The great English lexicographer Samuel Johnson said of the actor David Garrick that his demise “eclipsed the gaiety of nations and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.” If the Argentine president Javier Milei were ultimately to fail in his bid to extricate his country from a century of economic underachievement, I would feel the same way. Happily, I don’t think he will.
Since he burst onto the Latin American political scene a few years ago, Milei has added immeasurably to both the gaiety of nations and the public stock of harmless pleasure. With his shaggy sideburns and loopy facial expressions, there is more than a hint of the Mad Hatter about him.
Yet there is a method to Milei’s madness. While the world fixates on Donald Trump’s populist cocktail of reciprocal tariffs and big, beautiful deficits, Milei is delivering a man-made miracle that should gladden the heart of every classical economist and quicken the pulse of all political libertarians.
Consider what Milei has achieved in just a year and a half.
When he was sworn in as president in December 2023, the Argentine economy was a seemingly incurable basket case. In 2023, its gross domestic product had shrunk by 1.6 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Perhaps more strikingly, per capita gross domestic product (GDP) on an inflation-adjusted basis was lower than it had been in 2007. Public finances were in disarray. The last time the government had run a surplus was in 2008. The IMF estimated total public debt at around 90 percent of GDP, but the important thing was how much of that debt—more than $40 billion—Argentina owed to the IMF, the culmination of no fewer than 22 programs.
