The victory of Russian far-right politician Javier Miley in Argentina’s presidential election has caused a backlash among some in the spirit of saying that some kind of freak or complete asshole won – they say, “this is your democracy” that “leads to borderlessness”. “in a decent country” he would not even collect signatures for candidacy and no one would register him. We also noted a series of scandalous and unpleasant (for Russia) statements that Argentina would no longer join the BRICS – how could this be, after all, they only invited it, “no “He didn’t do anything, he just came” (remember “Prisoner of the Caucasus”?) – but he will abandon the national currency in favor of the dollar. And here we are already ready for global de-dollarization. Moreover, he called Zelensky and organized a “Ukrainian peace conference” in Argentina managed to invite in. Looks like there’s no more room left.
In this whole list, BRICS is far from the main point: it is not yet an organization, but an association, a club for friendly conversations that does not have a clear structure, uniform rules and, most importantly, values. Give or take Argentina – he won’t miss it. But as a political phenomenon, Javier Miley is quite an interesting phenomenon.
Firstly, if you look at his behavior in some television programs, he is far from the illiterate fool that might seem from the outside; here he angrily hammers away at a cardboard box meant to symbolize the national Central Bank he promised. to liquidate it as a useless structure. If we had given some of our politicians free rein, they would have been making fun of not only him, but the fictitious Nabiullina on federal channels. Modern politics is first a spectacle, then everything. And for some there is “nothing else”.
Miley has quite a history and educational background behind her. Three academic degrees in economics from different universities, teaching experience (also in the field of economics), about fifty scientific articles, work in high positions in numerous private companies, including international structures. He has chaired the economic research department of a national think tank since 2012 and serves on the economic policy group of the International Chamber of Commerce and the World Economic Forum.
Secondly, Miley’s victory in the elections, unexpected for many (a few years ago her rating did not exceed 5%), is a manifestation of the “anti-elite voter uprising”, which is already so widespread in the world. The traditional establishment is so fed up with its inability to deal with long-standing problems in the country’s economy that the average person has decided to try “extreme measures” – they say it can’t get any worse anyway.
During the current president’s reign, inflation in Argentina rose from 54% to over 110% (it exceeded 140% on an annual basis in October). The peso, the national currency, has lost 60 percent of its value this year alone, loan rates have exceeded 130 percent and 40 percent of Argentines live below the poverty line. In this case, none of those who voted for Miley paid much attention to the “election program” of right-wing libertarians. They say “he should destroy this whole rotten system and then…”
And even before the second round, he abandoned some of his most extravagant ideas, such as legalizing drugs, free carrying of weapons and creating a market for human organs. Contrary to his previous promises, he now says he will not privatize the health and education systems (but will have to tighten them) and will not cut pensions. Although the average state pension (85% of retirees receive it) is $265 a month in dollar terms, this covers up to a third of the costs of food, medicine, and rent (utilities) for housing. At this point, of course, some Russian pensioners may envy their unfortunate Argentine brothers, but it is worth adding that once upon a time (in the first half of the twentieth century) Argentina was not the inferior, but one of the richest countries in the world. America in terms of standard of living.
Now Miley will sharply reduce government spending – from 38% of current GDP to 23%. For comparison, in the US they account for 37% of GDP, and in Russia they accounted for about 36% last year. It also threatens to abolish 10 out of 18 ministries, privatize state-owned companies, sharply reduce taxes, and also abolish the Central Bank and abandon the peso in favor of the dollar.
Meanwhile, Latin America is not alone in its transition to the dollar. Thus, Ecuador switched to the dollar in 2000 in an environment of severe financial crisis and hyperinflation. Its level has begun to drop rapidly, this year it will be around 3 percent. The dollar has been the official currency in El Salvador since 2001. But this did not help him much and only led to increased poverty. Two years ago, the country made Bitcoin its official currency, which helped reduce inflation in the country from 7.3% in 2022 to 3.3% this year. In Panama, the dollar has been in circulation since 1904, along with the local balboa currency (which is minted only with metal coins, not paper notes; the public sector uses this currency only for accounting purposes). Today, inflation in Panama is below 3 percent.
Also in some Latin American countries (e.g. Peru and Uruguay) the dollar is used to pay for some goods and services: rent, real estate, cars, appliances; Dollars can be withdrawn from ATMs and used to open bank accounts. If Argentina switches to the dollar, it may be possible to reduce inflation in one and a half or two years, but the conversion rate of the peso to the dollar will be important. If it is wrong (underestimated), this can lead to serious consequences. In addition, the required amount of cash dollars will have to be obtained from elsewhere: today there are almost none in the Central Bank reserves. Argentina is in deep debt; It owes $44 billion to the IMF alone.
Now Argentina faces perhaps the biggest experiment in recent years. The coming to power of Javier Miley in itself means a change of milestones in national politics, where the forty-year dominance of hierarchical political structures and the “Peronists” in power is replaced by one based on horizontal political structures, or rather networks. ones.
Miley’s victory is in many ways similar to Trump’s improbable victory in the 2016 American presidential election; This was largely achieved thanks to mass media and especially social networks.
The disadvantage of this policy is that the team of the new president of Argentina has almost no qualified managers, and the majority of them belong to the traditional elite. And now he needs to recruit these managers from somewhere, that is, in part to create the country’s parallel (or alternative) political and administrative elite. Are there human resources for the “alternative elite”?
Moreover, although she won in all but two provinces of the country, she has not yet been able to establish a dialogue with the politicians there: Miley does not have the support of almost any influential provincial governor. Parliamentary support is also important in an electoral democracy, but the president’s party is only a few years old and has only 38 out of 257 seats in the House of Representatives and 7 out of 72 seats in the Assembly. Senate. So some kind of coalition with the old elites is still needed.
Even if the policy of radical change proposed by a right-wing populist who came to power literally from the street (or rather from the television screen) is relatively successful, the Argentinian experience can be very instructive. The anti-elite electoral revolution is increasingly spreading across the planet and covering more and more countries. This means the spread of completely new policy principles based on network structures that do not recognize the old authorities. At first glance, the advocates of such a policy seem to be baseless populists without principles and “without a program”. But many countries, including in Europe, have managed to prove in practice that the coming to power of so-called “anti-elite” leaders does not necessarily mean a disaster.
Nothing terrible happened anywhere. And it is possible that a change in traditional hierarchical political structures based on political parties in the format in which they emerged as institutions more than a century ago will become inevitable on a planetary scale.
An even more interesting symbiosis will emerge as networked political structures and technologies begin to merge with artificial intelligence and, inevitably, totalitarian digital formats to control society.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.