Argentina’s President Javier Milei modeled his campaign after Trump’s, swinging a chainsaw while vowing to cut government waste. He is a professor of economics and advocates for less spending, less borrowing, and less welfare. Official White House Photo by Molly Riley.
Argentinian President Javier Milei, in a recent Instagram video, called Europe a “nanny state” because of its socialist programs that, in his words, take “proportionally from those who generate the most wealth, violating the principle of property and equality before the law in the process, to redistribute it to the rest of society as services.”
Milei is a former economics professor whose area of expertise is Austrian economics, an economic discipline that largely calls for the end of the central bank and identifies artificial interest rates, currency expansion, and government borrowing as the root causes of inflation. Austrian economists want as little government intervention in the economy as possible because government intervention, regulations, price controls, and rent freezes distort markets. Furthermore, they are vehemently opposed to welfare programs because income taxes used to fund such programs punish the hard-working and industrious while rewarding those who produce little or nothing.
Milei went on to say, “Without requiring any kind of contribution, the population that paid taxes for so many years ends up being defrauded, a system on the brink of collapse. As a result of these actions, Europe has been left without growth, without the rule of law, and today it’s becoming clear that its leaders have also lost all political credibility.”
One of only about ten conservative world leaders, Milei is a Trump ally. Like Trump, he is a strong supporter of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who brought his country’s murder rate to near zero by locking up gang members.
Milei opposes socialist multilateralism and BRICS but strongly favors free trade. Milei’s government has downgraded Argentina’s participation in the G20, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and Mercosur; withdrawn from the World Health Organization; pulled out of COP29; and reduced engagement at the UN Human Rights Council. His withdrawal from multilateral bodies tracks closely with President Trump’s approach.
Under his administration, Argentina’s economy has seen dramatic improvements. Monthly inflation fell from 25 percent in December 2023 to around 2 percent, and poverty dropped from 52.9 percent at its 2024 peak to 28.2 percent by mid-2025. In 2025, GDP expanded 4.4 percent, and Argentina achieved its first fiscal surplus in 14 years.
A core feature of Austrian economics is the primacy of human action. Formally, this is called praxeology in the writings of Ludwig von Mises, one of the most prominent Austrian economists. In layman’s terms, it can be understood as self-determination. Income inequality exists because one person’s labor is worth more than another’s.
As long as the government stays out of employment decisions, the best and most qualified people, whose work has the highest value, will be hired, and they will keep their jobs based on performance. Performance is measured by most employers through worker productivity, a type of return on investment based on the amount of value a worker produces per hour versus his or her salary.
In a pure, merit-based, for-profit economic model, there is no room for DEI, quotas, or any government program that forces an employer to hire the second-best candidate.
The example President Javier Milei gave in a recent video demonstrating the difference between capitalism and socialism was: “Suppose the following: you are a 100-meter runner. What is the problem you have? A gentleman named Usain Bolt. The guy is out of this world; he’s extraordinary. Faced with that situation, you’ll try to run better every day to see if you can beat him. The selfish solution is to beat him at any cost.”
According to Austrian economic theory, all humans act in ways they believe will make themselves better off. Consequently, we can assume that someone running the 100 meters wants to win. A number of paths to victory might cross your mind: “You could shoot him in the head, and then you win. Well, that solution is not allowed. Another solution is you could cut off one of his legs.”
He then went on to say what the socialists would propose: “to fill his backpack with stones.” However, in capitalism, “if you want to win, you have to run better than him.”
In another lesson against communism, Milei told a joke about a man named Pedro who had a little sheep that he was very happy with. His friend Juan, seeing how happy Pedro was, instead of being happy for him, became resentful. “And one day, while walking, he finds a lamp and a genie comes out of the lamp.”
The genie then tells Juan he will grant him anything he wishes. Milei points out, “Clearly, one of the things Juan could have asked for was for 100 sheep.” But that is not what Juan wished for. Instead, he wished for Pedro’s sheep to die.
“That is socialism. They don’t care about being better off, as long as the other person is worse off,” Milei observed. Evidence from every communist country that has existed shows that the only way communism can make everyone equal is by making them all poor, all but a select few corrupt officials at the top. But they are willing to make everyone poor in order to eliminate inequality.
“And when you have a system with those characteristics, a society with those values, inevitably, that society will self-destruct,” Milei concluded, adding that, looking at Europe’s suicidal economic and migration policies, “none of this should come as a surprise, because, as the saying goes, we can ignore reality, but we can never ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”
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