Javier Milei: Madman? Or savior?

Reason visited Argentina to find out if Javier Milei's reforms are working.

---

Argentina elected the first self-identified libertarian president in history. Is he a madman? Or a savior?

Can his libertarian ideas transform Argentina into a beacon of prosperity? Reason visited Argentina to find out if Javier Milei's reforms are working.

On the ground in Buenos Aires six months after Milei took office, a massive protest filled the public squares and streets outside the national legislature and presidential palace. Congress was voting on a reform package that would deliver on part of his agenda.

Nearly one in three Argentinian workers belong to a union, and organized labor holds tremendous political power and the ability to mobilize large protests like the one we witnessed opposing Milei's reform package. Participants say Milei's agenda helps the rich and handicaps the poor.

"None of what's happening [with the law] serves the interests of the people," says Sylvia Saravia, national coordinator for a left-wing populist political party present at the protest called Free Movement of the South, which opposed Milei. "For example, fiscal reforms that benefit the rich and hurt the poor."

If Milei gets his way, unions will be crippled by the time he leaves office. He wants to privatize sectors like the airline industry, which is dominated by organized labor, and to end the mandatory deduction of union dues. That would mean workers would have to actively choose to hand over part of their salaries to these groups.

"What [Milei] is doing is destroying science, destroying technology, destroying public education," says Saravia.

Protesters waved Marxist hammer-and-sickle flags and pictures of Che Guevara, the communist icon. Che was the ideological brains behind the Cuban revolution—but he was born here in Argentina.

Argentina was never communist, but the government has played an outsized role in the economy since the end of World War II. Protestors regularly take to the streets to defend the status quo against Milei's agenda—but that status quo has brought the country to the brink of ruin.

Argentina faced 25 percent monthly inflation when Milei took office because the government was printing money to pay for things it couldn't afford. As a result, roughly half of the people in this country of nearly 50 million were living in poverty.

Milei blames Argentina's downfall on "la casta," which essentially means the "elite political class."

Argentinian society remains divided on Milei. His public approval rating dipped below 50 percent six months into his term, though he still remains far more popular than his predecessor.

In his inaugural address to the nation, Milei was clear that as he followed his mandate to steer Argentina in a different, more libertarian direction, the road ahead would not be easy.

"A hundred years of failure don't come undone in a day, but one day it begins, and today is that day," says Milei.

Raisbeck says that if Milei succeeds, it will "change the game in the entire region" and make it easier for other Latin American countries to adopt libertarian reforms. But on the flip side, "if it fails in Argentina, then it will be very, very difficult for libertarians in the next few decades to put our message across because the left will always be pointing to that example if it doesn't succeed."

Producer: Zach Weissmueller

Video Editor: Danielle Thompson and Hana Ko

Associate Producer: César Báez and Ayelen Scapuzzi

Translation: Katarina Hall

Graphics: Adani Samat and Lex Villena

Post production supervisor: Cody Huff

Camera: Jim Epstein, Lucas Timerman, and Juan Renau

For all music and photo credits