[While a serious issue, there are some amusing parts to this article.]
Original article by ARG Medios at peoples dispatch republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
On the morning of January 17, Argentine President Javier Milei gave his first speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The far-right libertarian was sworn in on December 10, 2023 and since then has launched all-out attacks on the working class through presidential decrees and omnibus laws, all of which have been vehemently opposed on the streets.
Milei began his speech at Davos by telling those present: “I am here to tell you that the West is in danger. All over the world, leaders who must defend the values of capitalism assume a vision that leads to socialism and poverty. “The main leaders of the world have abandoned freedom for so-called collectivism, which is the cause of the problems.”
The strongest argument of his speech was going to be that capitalism is the only tool to end hunger and poverty in the world, although he added: “the leftist thinking attacks capitalism for being, according to them, unjust. They say it is bad because it is individualistic and they fight for social justice. This concept has become fashionable around the world, but social justice is an unfair, violent idea, because taxes are coercively collected. Nobody pays taxes voluntarily. The State is financed through coercion. If a company generates a good product it will do well, if the State punishes the capitalist for being successful it destroys their incentives, and the cake will be smaller. Collectivism ties the entrepreneur’s hands.”
He also spoke of enemies, who for him are those who use the State as a tool: “everyone. There are no substantive differences. Socialists, conservatives, communists, fascists, Nazis, social democrats, centrists. They are all the same.”
In this same sense, Milei attacked two of the most important agendas at the Davos Forum, gender inequality and climate change: “The first of these new battles was the ridiculous and unnatural fight between men and women. Libertarianism already establishes equality between the sexes. The founding stone of our creed says that all men are created equal, that we all have the same inalienable rights granted by the creator, among which are life, liberty and property,” he maintained.
He went further and said: “the only thing that became of this agenda of radical feminism is greater intervention by the state to hinder the economic process, giving work to bureaucrats who do not contribute anything to society, be it in the format of women’s ministries or international organizations dedicated to promoting this agenda.”
In the same sense, he denied human responsibility for climate change: “another one of the conflicts that socialists raise is that of man against nature. They maintain that human beings damage the planet and that it must be protected at all costs, even going so far as to advocate for population control mechanisms or the bloody agenda of abortion.”
Finally, the only praise in Javier Milei’s speech was for the businessmen, whom he treated as heroes and also told them: “do not let yourself be intimidated by the political caste that wants to remain in power. You are heroes, you are benefactors, let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral, do not give in to the advance of the State, The state is the problem itself, you are the protagonists of history. Long live fucking freedom!
The president returned to Argentina on Wednesday on a commercial flight, after a couple of meetings and a bold speech that was not very widely accepted in Davos. He will face a massive national strike on January 24, called for by all the major trade unions and confederations in Argentina in opposition to his pro-capitalist, pro-businessman policies.
This article was first published in Spanish on ARG Medios.
Original article by ARG Medios at peoples dispatch republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.