trst in coercion that is generated by (self) interest. The result may be the same--the trajectories toward that result start from very different places. It is to that argument that much of the rest of President Milei's remarks turn.
2. "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free"(John 8:32 (KJV). Milei's brutalist realism, the response to a perceived oracular warning, is attached to a factual universe that the President of Argentina elaborates at length. They are grounded in conclusions from an analysis of per capita DDP growth from the end of the Roman Republic through 1800 AD. (essentially flat as described in the remarks), compared that thereafter which grew at an accelerated rate. The root cause: capitalism. The precipitating cause, industrialization. Marx, of course, would view this as an inevitable stage necessary for the movement of a society advancing through industrialization to the richness required for the establishment of a communist society--a view with Chinese characteristics elaborated for for example Deng Xiaoping. But in the West (and President Milei focuses on the West where the great error is at its most noxious) the complex of social relations elaborated in the constitution of society after the Industrial Revolution produced the greatest alleviation of aggregate poverty in that region of the world. "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. The empirical evidence is unquestionable. Therefore . . . there is no doubt that free enterprise capitalism is superior in productive terms" [La conclusión es obvia: lejos de ser la causa de nuestros problemas, el capitalismo de libre empresa, como sistema económico, es la única herramienta que tenemos para terminar con el hambre, la pobreza y la indigencia, a lo largo y a lo ancho de todo el planeta. La evidencia empírica es incuestionable. Por eso, como no cabe duda de que el capitalismo de libre mercado es superior – en términos productivos] (Milei Remarks ).
One might consider, though, the semiotics of free and enterprise. Free here does not appear to be contextless. President Miñei might imply, but it might be naive to suggest, that choices are absolutely free. Every action is undertaken in context--and context can be quite complicated. In that sense, one's free choice (whether "one" is an individual or collective) is undertaken within and is the consequence of the weighing of the factors within which action or inaction is taken, beliefs are formed, and views of the world are applied. One is free, in that sense, only as a function of the circumstances in which freedom may be exercised. And those circumstances can significantly constrain the range of "free" choice. President Milei, if he is to be taken seriously, then, must be referencing (or ought to in any case) freedom of a different sort: that is freedom as an autonomy to decide for oneself how the balance of circumstances may be factored into action (or inaction) and to suffer the consequences of that choice. Vanguard freedom delegates that freedom of circumstantial choosing to a collective organ. Administrative supervision offers protection of risk of consequences in return for delegation of choice. Milei would reject both, that is he would reject the delegation of choice or choice constraining based on exogenous risk assessors and controllers, and return trust to those who bear the risk. That is all very well in the economic sphere, from a perspective of role differentiation in social complexes. Yet it does not speak to the residuum--the responsibility of the collective for taking care of its own, at least enough so that, in resident Milei's world view, risk and innovation (and with it wealth creation and poverty reduction) may be enhanced. And that is a pity.
3. Social Justice is a Chimera; "libertarianism"holds the key to the future. President Milei then turns to the internal demons that plague what had been the course of Western democratic free market capitalism from its inevitable road toward the augmentation of individual economic welfare (what the Marxist-Leninist would call the necessity of developing productive forces to a stage where communism is possible). Those internal demons are the alignment of collectivist values with free market economics (what in China would be understood as the alignment of moral/cultural values within socialist modernization that had been unbalanced by privileging productive development).
In the West one does not speak to Core Socialist Values to be embedded in social life by the vanguard; one speaks to social justice as a cluster of value-objectives that must be achieved through the guidance of the techno-bureaucracy and to those ends embedded in the development of economic productive forces.
the left-wing doxa has attacked capitalism, alleging matters of morality, saying - that's what the detractors claim - that it's unjust. They say that capitalism is evil because it's individualistic and that collectivism is good because it's altruistic. Of course, with the money of others. So they therefore advocate for social justice. But this concept, which in the developed world became fashionable in recent times, in my country has been a constant in political discourse for over 80 years. The problem is that social justice is not just, and it doesn't contribute to general well-being. [la doxa de izquierda ha atacado al capitalismo por sus cuestiones de moralidad, por ser – según ellos - dicen sus detractores, que es injusto. Dicen que el capitalismo es malo porque es individualista y que el colectivismo es bueno porque es altruista, con la ajena. En consecuencia bregan por la justicia social, pero este concepto que – desde el Primer Mundo – se ha puesto de moda, en la última época, en mi país es una constante del discurso político, desde hace más de 80 años. El problema es que la justicia social no es justa, sino que tampoco aporta al bienestar general;] (Remarks, supra)
But President Milei cannot mean that free markets and liberal democracy is amoral, or put otherwise that the system lacks social justice. Instead, President Milei is going after another totem--social justice as the concretization of a set of abstract values propositions that serve an ideology inimical, in values, to those on the basis of which capitalist free market liberal democracy is framed. President Milei understand social justice as a consequential tactic of collectivist ideology. "Given the dismal failure of collectivist models and the undeniable advances in the free world, socialists were forced to change their agenda: they left behind the class struggle based on the economic system and replaced this with other supposed social conflicts, which are just as harmful to life and to economic growth." [Dado el estrepitoso fracaso de los modelos colectivistas y los
innegables avances del mundo libre, los socialistas se vieron forzados a
cambiar su agenda. Dejaron atrás la lucha de clases basada en el
sistema económico para reemplazarla por otros supuestos conflictos
sociales igual de nocivos para la vida en comunidad y para el
crecimiento económico.] (Milei Remarks, supra).
In the process President Milei also demonizes core concepts of contemporary liberal democratic organization in favor of the structures of his vision of libertarianism. First President Milei speaks to the consequences of the the objects of social justice--to use the collective pot of national wealth extracted through taxation for their own ends. "This means that the state is financed through coercion and that the higher the tax burden, the higher the coercion and the lower the freedom." [Lo cual significa que el Estado se financia, a través de la coacción y a mayor carga impositiva mayor es la coacción, menor es la libertad.] (Remarks, supra). President Milei highlights two cases in point: radical feminism and radical environmentalism. The radical in both has produced state intrventions that hinders economic progress "giving jobs to bureaucrats who have not contributed anything to society." (Milei Remarks, supra).
Then in a passage that reminds one of Jack Ma's now infamous Bund Finance Summit Speech (24 October 2020), President Milei speaks to the adverse consequences for innovation of a taxation system used to fuel an ideologically specific social justice agenda.
If the goods or services offered by a business are not wanted, the business will fail unless it adapts to what the market is demanding. They will do well and produce more if they make a good quality product at an attractive price. So the market is a discovery process in which the capitalists will find the right path as they move forward. But if the state punishes capitalists when they're successful and gets in the way of the discovery process, they will destroy their incentives, and the consequence is that they will produce less. The pie will be smaller, and this will harm society as a whole. Collectivism, by inhibiting these discovery processes and hindering the appropriation of discoveries, ends up binding the hands of entrepreneurs and prevents them from offering better goods and services at a better price. [Si el bien o servicio que ofrece una empresa no es deseado, esa empresa quiebra a menos que se adecúe a lo que el mercado le está demandando. Si genera un producto de buena calidad a un buen precio, atractivo, le va a ir bien y va a producir más. De modo que el mercado es un proceso de descubrimiento, en el cual el capitalista encuentra sobre la marcha el rumbo correcto, pero si el Estado castiga al capitalista por tener éxito y lo bloquea en este proceso de descubrimiento destruye sus incentivos y las consecuencias de eso es que va a producir menos y la torta será más chica, generando perjuicio para el conjunto de la sociedad. El colectivismo - al inhibir estos procesos de descubrimiento y al dificultar la apropiación de lo descubierto - ata al emprendedor de las manos y le imposibilita producir mejores bienes y ofrecer mejores servicios a un mejor precio.] (Remaks, supra).
Compare what might be the more elegant and nuanced version by Jack Ma:
I think there is another phenomenon. Many regulatory authorities around the world have become zero risk, their own departments have become zero risk, but the entire economy has become risky, the whole society has become risky. The competition of the future is a competition of innovation, not a competition of regulatory skills. Now, each country’s regulation is more ruthless than the next, all the development is a mirage, but by not allowing it, each cut is bloody. Based on my understanding, what President Xi said about “enhancing governing ability” means to maintain healthy and sustainable development under orderly regulation, not no development due to regulation. It is not difficult to regulate. What’s difficult is to deliver regulation that achieves the purpose of producing sustainable and healthy development. (Jack Ma Bund Finance Summit Speech supra)
This then provides the foundation for an extended discussion of the value of libertarianism as a better basis for harvesting the benefits of capitalist free market liberal democracy.
Now what is it that we mean when we talk about libertarianism? And let me quote the words of the greatest authority on freedom in Argentina, Professor Alberto Benegas Lynch Jr, who says that libertarianism is the unrestricted respect for the life project of others based on the principle of non-aggression, in defence of the right to life, liberty and property. Its fundamental institutions are private property, markets free from state intervention, free competition, and the division of labour and social cooperation, in which success is achieved only by serving others with goods of better quality or at a better price. [Ahora bien, para entender qué venimos a defender es importante definir de qué hablamos nosotros cuando hablamos de libertarismo. Para definirlo retomo las palabras del máximo prócer de las ideas de la libertad, de Argentina, el profesor Alberto Benegas Lynch (h) que dice: “el libertarismo es el respeto irrestricto del proyecto de vida del prójimo, basado en el principio de no agresión, en defensa del derecho a la vida, a la libertad y a la propiedad, cuyas instituciones fundamentales son la propiedad privada, los mercados libres de intervención estatal, la libre competencia, la división del trabajo y la cooperación social”. Dicho de otro modo, el capitalista es un benefactor social que, lejos de apropiarse de la riqueza ajena, contribuye al bienestar general. En definitiva, un empresario exitoso es un héroe.] (Milei Rearks, supra).It is against this model that President Milei sees deployed the cadres of the techno-administrative organs advanced by EU Commission President von der Leyen. "And I say this precisely because in countries that should defend the values of the free market, private property and the other institutions of libertarianism, sectors of the political and economic establishment are undermining the foundations of libertarianism, opening up the doors to socialism and potentially condemning us to poverty, misery and stagnation." [Digo que occidente está en peligro justamente porque en aquellos países que debiéramos defender los valores del libre mercado, la propiedad privada, y las demás instituciones del libertarismo, sectores del establishment político y económico, algunos por errores en su marco teórico y otros por ambición de poder , están socavando los fundamentos del libertarismo, abriéndole las puertas al socialismo y condenándonos potencialmente a la pobreza, a la miseria y al estancamiento.] (Milei Rearks, supra). And not only against the West, but also of socialism in general.
There follows a longer exposition of the value of neoclassical economics from a libertarian perspective, one that understands markets as a mechanism for social cooperation and market failures are evidence of coercion. Milei ascribes the primary engine of coercion, and thus of markeyfailures in the state. In effect, Milei suggests is that when leaders like Ursula von der Leyen propose the construciton of economies managed by techno-bureaucracies, they are effectively developing the structural elements of unceasing market failures. He, in effect, conflates the trajectories of Marxist-Leninist states with those of techno-admnistrative liberal democracy.
The West has unfortunately already started to go along this path. I know, to many it may sound ridiculous to suggest that the West has turned to socialism, but it's only ridiculous if you only limit yourself to the traditional economic definition of socialism, which says that it's an economic system where the state owns the means of production. This definition in my view, should be updated in the light of current circumstances. [Occidente, lamentablemente, ya comenzó a transitar este camino. Sé que a muchos les puede sonar ridículo plantear que occidente se ha volcado al socialismo. Pero sólo es ridículo en la medida que uno se restringe a la definición económica tradicional del socialismo, que establece que es un sistema económico donde el estado es el dueño de los medios de producción.] (Milei Remarks, supra)
4. Capitalists of the world unite. President Milei ends with a plea in the brutalist style: a plea not to the consumers who drive libertarian economics but to the business people who, by traveling to Davos on corporate expense accounts, become indistiguishable from the internal caste of managerial shepherds against which President Milei hurls his Jeremiad. "I would like to leave a message for all business people here and those who are not here in person but are following from around the world." [quiero dejarle un mensaje a todos los empresarios aquí presentes y a los que nos están mirando desde todos los rincones del planeta.] (Remarks, supra). These were the remarks that provided the fdder for the press coverage (such as it was) that followed:
Do not be intimidated by the political caste or by parasites who live off the state. Do not surrender to a political class that only wants to stay in power and retain its privileges. You are social benefactors. You are heroes. You are the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we've ever seen. Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral. If you make money, it's because you offer a better product at a better price, thereby contributing to general wellbeing. Do not surrender to the advance of the state. The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself. You are the true protagonists of this story and rest assured that as from today, Argentina is your staunch and unconditional ally. [No se dejen amedrentar ni por la casta política ni por los parásitos que viven del estado. No se entreguen a una clase política que lo único que quiere es perpetuarse en el poder y mantener sus privilegios. Ustedes son benefactores sociales. Ustedes son héroes. Ustedes son los creadores del periodo de prosperidad más extraordinario que jamás hayamos vivido. Que nadie les diga que su ambición es inmoral. Si ustedes ganan dinero es porque ofrecen un mejor producto a un mejor precio, contribuyendo de esa manera al bienestar general. No cedan al avance del estado. El estado no es la solución. El estado es el problema mismo. Ustedes son los verdaderos protagonistas de esta historia, y sepan que a partir de hoy, cuentan con un aliado inclaudicable en la republica argentina.] (Milei Remarks, supra).
The political class is both parasitical and powerful. The state is the problem, not the solution. Making money is the pathway to wealth and innovation. And prosperity is the current stage of the development of the global social order. The simplification is as appealing as that of a Manifesto. The excruciating realities of nuance, of responsibility and its distribution among social collectives where the enterprise is charged with engaging in one act and one act only. All of that is left for another day. But no fault there. This is merely a variation on a theme that marked the addresses of the Chinese Premier and the EU Commission President. What is missing, in the end. . .at least in the remarks of President Milei is the last connection--not with the business people at Davos or their global caste but with consumers rather than producers and to labor rather than capital.
The first of the Delphic oracles was delivered to Laius and Jocasta, the reigning monarchs of Thebes with the warning that their son would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Avoidance required action--the direction to a shepherd to dispose of the infant boy on a mountainside. Instead the child was ultimately delivered to the monarchs of Corinth who raised him as their own.
Pix Credit here The second of the Delphic oracles was delivered to Oedipus as a young man who, taunted by his friends for appearing unrelated to his parents, set off to Delphi to know more about his origins. There he was warned not to return to his native land because he would kill his father and marry his mother. Thinking his native land was Corinth he set off, meeting and killing Laius at a crossroads.
The third of the Delphic oracles was delivered at the request of Oedipus who sought counsel through his brother in law Creon, many years later having assumed the throne of Thebes and married Jocasta, for ridding the city of a plague to the city. It is here that Stravinsky's opera begins. Creon reports that the oracle commanded that the city seek out the murderer of Laius who resided in Thebes ("Quem depelli deus jubet peremptorem, Peste infikit Thebas. Apollo dixit deus."). In his ignorant hubris Oedipus, in his ignorance, declares he will solve the puzzle in the most ironic way ("Clarissimus Oedipus, likeor divinabo").
The prophetic revelation follows from the interrogation of Tiresias. At first he chooses silence ("Dikere non liket, Dikere nefastum, Oedipus, non possum"). Finally goaded he speaks the absolute truth about the meaning of the oracle (Rex kekidit regem, [A King killed the King]; Deus regem acusat [The Gods accuse a king]).Tiresias speaks precisely true. Yet the precision permits a large space for willful misnterpretaiton. That is, precise truth in this case can be misleading--not by the truth spoken, but by the meaning with which it is invested.
The resistance of those who divine the truth follows. Jocasta understand where this is leading and seeks to avert tragedy by spreading misinformation. Thus her advice to Oedipus: "Semper oracula mentiuntur. [The oracles always lie]; Oedipus, cave oracula [Oedipus, beware the oracles]; Quae mentiantur. [For they lie]). The irony, of course, is that the oracle does not lie--everyone else misperceives. They must. It is an inevitable consequence of the premises and presumptions that they bring to the oracle from which they reconstruct its meaning in terms that align with their own vision of the way things must be.
The essential quality of oracles, its "giveness" as 20th century phenomenology might describe it (here), is that neither the oracle nor the oracular actually has the slightest concern about its subject. That is a given. Oracles exist in a state of perpetual indifference--like the products of an iterative process of data driven analytics by an autonomous generative intelligence. There is another "given" though, that may be of equal interest. In the presence of the oracular, its human (singular or collective) object indifferent to the lusts, desires, perspectives, strategies, impulses, machinations, or semiotic sophistry that chokes the wolrd of the human until, gasping for something sustitaining to breathe, it reaizes the madness of its relationship to the oracular.
And that is what one ends up with--responses to an unseen and oscure oracular wwarning, discerned from the examonation of the entrails of history and the interpretaiotn of the facts that lay decomposing in its passing. Each of these leaders have read the oracles. Each has sought to restate the oracular warning (signs), and in restating provide a path toward the avoidance of the warning or the fulfillment of its promise. Each in turn will also likely shape the oracular material, precisely true, in ways that invite misdriection depending on what the listener brings to the oracle. The three oracles provide direction, each arising from the context from which or to which they are delivered. And each is, in its own way, impossible to decode until after the fact. But each suggests the temporality of the oracle and its context. One can, in each interaction, watch the stage setting for the (Greek style) tragedies that follow--not because of avoidable human failing, but because of their inevitability in the face of the indifference of the given to the circumstances of those to whom the oracle (of history in this case) is provided.
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What is missing? These speech stories, these performances, still require their Tiresias signifier. Though were that function to be fulfilled it as likely that they will find an audience as eager to hear them out as Oedipus listened to Tiresias. And Jocasta. . . Jocasta--well it is possible that the rest of us now serve that role (eg here, here, here, here; here, and here).
The full text of the Remarks in English and Spanish follow below and may also be accessed here: (Spanish version ; English version).
This is the third of the set of reflections on the remarks of Li Qiang, Ursula von der Leyen, and Javier Milei delivered at the 2024 WEF in Davos; each can be accessed here:
Palabras del Presidente de la Nación, Javier Milei, en la 54° Reunión Anual del Foro Económico Mundial, en Davos
Buenas tardes, muchas gracias: hoy estoy acá para decirles que Occidente está en peligro, está en peligro porque aquellos, que supuestamente deben defender los valores de Occidente, se encuentran cooptados por una visión del mundo que – inexorablemente – conduce al socialismo, en consecuencia a la pobreza.
Lamentablemente en las últimas décadas, motivados por algunos deseos bienpensantes de querer ayudar al prójimo y otros por el deseo de querer pertenecer a una casta privilegiada, los principales líderes del mundo occidental han abandonado el modelo de la libertad, por distintas versiones, de lo que llamamos colectivismo.
Nosotros estamos, acá, para decirles que los experimentos colectivistas nunca son la solución a los problemas, que aquejan a los ciudadanos del mundo, sino que – por el contrario – son su causa. Créanme, nadie mejor que nosotros los argentinos para dar testimonios de estas dos cuestiones.
Cuando adoptamos el modelo de la libertad – allá por el año 1860 – en 35 años nos convertimos en la primera potencia mundial, mientras que cuando abrazamos el colectivismo, a lo largo de los últimos 100 años, vimos como nuestros ciudadanos comenzaron a empobrecerse sistemáticamente, hasta caer en el puesto número 140 del mundo. Pero antes de poder dar esta discusión será importante, que – primero – viéramos los datos que sustentan por qué no sólo el capitalismo de libre empresa no sólo es un sistema posible para terminar con la pobreza, del mundo, sino que es el único sistema – moralmente deseable – para lograrlo.
Si consideramos la historia del progreso económico podemos ver cómo desde el año cero hasta el año 1800, aproximadamente, el PBI per cápita del mundo, prácticamente, se mantuvo constante durante todo el período de referencia. Si uno mira un gráfico de la evolución del crecimiento económico, a lo largo de la historia de la humanidad, uno estaría viendo un gráfico con la forma de un palo de hockey, una función exponencial, que se mantuvo constante, durante el 90 por ciento del tiempo, y se dispara exponencialmente a partir del siglo XIX. La única excepción a esta historia de estancamiento se dio a finales del siglo XV, con el descubrimiento de América. Pero salvando esta excepción, a lo largo de todo el período, entre el año cero y el año 1800, el PBI per cápita, a nivel global, se mantuvo estancado.
Ahora bien, no sólo que el capitalismo generó una explosión de riqueza, desde el momento que se adoptó como sistema económico, sino que si uno analiza los datos lo que se observa es que el crecimiento se viene acelerando, a lo largo de todo el período.
Durante todo el período – comprendido entre el año cero y el 1800 – la tasa de crecimiento del PBI per cápita se mantuvo estable en torno al 0,02 por ciento, anual. Es decir, prácticamente sin crecimiento; a partir del siglo XIX con la Revolución Industrial la tasa de crecimiento pasa al 0,66 por ciento. A ese ritmo para duplicar el PBI per cápita se necesitaría crecer, durante 107 años.
Ahora bien, si observamos el período entre 1900 y 1950, la tasa de crecimiento se acelera al 1,66 por ciento, anual. Ya no necesitamos 107 años para duplicar el PBI per cápita, sino 66. Y si tomamos el período – comprendido entre 1950 y el año 2000 – vemos que la tasa de crecimiento fue de 2,1 por ciento, anual, lo que derivaría en que sólo 33 años podríamos duplicar el PBI per cápita del mundo. Esta tendencia lejos de detenerse se mantiene viva, aún hoy. Si tomamos el período, entre el año 2000 y el 2023, la tasa de crecimiento volvió a acelerar el 3 por ciento, anual, lo que implica que podríamos duplicar nuestro PBI per cápita, en el mundo en tan sólo 23 años.
Ahora bien, cuando se estudia el PBI per cápita, desde el año 1800 al día de hoy, lo que se observa es que, luego de la Revolución Industrial, el PBI per cápita mundial, se multiplicó por más de 15 veces, generando una explosión de riqueza que sacó de la pobreza al 90 por ciento de la población mundial.
No debemos olvidar nunca, que – para el año 1800 – cerca del 95 por ciento, de la población mundial, vivía en la pobreza más extrema; mientras que ese número cayó al 5 por ciento para el año 2020, previo a la pandemia.
La conclusión es obvia: lejos de ser la causa de nuestros problemas, el capitalismo de libre empresa, como sistema económico, es la única herramienta que tenemos para terminar con el hambre, la pobreza y la indigencia, a lo largo y a lo ancho de todo el planeta. La evidencia empírica es incuestionable.
Por eso, como no cabe duda de que el capitalismo de libre mercado es superior – en términos productivos – la doxa de izquierda ha atacado al capitalismo por sus cuestiones de moralidad, por ser – según ellos - dicen sus detractores, que es injusto.
Dicen que el capitalismo es malo porque es individualista y que el colectivismo es bueno porque es altruista, con la ajena. En consecuencia bregan por la justicia social, pero este concepto que – desde el Primer Mundo – se ha puesto de moda, en la última época, en mi país es una constante del discurso político, desde hace más de 80 años. El problema es que la justicia social no es justa, sino que tampoco aporta al bienestar general; muy por el contrario, es una idea intrínsecamente injusta porque es violenta; es injusta porque el Estado se financia, a través de impuestos y los impuestos se cobran de manera coactiva. ¿Acaso alguno de nosotros puede decir que pagan los impuestos de manera voluntaria? Lo cual significa que el Estado se financia, a través de la coacción y a mayor carga impositiva mayor es la coacción, menor es la libertad.
Quienes promueven la justicia social parten de la idea de que el conjunto de la economía es una torta que se puede repartir de una manera distinta, pero esa torta no está dada, es riqueza que se va generando, en lo que – por ejemplo – Israel Kirzner llama un proceso de descubrimiento de mercado. Si el bien o servicio que ofrece una empresa no es deseado, esa empresa quiebra a menos que se adecúe a lo que el mercado le está demandando. Si genera un producto de buena calidad a un buen precio, atractivo, le va a ir bien y va a producir más.
De modo que el mercado es un proceso de descubrimiento, en el cual el capitalista encuentra sobre la marcha el rumbo correcto, pero si el Estado castiga al capitalista por tener éxito y lo bloquea en este proceso de descubrimiento destruye sus incentivos y las consecuencias de eso es que va a producir menos y la torta será más chica, generando perjuicio para el conjunto de la sociedad.
El colectivismo - al inhibir estos procesos de descubrimiento y al dificultar la apropiación de lo descubierto - ata al emprendedor de las manos y le imposibilita producir mejores bienes y ofrecer mejores servicios a un mejor precio. ¿Cómo puede ser, entonces, que desde la academia, los organismos internacionales, la política y la teoría económica se demonice un sistema económico que no sólo ha sacado de la pobreza más extrema, al 90 por ciento de la población mundial y lo hace, cada vez más rápido, sino que además es justo y moralmente superior.
Gracias al capitalismo de libre empresa, hoy, el mundo se encuentra en su mejor momento. No hubo nunca, en toda la historia de la humanidad, un momento de mayor prosperidad que el que vivimos hoy. El mundo, de hoy, es más libre, más rico, más pacífico y más próspero, que cualquier otro momento de nuestra historia. Esto es cierto para todos, pero en particular para aquellos países que son libres, donde respetan la libertad económica y los derechos de propiedad de los individuos. Porque aquellos países, que son libres son 12 veces más ricos que los reprimidos. El decil más bajo de la distribución de los países libres, vive mejor que el 90 por ciento de la población de los países reprimidos, tiene 25 veces menos cantidad de pobres, en el formato estándar y 50 veces menos en el formato extremo. Y por si eso fuera poco, los ciudadanos de los países libres viven un 25 por ciento más que los ciudadanos de los países reprimidos.
Ahora bien, para entender qué venimos a defender es importante definir de qué hablamos nosotros cuando hablamos de libertarismo. Para definirlo retomo las palabras del máximo prócer de las ideas de la libertad, de Argentina, el profesor Alberto Benegas Lynch (h) que dice: “el libertarismo es el respeto irrestricto del proyecto de vida del prójimo, basado en el principio de no agresión, en defensa del derecho a la vida, a la libertad y a la propiedad, cuyas instituciones fundamentales son la propiedad privada, los mercados libres de intervención estatal, la libre competencia, la división del trabajo y la cooperación social”.
Dicho de otro modo, el capitalista es un benefactor social que, lejos de apropiarse de la riqueza ajena, contribuye al bienestar general. En definitiva, un empresario exitoso es un héroe.
Este es el modelo que nosotros estamos proponiendo para la argentina del futuro. Un modelo basado en los principios fundamentales del libertarismo: la defensa de la vida, de la libertad y de la propiedad
Ahora bien, si el capitalismo de libre empresa y la libertad económica han sido herramientas extraordinarias para terminar con la pobreza en el mundo; y nos encontramos hoy en el mejor momento de la historia de la humanidad, ¿por qué digo entonces que occidente está en peligro?
Digo que occidente está en peligro justamente porque en aquellos países que debiéramos defender los valores del libre mercado, la propiedad privada, y las demás instituciones del libertarismo, sectores del establishment político y económico, algunos por errores en su marco teórico y otros por ambición de poder , están socavando los fundamentos del libertarismo, abriéndole las puertas al socialismo y condenándonos potencialmente a la pobreza, a la miseria y al estancamiento.
Porque nunca debe olvidarse que el socialismo es siempre y en todo lugar un fenómeno empobrecedor que fracasó en todos los países que se intentó. Fue un fracaso en lo económico. Fue un fracaso en lo social. Fue un fracaso en lo cultural. Y además asesinó a más de 100 millones de seres humanos.
El problema esencial de occidente hoy es que no sólo debemos enfrentarnos a quienes, aun luego de la caída del muro y la evidencia empírica abrumadora, siguen bregando por el socialismo empobrecedor; sino también a nuestros propios líderes, pensadores y académicos que, amparados en un marco teórico equivocado, socavan los fundamentos del sistema que nos ha dado la mayor expansión de riqueza y prosperidad de nuestra historia.
El marco teórico al que me refiero es el de la teoría económica neoclásica, que diseña un instrumental que, sin quererlo , termina siendo funcional a la intromisión del estado , el socialismo, y la degradación de la sociedad. El problema de los neoclásicos es que como el modelo del que se enamoraron no mapea contra la realidad, atribuyen el error a supuestos fallos del mercado en vez de revisar las premisas de su modelo.
So pretexto de un supuesto fallo de mercado se introducen regulaciones que lo único que generan es distorsiones en el sistema de precios, que impiden el cálculo económico, y en consecuencia el ahorro, la inversión y el crecimiento
Este problema radica esencialmente en que ni siquiera los economistas supuestamente libertarios comprenden qué es el mercado, ya que si se comprendiera se vería rápidamente que es imposible que exista algo así como fallos del mercado.
El mercado no es una curva de oferta y demanda en un gráfico. El mercado es un mecanismo de cooperación social donde se intercambian voluntariamente. Por lo tanto, dada esa definición, el fallo del mercado es un oxímoron. No existe fallo de mercado.
Si las transacciones son voluntarias, el único contexto en el que puede haber un fallo de mercado es si hay coacción. Y el único con la capacidad de coaccionar de manera generalizada es el estado que tiene el monopolio de la violencia. En consecuencia, si alguien considera que hay un fallo de mercado, les recomendaría que revisen si hay intervención estatal en el medio. Y si encuentran que no hay intervención estatal en el medio, les sugiero que hagan de nuevo el análisis porque definitivamente está mal. Los fallos de mercado no existen.
Un ejemplo de los supuestos fallos del mercado que describen los neoclásicos son las estructuras concentradas de la economía. Sin embargo, sin funciones que presenten rendimiento creciente a escala, cuya contrapartida son las estructuras concentradas de la economía no podríamos explicar el crecimiento económico desde el año 1800 hasta hoy.
Fíjense que interesante. Desde el año 1800 en adelante con la población multiplicándose más de 8 o 9 veces, el producto per cápita creció más de 15 veces. Existen rendimientos crecientes, eso llevó la pobreza extrema del 95% al 5%. Sin embargo, esa presencia de rendimientos crecientes implican estructuras concentradas, lo que se llamaría un monopolio.
¿cómo puede ser que algo que haya generado tanto bienestar para la teórica neoclásica eso es un fallo de mercado? Economistas neoclásicos salgan de la caja. Cuando el modelo falla, no hay que enojarse con la realidad hay que enojarse con el modelo y cambiarlo.
El dilema que enfrenta el modelo neo-clásico es que dicen querer perfeccionar el funcionamiento del mercado atacando lo que ellos consideran fallos, pero al hacerlo no sólo le abren las puertas al socialismo, sino que atentan contra el crecimiento económico.
Ejemplo, regular monopolios, destruirle las ganancias, y destrozar los rendimientos crecientes automáticamente destruiría el crecimiento económico.Dicho de otro modo, cada vez que ustedes quieran hacer una corrección de un supuesto fallo de mercado, inexorablemente, por desconocer lo que es el mercado o por haberse enamorado de un modelo fallido, le están abriendo las puertas al socialismo y están condenando a la gente a la pobreza.
Sin embargo, frente a la demostración teórica de que la intervención del estado es perjudicial, y la evidencia empírica de que fracasó - porque no podía ser de otra manera- la solución que propondrán los colectivistas no es mayor libertad sino que es mayor regulación, generando una espiral descendiente de regulaciones hasta que todos seamos más pobres, y la vida de todos nosotros dependa de un burócrata sentado en una oficina de lujo.
Dado el estrepitoso fracaso de los modelos colectivistas y los innegables avances del mundo libre, los socialistas se vieron forzados a cambiar su agenda. Dejaron atrás la lucha de clases basada en el sistema económico para reemplazarla por otros supuestos conflictos sociales igual de nocivos para la vida en comunidad y para el crecimiento económico.
La primera de estas nuevas batallas fue la pelea ridícula y anti natural entre el hombre y la mujer.
El libertarismo ya establece la igualdad entre los sexos. La piedra fundacional de nuestro credo dice que todos los hombres somos creados iguales, que todos tenemos los mismos derechos inalienables otorgados por el creador, entre los que se encuentran la vida, la libertad y la propiedad
En lo único que devino esta agenda del feminismo radical es en mayor intervención del estado para entorpecer el proceso económico, darle trabajo a burócratas que no le aportan nada a la sociedad, sea en formato de ministerios de la mujer u organismos internacionales dedicados a promover esta agenda.
Otro de los conflictos que los socialistas plantean es el del hombre contra la naturaleza. Sostienen que los seres humanos dañamos el planeta y que debe ser protegido a toda costa, incluso llegando a abogar por mecanismos de control poblacional o en la agenda sangrienta del aborto.
Lamentablemente, estas ideas nocivas han impregnado fuertemente en nuestra sociedad. Los neo-marxistas han sabido cooptar el sentido común de occidente. Lograron esto gracias a la apropiación de los medios de comunicación, de la cultura, de las universidades, y sí, también de los organismos internacionales.
Por suerte, somos cada vez más los que nos atrevemos a levantar la voz. Porque vemos que, si no combatimos frontalmente estas ideas, el único destino posible es que cada vez vamos a tener más estado, más regulación, más socialismo, más pobreza, menos libertad, y, en consecuencia, peor nivel de vida.
Occidente, lamentablemente, ya comenzó a transitar este camino. Sé que a muchos les puede sonar ridículo plantear que occidente se ha volcado al socialismo. Pero sólo es ridículo en la medida que uno se restringe a la definición económica tradicional del socialismo, que establece que es un sistema económico donde el estado es el dueño de los medios de producción.
Esta definición debiera ser, para nosotros, actualizada a las circunstancias presentes. Hoy los estados no necesitan controlar directamente los medios de producción para controlar cada aspecto de la vida de los individuos.
Con herramientas como la emisión monetaria, el endeudamiento, los subsidios, el control de la tasa de interés, los controles de precios y las regulaciones para corregir los supuestos “fallos de mercado”, pueden controlar los destinos de millones de seres humanos.
Así es como llegamos al punto en el que con distintos nombres o formas, buena parte de las ofertas políticas generalmente aceptadas en la mayoría de los países de occidente son variantes colectivistas.
Ya sea que se declamen abiertamente comunistas, o socialistas, socialdemócratas, demócratas cristianos, neokeynesianos, progresistas, populistas, nacionalistas o globalistas.
En el fondo no hay diferencias sustantivas: todas sostienen que el estado debe dirigir todos los aspectos de la vida de los individuos. Todas defienden un modelo contrario al que llevó a la humanidad al progreso más espectacular de su historia.
Nosotros venimos hoy aquí a invitar a los demás países de occidente a que retomemos el camino de la prosperidad. La libertad económica, el gobierno limitado y el respeto irrestricto de la propiedad privada son elementos esenciales para el crecimiento económico.
Este fenómeno de empobrecimiento que produce el colectivismo no es una fantasía. Ni tampoco fatalismo. Es una realidad que los argentinos conocemos muy bien.Porque ya lo vivimos. Ya pasamos por esto. Porque como dije antes, desde que decidimos abandonar el modelo de la libertad que nos había hecho ricos, estamos atrapados en una espiral descendiente en donde cada día somos más pobres.
Ya lo vivimos nosotros. Y estamos acá para alertarlos acerca de lo que puede pasar si los países de occidente que se hicieron ricos con el modelo de la libertad, continúan por este camino de servidumbre.
El caso argentino es la demostración empírica de que no importa cuán rico seas, cuantos recursos naturales tengas, no importa cuán capacitada esté la población, ni cuan educada sea, ni cuantos lingotes de oro haya en las arcas del banco central.
Si se adoptan medidas que entorpecen el libre funcionamiento de los mercados, la libre competencia, los sistemas de precios libres, si se entorpece el comercio, si se atenta contra la propiedad privada, el único destino posible es la pobreza.
Para finalizar, quiero dejarle un mensaje a todos los empresarios aquí presentes y a los que nos están mirando desde todos los rincones del planeta.
No se dejen amedrentar ni por la casta política ni por los parásitos que viven del estado. No se entreguen a una clase política que lo único que quiere es perpetuarse en el poder y mantener sus privilegios.
Ustedes son benefactores sociales. Ustedes son héroes. Ustedes son los creadores del periodo de prosperidad más extraordinario que jamás hayamos vivido. Que nadie les diga que su ambición es inmoral. Si ustedes ganan dinero es porque ofrecen un mejor producto a un mejor precio, contribuyendo de esa manera al bienestar general.
No cedan al avance del estado. El estado no es la solución. El estado es el problema mismo.Ustedes son los verdaderos protagonistas de esta historia, y sepan que a partir de hoy, cuentan con un aliado inclaudicable en la republica argentina.
Muchas gracias y Viva la libertad carajo.
This is a transcript from the Special address by Javier Milei, President of Argentina, which took place during the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos.
Good afternoon. Thank you very much.
Today I'm here to tell you that the Western world is in danger. And it is in danger because those who are supposed to have to defend the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that inexorably leads to socialism and thereby to poverty.
Unfortunately, in recent decades, the main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism. Some have been motivated by well-meaning individuals who are willing to help others, and others have been motivated by the wish to belong to a privileged caste.
We're here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world. Rather, they are the root cause. Do believe me: no one is in better place than us, Argentines, to testify to these two points.
Thirty five years after we adopted the model of freedom, back in 1860, we became a leading world power. 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.
But before having the discussion, it would first be important for us to take a look at the data that demonstrate why free enterprise capitalism is not just the only possible system to end world poverty, but also that it's the only morally desirable system to achieve this.
If we look at the history of economic progress, we can see how between the year zero and the year 1800 approximately, world per capita GDP practically remained constant throughout the whole reference period.
If you look at a graph of the evolution of economic growth throughout the history of humanity, you would see a hockey stick graph, an exponential function that remained constant for 90% of the time and which was exponentially triggered starting in the 19th century.
The only exception to this history of stagnation was in the late 15th century, with the discovery of the American continent, but for this exception, throughout the whole period between the year zero and the year 1800, global per capita GDP stagnated.
Now, it's not just that capitalism brought about an explosion in wealth from the moment it was adopted as an economic system, but also, if you look at the data, what you will see is that growth continues to accelerate throughout the whole period.
And throughout the whole period between the year zero and the year 1800, the per capita GDP growth rate remains stable at around 0.02% annually. So almost no growth. Starting in the 19th century with the Industrial Revolution, the compound annual growth rate was 0.66%. And at that rate, in order to double per capita GDP, you would need some 107 years.
Now, if you look at the period between the year 1900 and the year 1950, the growth rate accelerated to 1.66% a year. So you no longer need 107 years to double per capita GDP - but 66. And if you take the period between 1950 and the year 2000, you will see that the growth rate was 2.1%, which would mean that in only 33 years we could double the world's per capita GDP.
This trend, far from stopping, remains well alive today. If we take the period between the years 2000 and 2023, the growth rate again accelerated to 3% a year, which means that we could double world per capita GDP in just 23 years.
That said, when you look at per capita GDP since the year 1800 until today, what you will see is that after the Industrial Revolution, global per capita GDP multiplied by over 15 times, which meant a boom in growth that lifted 90% of the global population out of poverty.
We should remember that by the year 1800, about 95% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty. And that figure dropped to 5% by the year 2020, prior to the pandemic. The conclusion is obvious.
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. The empirical evidence is unquestionable.
Therefore since there is no doubt that free enterprise capitalism is superior in productive terms, the left-wing doxa has attacked capitalism, alleging matters of morality, saying - that's what the detractors claim - that it's unjust. They say that capitalism is evil because it's individualistic and that collectivism is good because it's altruistic. Of course, with the money of others.
So they therefore advocate for social justice. But this concept, which in the developed world became fashionable in recent times, in my country has been a constant in political discourse for over 80 years. The problem is that social justice is not just, and it doesn't contribute to general well-being.
Quite on the contrary, it's an intrinsically unfair idea because it's violent. It's unjust because the state is financed through tax and taxes are collected coercively. Or can any one of us say that we voluntarily pay taxes? This means that the state is financed through coercion and that the higher the tax burden, the higher the coercion and the lower the freedom.
Those who promote social justice start with the idea that the whole economy is a pie that can be shared differently. But that pie is not a given. It's wealth that is generated in what Israel Kirzner, for instance, calls a market discovery process.
If the goods or services offered by a business are not wanted, the business will fail unless it adapts to what the market is demanding. They will do well and produce more if they make a good quality product at an attractive price. So the market is a discovery process in which the capitalists will find the right path as they move forward.
But if the state punishes capitalists when they're successful and gets in the way of the discovery process, they will destroy their incentives, and the consequence is that they will produce less.
The pie will be smaller, and this will harm society as a whole. Collectivism, by inhibiting these discovery processes and hindering the appropriation of discoveries, ends up binding the hands of entrepreneurs and prevents them from offering better goods and services at a better price.
So how come academia, international organisations, economic theorists and politicians demonise an economic system that has not only lifted 90% of the world's population out of extreme poverty but has continued to do this faster and faster?
Thanks to free trade capitalism, the world is now living its best moment. Never in all of mankind or humanity's history has there been a time of more prosperity than today. This is true for all. The world of today has more freedom, is rich, more peaceful and prosperous. This is particularly true for countries that have more economic freedom and respect the property rights of individuals.
Countries that have more freedom are 12 times richer than those that are repressed. The lowest percentile in free countries is better off than 90% of the population in repressed countries. Poverty is 25 times lower and extreme poverty is 50 times lower. And citizens in free countries live 25% longer than citizens in repressed countries.
Now what is it that we mean when we talk about libertarianism? And let me quote the words of the greatest authority on freedom in Argentina, Professor Alberto Benegas Lynch Jr, who says that libertarianism is the unrestricted respect for the life project of others based on the principle of non-aggression, in defence of the right to life, liberty and property.
Its fundamental institutions are private property, markets free from state intervention, free competition, and the division of labour and social cooperation, in which success is achieved only by serving others with goods of better quality or at a better price.
In other words, capitalist successful business people are social benefactors who, far from appropriating the wealth of others, contribute to the general well-being. Ultimately, a successful entrepreneur is a hero.
And this is the model that we are advocating for the Argentina of the future. A model based on the fundamental principle of libertarianism. The defence of life, of freedom and of property.
Now, if the free enterprise, capitalism and economic freedom have proven to be extraordinary instruments to end poverty in the world, and we are now at the best time in the history of humanity, it is worth asking why I say that the West is in danger.
And I say this precisely because in countries that should defend the values of the free market, private property and the other institutions of libertarianism, sectors of the political and economic establishment are undermining the foundations of libertarianism, opening up the doors to socialism and potentially condemning us to poverty, misery and stagnation.
It should never be forgotten that socialism is always and everywhere an impoverishing phenomenon that has failed in all countries where it's been tried out. It's been a failure economically, socially, culturally and it also murdered over 100 million human beings.
The essential problem of the West today is not just that we need to come to grips with those who, even after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the overwhelming empirical evidence, continue to advocate for impoverishing socialism.
But there's also our own leaders, thinkers and academics who are relying on a misguided theoretical framework to undermine the fundamentals of the system that has given us the greatest expansion of wealth and prosperity in our history.
The theoretical framework to which I refer is that of Neoclassical economic theory, which designs a set of instruments that, unwillingly or without meaning to, end up serving intervention by the state, socialism and social degradation.
The problem with Neoclassicals is that the model they fell in love with does not map reality, so they put down their mistakes to supposed market failures rather than reviewing the premises of the model.
Under the pretext of a supposed market failure, regulations are introduced. These regulations create distortions in the price system, prevent economic calculus, and therefore also prevent saving, investment and growth.
This problem lies mainly in the fact that not even supposed libertarian economists understand what the market is because if they did understand, it would quickly be seen that it's impossible for there to be market failures.
The market is not a mere graph describing a curve of supply and demand. The market is a mechanism for social cooperation, where you voluntarily exchange ownership rights. Therefore based on this definition, talking about a market failure is an oxymoron. There are no market failures.
If transactions are voluntary, the only context in which there can be market failure is if there is coercion and the only one that is able to coerce generally is the state, which holds a monopoly on violence.
Consequently, if someone considers that there is a market failure, I would suggest that they check to see if there is state intervention involved. And if they find that that's not the case, I would suggest that they check again, because obviously there's a mistake. Market failures do not exist.
An example of the so-called market failures described by the Neoclassicals is the concentrated structure of the economy. From the year 1800 onwards, with the population multiplying by 8 or 9 times, per capita GDP grew by over 15 times, so there were growing returns which took extreme poverty from 95% to 5%.
However, the presence of growing returns involves concentrated structures, what we would call a monopoly. How come, then, something that has generated so much well-being for the Neoclassical theory is a market failure?
Neoclassical economists think outside of the box. When the model fails, you shouldn't get angry with reality but rather with a model and change it. The dilemma faced by the Neoclassical model is that they say they wish to perfect the function of the market by attacking what they consider to be failures. But in so doing, they don't just open up the doors to socialism but also go against economic growth.
For example, regulating monopolies, destroying their profits and destroying growing returns would automatically destroy economic growth.
However, faced with the theoretical demonstration that state intervention is harmful - and the empirical evidence that it has failed couldn't have been otherwise - the solution proposed by collectivists is not greater freedom but rather greater regulation, which creates a downward spiral of regulations until we are all poorer and our lives depend on a bureaucrat sitting in a luxury office.
Given the dismal failure of collectivist models and the undeniable advances in the free world, socialists were forced to change their agenda: they left behind the class struggle based on the economic system and replaced this with other supposed social conflicts, which are just as harmful to life and to economic growth.
The first of these new battles was the ridiculous and unnatural fight between man and woman. Libertarianism already provides for equality of the sexes. The cornerstone of our creed is that all humans are created equal and that we all have the same inalienable rights granted by the Creator, including life, freedom and ownership.
All that the radical feminism agenda has led to is greater state intervention to hinder economic process, giving jobs to bureaucrats who have not contributed anything to society. Examples are ministries of women or international organisations devoted to promoting this agenda.
Another conflict presented by socialists is that of humans against nature, claiming that we human beings damage a planet which should be protected at all costs, even going as far as advocating for population control mechanisms or the abortion agenda.
Unfortunately, these harmful ideas have taken a stronghold in our society. Neo-Marxists have managed to co-opt the common sense of the Western world, and this they have achieved by appropriating the media, culture, universities and also international organisations.
The latter case is the most serious one, probably because these are institutions that have enormous influence on the political and economic decisions of their member states.
Fortunately there's more and more of us who are daring to make our voices heard, because we see that if we don't truly and decisively fight against these ideas, the only possible fate is for us to have increasing levels of state regulation, socialism, poverty and less freedom, and therefore, worse standards of living.
The West has unfortunately already started to go along this path. I know, to many it may sound ridiculous to suggest that the West has turned to socialism, but it's only ridiculous if you only limit yourself to the traditional economic definition of socialism, which says that it's an economic system where the state owns the means of production. This definition in my view, should be updated in the light of current circumstances.
Today, states don't need to directly control the means of production to control every aspect of the lives of individuals. With tools such as printing money, debt, subsidies, controlling the interest rate, price controls, and regulations to correct so-called market failures, they can control the lives and fates of millions of individuals.
This is how we come to the point where, by using different names or guises, a good deal of the generally accepted ideologies in most Western countries are collectivist variants, whether they proclaim to be openly communist, fascist, socialist, social democrats, national socialists, Christian democrats, neo-Keynesians, progressives, populists, nationalists or globalists.
Ultimately, there are no major differences. They all say that the state should steer all aspects of the lives of individuals. They all defend a model contrary to the one that led humanity to the most spectacular progress in its history.
We have come here today to invite the Western world to get back on the path to prosperity. Economic freedom, limited government and unlimited respect for private property are essential elements for economic growth. The impoverishment produced by collectivism is not a fantasy, nor is it an inescapable fate. It's a reality that we Argentines know very well.
We have lived through this. We have been through this because, as I said earlier, ever since we decided to abandon the model of freedom that had made us rich, we have been caught up in a downward spiral - a spiral by which we are poorer and poorer, day by day.
This is something we have lived through and we are here to warn you about what can happen if countries in the Western world, that became rich through the model of freedom, stay on this path of servitude.
The case of Argentina is an empirical demonstration that no matter how rich you may be, how much you may have in terms of natural resources, how skilled your population may be, how educated, or how many bars of gold you may have in the central bank - if measures are adopted that hinder the free functioning of markets, competition, price systems, trade and ownership of private property, the only possible fate is poverty.
Therefore, in conclusion, I would like to leave a message for all business people here and those who are not here in person but are following from around the world.
Do not be intimidated by the political caste or by parasites who live off the state. Do not surrender to a political class that only wants to stay in power and retain its privileges. You are social benefactors. You are heroes. You are the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we've ever seen.
Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral. If you make money, it's because you offer a better product at a better price, thereby contributing to general wellbeing.
Do not surrender to the advance of the state. The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself. You are the true protagonists of this story and rest assured that as from today, Argentina is your staunch and unconditional ally.
Thank you very much and long live freedom!
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