President Javier Milei repeated the fallacies said in the campaign – such as that Argentina was a world power in the 19th century – but at the Davos Forum and pointing against the heads of state of the countries that he calls the “civilized side” of the world, West. He told them that, in recent decades, they were “co-opted by a vision of the world that, inexorably, leads to socialism” and closed with a harangue to businessmen: “Do not give in to the advance of the State. It is not the solution. The State is the cause. And long live freedom, damn it!” However, It only aroused lukewarm applause, which contrasted with the expectation it aroused in the nerve center of global business.
The cameras of the international media and the cell phones of journalists, attendees and businessmen were pointed at Milei when he arrived in the halls of the Davos congress, in Switzerland. The presence of an anarcho-capitalist at the World Economic Forum, the presence of a “libertarian” president – a unique fact in history after the failed experience of the British Liz Truss – drew attention. When Milei began to speak the room was filled with heads of state and representatives of international organizations present and enthusiastic businessmen.
However, faces transformed into amazement and bewilderment as they listened to the translation of his speech. “In recent decades, some motivated by thoughtful desires to help others and others by wanting to belong to a privileged caste, the main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom,” he told them and added: “Everyone. No “There are substantive differences. Socialists, conservatives, communists, fascists, Nazis, social democrats, centrists. They are all the same. The enemies are all those where the State takes over the means of production.”
Milei went to Davos to say that the world is governed by socialism and, despite his anarcho-capitalist blindness, he took care to clarify the reason for his analysis since, he acknowledged, “it may sound ridiculous to say that the West has turned to socialism.” . “Today the States do not need to control the means of production to control the lives of individuals,” Milei considered about the new socialism and mentioned the “neo-Marxists” who control universities and cultural production, while in the political arena they fight for feminism and the environment. This last idea of calling feminist and climate change struggles neo-Marxist sparked laughter among the audience.
The representatives of the international media, businessmen and officials present in the auditorium were the first to reflect their reaction in various journalistic reports, which predicted that it would be strange if, after that speech, Milei got photos with world leaders. Regarding photos with leaders, Milei only obtained a meeting with the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte; sponsored by the Argentine queen of the Netherlands, Máxima Zorreguieta.
The other two high-level photos were with the executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, in the midst of the renegotiation of the historic debt that Argentina maintains with the Fund, since the management of Mauricio Macri and with the minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, again as the protagonist. Finally, she secured a summit with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron. British conservatives are a guide for Milei, among them the late Margaret Thatcher.
After the photo, the British spokesperson for the so-called Foreign Office pointed out that the meeting served to establish “a more constructive relationship”, while regarding the sovereign claim of the Malvinas he assured that “the position of the United Kingdom and its continued support for the right of the Falkland Islanders to self-determination remains unchanged”. Milei returned the kindness by minimizing the issue and saying that the sovereign claim would be “for future diplomatic negotiations.”
The contrast with Pedro Sánchez
Milei’s speech not only surprised those present but was even more radical than the tone that crossed the Davos Forum itself. Without a doubt the contrast was marked with the president of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, a socialist enemy of Milei’s creed. Sánchez, who took the stage immediately after the Argentine president, criticized neoliberalism and called on companies to fight inequality to defend democracy.
“We must be bold and define a new paradigm of prosperity. A new economic and social orthodoxy that takes advantage of the knowledge and new tools we have to combine economic growth with environmental sustainability and prosperity for all,” called Sánchez, who is year it stopped the Spanish right, an ally of Mauricio Macri and Javier Milei, in elections.
Milei’s tone, pointing against the Western heads of state themselves for being “co-opted” by socialism, also broke with the tone set at the opening of the meeting with the speech of the president of the Forum, the former Minister of Industry and Environment of Norway Børge Brende, who called to face the challenges of the incorporation of new technologies and climate change with cooperation between countries. “Work in unity, even in this complex context. Cooperation is possible and happening,” Brende had confided.
Another counterpoint for Milei came from the Vatican. Pope Francis – with whom the Casa Rosada intends to reestablish its relationship to achieve a visit in February to Rome and a trip by the pontiff to Argentina at the end of the year – sent a letter to the executive president and founder of the Forum, Klaus Schwab , to promote brotherhood and attack injustices: “How is it possible that in today’s world people continue to die of hunger or be exploited?” Francisco asked in his letter, from a perspective of “social justice” that distances him from Milei, who in his speech once again described to that idea as “unjust” and “violent.
Even the president of the United States, Joe Biden, leader of the country that expresses all the Western values claimed by Milei, chose to arrive at Davos with a proposal for a strong State against corporations. Upon his arrival at the World Economic Forum event, Biden announced that in this year of the presidential campaign will go against the overdrafts charged by banks, which he described as exploiting the most vulnerable citizens. “Today we face them,” was Biden’s message.
As he did in the Argentine presidential campaign, Milei fulfilled his promise of anarcho-capitalist disengagement. “I come to plant the ideas of freedom in a forum that is contaminated with the 2030 socialist agenda,” he had promised on his stopover in Frankfurt on his way to the forum, where the “libertarian” tribune, fueled by the heat of leaders like Trump, did not expect him. Bolsonaro, the pandemic and the unfulfilled promises of Western democracies.
