Argentinian Resistance: Austerity’s Failures
Foreign Policy Brief #195 | By: Damian DeSola | March 20, 2025
Featured Photo by NPR
The Argentinian people have had enough. On 12 March 2025, the people of Buenos Aires took to the street to protests President Javier Milei’s policy of extreme austerity. The protesters showed anger at the weakness of their pension system exposed by these policies. In reaction, the government sent out police; senior citizens and soccer fans were then blasted with firehoses, teargassed, and shot with rubber bullets Ghastly images and videos have emerged of badly wounded protesters voicing their desperation to the riot police.
These protests have been occurring weekly, but the gathering on March 12th showed a new level of protestor and police violence. Over 120 protesters were detained, with 20 protesters suffering injuries. The administration blames the violence on “hooligans”, referring to soccer fans that had joined the pensioners in their protest.
Elected in 2023, taking office 10 December of the same year, Javier Milei ran on the idea of “chainsaw economics”, cutting government spending at an indiscriminate and rapid pace, as the solution for the massive inflation since the COVID-19 pandemic. In some ways, these policies have been a success. Inflation has steadily decreased to 66.9% as of February 2025, levels not seen since June/July 2022. Though, in February, reports show inflation modestly increased, as prices remained high. Argentina’s GDP growth also shows signs of improving, finally no longer maintaining a deficit, and has of recent officially escaped its recession.
These successes have come at a cost to the Argentine people. The Universidad Católica Argentina reports that although Argentinians now have more cash, the cost of public services, housing prices, and food insecurity have all increased from 2023 to 2024. Meaning that measurements of poverty based on held monies may have decreased from 56% to 33%, but poverty based on a variety of factors including purchasing power has overall increased from 39.8% to 41.6%. Furthermore, pensions have not kept up with these austerity measures, leaving 60% of pensioners receiving the minimum amount of $340 per month. Milei vetoed a bill in 2024 that would have increased pensions by 8%, a fraction of what is necessary.
President Milei has also been the target of ire from the Argentine people for his connections with a cryptocurrency scandal. When on 14 February 2025, the “memecoin” $LIBRA was opened for trading, Milei tweeted support for the cryptocurrency, causing the valuation to increase to over $4.5 billion. The initial investors that held the currency before Milei’s tweet sold their ownership once the value skyrocketed, causing a massive decrease in valuation to around $18 million.
Some have accused Milei of intentionally participating in a “rug pull”. This term is associated with short term crypto projects that seek to artificially increase the value of a new coin via the credibility of a major figure, like Milei, so that the initial investors see massive gains that are then cashed out upon, costing the later buyers all their investments.
The Milei government refutes this and claims that it is just a coincidence. They argue that the free expression of the president should not be scrutinized for supporting private activities, comparing the original tweet, that was taken down hours after these events transpired, to visiting a factory, framing it as not an explicit endorsement.
The Argentine judicial system is now seeking to arrest the US citizen Hayden Mark Davis, the principal architect of $LIBRA. There have also been calls to impeach Milei as a result of this scandal.
Analysis
The citizen protests are a result of the massive austerity measures that Javier Milei has taken since his election. While the initial results have shown promise in terms of inflation statistics and deficit control, the fact remains that much of this came at the sacrifice of popular social programs and vital regulations.
Javier Milei refers to his ideology with the fringe ultra-right label of “anarcho-capitalist”. The ideology itself is fascinating in the way one would find a meteor crater, interesting in its impact but nonetheless destructive. For proponents of the ideology and of Milei, destruction is a good thing, and it is no wonder that a chainsaw has become the symbol of this contemporary anarcho-capitalist movement.
An anarcho-capitalist like Milei, and some would say Elon Musk, values mass removal of regulations on companies as a way of stimulating economic growth. The ideology is in effect, neoliberalism accelerated to its absolute. Based on the concept that a free market can exist and that it is the most effective societal force to organize and distribute resources, an anarcho-capitalist seeks to remove any hinderances to the market to ensure its absolute liberty to fulfill what they see as its natural functions. In practice, this leads to removals of all labor protection laws, social safety nets, and of governmental regulations and their enforcement mechanisms. The ultimate expression of this ideology is in the name, anarchism, where no government exists, and society is entirely guided by the “free market.”
Milei claims that this period of economic turmoil will be overshadowed by the trickling down of wealth that comes with improved corporate investments. However, it is perfectly clear to anyone who can follow the past forty years of neoliberalist deregulation and assumptions of trickle-down economics that such returns for the working class will be minute. The country of Argentina will have a stable economy perhaps, but it will be at the sacrifice of the working class’s economic security and protection from exploitation of these newly enriched corporate entities.
The anarcho-capitalist ideology is guided by the interest of the corporate class that benefits most from these policies. In turn, social policies, like prohibiting abortion, reduction of women’s rights, climate change denial, anti-sex education, become mainstream and more likely to be implemented. From an economic standpoint, the support systems, like pensions that cost corporations’ money, are demolished wholesale on the pretext that retirees should have saved more or worked harder; the working class is blamed for their poverty.
Whether Milei genuinely believes that anarcho-capitalism is effective at governing society, that he is pushing these policies at the behest of corporate entities, or both, matters little. What matters is how the people perceive and feel about these policies; from what was seen on March 12th, they are not happy. They took to the streets and will keep doing so as these policies persist.
Engagement Resources
- Encyclopedia Brittanica explaining anarcho-capitalism
- HelpArgentina, a nonprofit organization that supports social programs across Argentina
- Journal of Democracy’s profile on Javier Milei