Like his talk in Davos, it was, well, memorable.
Not long after taking office, Argentine president Javier Milei went to Davos, where he gave a memorable (#understatement) speech.
It included these words:
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.
Now Milei has come to the U.N., an institution for which an insulting enough adjective has yet to be devised.
He introduced himself in these terms (via the Buenos Aires Times):
“I am not a politician, I am an economist, a liberal-libertarian economist,” said the La Libertad Avanza leader, who said he had been “honoured with the office of president in the face of the resounding failure of more than a century of collectivist policies that destroyed our country.”
Milei had some things to say. The whole speech can be seen here (with English voiceover). Like his talk in Davos, it was, well, memorable. It only takes 15 minutes and is well worth listening to. What other world leader would mention Frédéric Bastiat, the great 19th century French economist and libertarian? What other world leader mentioning Bastiat, would have actually read him?
Here are some highlights, taken from various sources (the U.N.’s transcript is not very good). I turned first to the Financial Times for a laugh. How would this bastion of establishment progressivism react? With marvelous predictability. Milei’s speech was described as “fiery” and, wrote the FT’s Ciara Nugent, it “underlined his status as a political provocateur beloved by the alt right.” I suppose the paper had used up its quota of “far-rights” for the month, but they had one spare over at CNN, where Milei was described as a “far-right, libertarian leader.”
Milei is no fan of the U.N.’s recently adopted (you didn’t know?) “Pact for the Future” (“which includes points promoting climate action, gender equality and regulation of artificial intelligence”): “Argentina will not back any policy that implies the restriction of individual freedoms or trade, nor the violation of the natural rights of individuals.”
He also took aim at the U.N.’s 2030 Agenda: “Well-intentioned” but seeking to “solve the problems of modernity with solutions that infringe on the sovereignty of nation states and violate people’s right to life, liberty and property.”
On the U.N. (via CNN): “An organization that was born to defend the rights of man has become one of the main proponents of systematic violations of freedom.
On the Covid lockdowns (via Bloomberg): “A crime against humanity”
On Israel (via the Jerusalem Post):
“In this same house . . . that purports to defend human rights, we have also included bloody dictatorships in the Human Rights Council, including Cuba and Venezuela without reproach. . . .”
“In this same house, which purports to defend the rights of women, we’ve allowed on the CEDAW [the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women] Committee countries that punish their women just for showing their skin. . . .”
“And this same house has voted against the State of Israel, which is the only country in the Middle East to defend liberal democracy.”
In his most famous book, The Law (1850), Bastiat wrote this:
The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?
I wonder if Milei looked around at the people he saw in the U.N. and asked himself whether they believe “that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”
It would have taken him one second to come up with the answer.