INTERVISTA a Philipp Bagus – L’Era di Milei. La nuova frontiera argentina (IBL Libri 2025)
Okay. Hello everyone. Good morning to Professor Philip Bagos. First of all, my name is Maret. I’m a journalist. I work for the Italian public television tunai. Hello to everybody who’s watching or listening to this conversation organized and made possible by instituti and his general director Alberto Mingardi. First of all, let me say a few words about professor Philip Bos. He’s professor of economics at the universad rayan Carlos in Madrid, Spain. His research focuses on monetary and economic theory. His work has been published of course in many several international journals, academic journals. He’s also member of the scientific advisory board of the Rudvik Fonme’s Institute in Germany. And today we will talk about his last book Mille Argentina’s new path published and translated into Italian by Ebel Libri with the title deleier Argentina. Now there are many reasons for being interested in what is happening now in Argentina. But only the country has historical links to Italy since it has been estimated that almost 30 million Argentines uh that is 60% of the population have some degree of Italian ancestry. Not only because it’s the second largest economy in South America and not only because from 1816 its independence this country has defaulted at least nine times. uh but most of all we are interested in the country because of his president Kavier Mille now since he is described in the book by professor Bos as the world’s first liberal libertarian president so professor Bos first question is why should a European an Italian or a German reader pay attention to what is happening now in Argentina and what you describe in your book yeah good morning Marco thank you uh for having me for inviting ing me to for this interview. Why? So your question is why is it important also for Italian or European uh readers to follow the revolution that is happening in Argentina? Yeah. Know um when the Berlin wall came down in 18 1989 it was a world shift in in history. It was the the end of of communism. Now with Kavia Mle we have the first libertarian president in the world. It can also be a new era. Yeah. And therefore the title the era mle because never these ideas have been on the table and never these ideas of the Austrian school of anaco capitalism of libertarianism never have been defended in such a way openly and on a global basis. Yeah, it there has been speeches in Davos in 2020 24 this year um at the at the United Nations. These were all speeches directed to a to the world public not only to Argentinians and it was they were speeches about the defense of the ideas and the values that made the west. Yeah. The rich and great. Yeah. That is the ideas of freedom and liberty. Yeah. And on which uh our western civilization is ba based on. And as MLE pointed out in in Davos and in front of the UNO also um the western states and the UNO also they have shifted away from these ideas. they have shifted towards collectivist ideas towards socialist ideas in their different uh their different varieties and now we have these ideas worldwide on the table and we have what many think is an experiment. Yeah, we have the first time that not not only the ideas on the table, they are also applied they applied in the country and now we can uh direct people to this country and say well you have thought said that if government spending will be cut then there will be a great recession and will be uh the end of Argentina basically there will be riots and self-inforcing downward spiral because aggregate demand will go down and uh companies will sell anymore. They will um lay off people and demand will fall more. Now, now MLE did cut government spending 30%. And what did happen in the room that this that the state left for entrepreneurs to freely um do their their projects in this space. they did do so and there is economic growth strong economic growth and the hyperinflation that was at the door was also prevented so it’s a huge success story and we can point to this well it’s libertarian ideas and more people want to have it and many countries people want to mele okay we will get to the application of those policies u but the interesting thing one of the interesting things of this book is that you got to know MLE and you uh write about MLE since the beginning not only uh MLE as being president now you met MLE when he wasn’t president yet in February 2021 when you invited him to uh an economic seminar an academic seminar about the history of economic thought how did you how did you come across him if I may ask? Well, it was actually a student of mine who who had the idea to invite several um Argentinian professors uh um to the class because uh you know in the corona zoom uh area there was also more time yeah for somehow somehow classes went faster so we had more time so we said well and and everyone is sitting at home so let let’s invite people so we had a Benedas Lynch for example also Gabriel Sani we had Carlos and Kavia Mle. So it was the student who had the idea and he he actually contacted all of these professors and uh I’m not sure how he how he did actually how he did I know that now it’s next to impossible to get to Malay but he got to his sister and uh and to Malay yes okay now Mle you’ve right in your book had started out as a postcanian economist then he had become neoanesian and neocclassical economist specializing in the theory of economic growth But then um he encountered an article a book by Murai Rothbart. So can you outline his intellectual trajectory? Yes sure. So he had the basic economic education that you get at state universities. As you said he was first a Keynesian or different types of Keynesianism then he got closer to monitoism and Chicago school. And then in 2014 I think it was a friend of him gave him this article by Mari Rothbart about monopoly. It’s a chapter 10 of man economy state. Yeah. The chapter where Rothbart goes beyond mises so to speak. Yeah. Uh about uh building upon human action. So it’s uh the most innovative maybe chapter of of many economy and state about it’s about monopoly now and monopoly of course is and he Mle talks about it still and writes about it. Um monopoly is from the point of view of the neocclassical school of course a market failure. Yeah it’s one of the market failure beside asmmetric information externalities and so on. So and he reads this article there over 100 pages by Rosbart in three hours and after this three hours he says everything that I have taught about monopoly theory in 25 years of my of me being professor of economics is wrong. Yeah. So you have to be a special kind of person to admit such an error if you’re so deep in the error. if era if you’re like 25 years in the era uh to admit it um requires also a certain type of intellectual uh yeah truth or sticking to the truth. Yeah. Because you you also have to give up uh your your human capital to a certain extent. If you have caught 25 years is this wrong. So you have built your human capital on this and now suddenly you realized it is wrong. So um then you have to learn it a new and he did he went the next day or the same day he went to a library specialized in or economics and asked for books on or economics and he bought books by Mrs. at Rosbar and then he ran out of money and said he asked are you open next next day also and the the owner of the library said yes. So so he went home he looked everywhere where he had money. He made his plans for how much were his expenses the next month and he came back and bought uh everything he could get and then he read every all all books by Rothbart Mises Hayek he read books by Hllett. So he he read it all. So this was his conversion in which he also found in this process the video lectures by Jesus who has his classes online which he also enjoyed and helped him in this in this process. So here we have a man who was already 40 years old or more than 40 years I guess and discovered the Austrian school, the Austrian school of economics and converted to it. Okay, that’s interesting. And of course I I suggest to read this book by Professor Bagos because it’s an oil book. I mean of course it’s a book about Malay about Argentina but uh in the pages you can also find um a very interesting story and synthesis of economic thoughts. So I advise to read this book also for this reason. But in the European public opinion, however, MLE is known less for his passion about Rotbird and the Austrian school and more for his incredible hairstyle, his flamboyan manners and the chainsaw in brandishes to announce cuts to the political establishment. So, how does all this fit with his economic thought? And above all, how much has this contributed to his political rise? Well, he started to defend these ideas of the Orson school and libertarianism in the public also around 2014 when he first appeared on television. Yeah. So, and of course, one thing is to have the better ideas to have found um to win against the ideas of socialism on the theoretical field. the the other the other thing is to uh let’s say to to sell these ideas. Yeah, that is the marketing and I think in in this area libertarians or classical liberals have not had uh so good results. I mean it’s obvious the the left the left have has won the cultural battle as MLE calls it. Yeah. Even though the Austrian school has the better ideas in the universities other ideas are taught and the general public is yet let’s say infected by the socialist ideas. So what you have to do is to improve your marketing. Yeah. You have to bring these ideas actually to the to the general public to the masses of people which I thought would be next to impossible but MLE can give us much hope in this direction because MLE was successful in doing so. He changed the mentality of Argentinians who were very socialist. I mean they had paranism 80 years. So he managed to make to change the mentality of Argentinians towards the ideas of liberty. And of course there you need it’s helpful to have uh good symbols like the chainsaw. I mean you these are also complex ideas. Yeah. You call him a rhetorical correct me if I’m wrong but you call him a rhetorical and then a marketing genius. Can you give some examples of why you define it like that? um because he’s he does not only understand the complex ideas of Austro libertarianism. He is also able to explain it in a way that everyone can understand it with easy examples in a pro provocative way in a way that gets to the heart of people also using emotions. Yeah. which is very important and also on a plateau like a television where you have very short amount of time to express your ideas. Uh and many many people academians actually shy away from this format because they think they they cannot uh well express the ideas because they don’t have enough time and he is able to do so. Yeah. And one of one of my favorites is is uh let’s see you know the the drink drinking song in LA from Yeah. So he changed the text toast. And also so you see so you see he’s selling the ideas of that if you spend too much fiscally uh then you finance it through the central bank the deficit this will bring about inflation and it’s turned into music. Yeah. And so so you can reach people with otherwise you could not reach you could not get to. And the other thing what what he did he he made a theater a theater um actually a theater where people went to the theater and saw him talk about economics and at the end he he destroys the he destroyed the central bank model which so um this is ways to bring the ideas this is the marketing I talk about yeah this brings the ideas to to the people because it’s not enough to speak only in conferences among academics where there are 100 people. You won’t change society by this. Yeah. Yeah. So this is part of the success um political success that you recall and you explain in your book. Now let’s move to the context to Argentinian context because for a nation to be ready for capitalist reforms writes RER Zelman in his afterward of your book. The first essential condition writes Zitleman is that there has to be an economic crisis. Now of course Argentina was pretty good in economic crisis. Uh noble Simon Kousnes is frequently cited is having said there are four kinds of countries developed countries emerging countries Japan and Argentina and his point is that basically that Argentina has many ingredients for sustainable prosperity yet it has repeatedly failed to deliver on its potential. So how has this played a role in MLE’s rise? I mean the context the Argentinian situation. Of course you you can say it’s a necessary condition but it’s not a suffic sufficient condition. No one thing is uh of course Argentina was one of the richest country in the world at the end of the 19th century. That’s the reason why people immigrated there. Yeah. And that’s the reason why Italians immigrated there because the the income the per capita income was higher in Argentina than in Italy, France or Germany. Yeah. Um so one of the richest camp countries is then infected by the virus of statism or socialism. Yeah. in the beginning of the 1930s. And then comes Peron who gets uh yeah who actually was in Italy and he he saw Mussolini as as an idol and gets ideas from Mussolini. He gets back and becomes president. He collaborates with the unions and one of his pillars of thought is social justice. Yeah. and redistribution and the and he protectionism as well and he brings the country on the on the path of socialism and from there on it’s only downward. So from then on Argentina has been in several crisis. 13 zeros has been eliminated in the currency because of hyperinflations and then there was a crisis. The the country was in continuous crisis. Basically it was just going downhill. And then in 2016 people had enough with Kishna Kisnerismo which is a very leftwing part of Peranism because Peru has has many fluent also but Kishnarismo is even the very leftist part of it and with vocism in the in the port also and there we had Neestor Kishno and Christina Fernandez Kishno and people people were fed up so there was a crisis And they voted for Mauricio Makri. Maki. Yeah. Who said we I will change things. So you see we had a crisis and there came someone else but this is not enough to get out of it. Yeah. You need someone with determination and the right ideas. Yeah. Marri was not he promised to do reforms but he did not have the balls to do so. Yeah. He did not dare to cut government spending especially. So a little bit of deregulation, a little bit of uh tax decrease but government spending he did not touch and this was the essential. He did not dare and his government was a failure. And then Alberto Fernandez came back that is a Kishna Rismo came back with Kishna Christina Fancy as a vice president and then the crisis was there again but this time there was a real alternative voted for. There was Mille who said I which is also one of his marketing brilliancancy. I said he said I will bring back Argentina to his great pass where he belongs. It will in 35 years Argentina will be a great super economic power again. Yeah. Okay. He said at the beginning there will be some suffering. So he was very honest about it. But then this time it will pay off the suffering. You suffered a lot before and it didn’t pay off. this time it will pay off. Let’s try to elaborate this. So the effect of his of MLE’s policies now he’s been president correct me if I’m wrong from December 2023 right and now I’ve read a few passages of the OECD last outlook economic outlook about Argentina and I just recall a few lines after a strong contraction in the first half of 2024 activity this is the OECD talking activity bounced back to growth of more than 18% in annualiz ized terms in the third quarter and over 5% in the last quarter of 2024. The recovery was driven by private investment, consumption, and exports. Short-term indicators point towards further improvement. And then talking about annual inflation, it has fallen from 211% at the end of 2023 to 47% in April 2025. Unemployment has been going down and real wages are r rising. Now this seem to be quite good data but according to you as an economist is there actually a shifting course currently taking place in your opinion? I mean the the country was on the verge of hyperinflation when he came to power. Yeah. The monthly inflation was 25% for consumer good prices, 54% for uh industrial prices, producer prices. and it was accelerating. So he managed to bring it down uh and to prevent hyperinflation by cutting the government spending 30% in real terms which is unpre unprecedented in peace times. Yeah, maybe it has been done after a war when military spending has been cut but in peace times that someone cuts 30% government spending is unheard of. Yeah. And this eliminated the government deficit which was essential because the government deficit was financed by money printing by production of new pesos. So if you elimin eliminate the government deficit by cutting with the chainsaw government spending you will also bring down inflation. Yeah. And the monthly inflation rate was in May 1.5%. Yeah. This is for European standards is of course still high but it’s way down from the 25% it was in December 23 when he assumed power and at the same time as you say there’s economic growth already in December last year the economic activity was 6% higher than in December 23 when he assumed power and now we are or now Argentina in the second quarter the economic activities is 7.6% higher than the year before on a year yearly basis. So there has been really uh it regime change I would say in economic policy in Argentina. The the currency has been stabilized. Economic activity has been rising though there’s economic growth as you said. Umployment is is at all-time high. Real wages are increasing. and the and the economy is al also deregulated at the same time. Okay. But now there is of course also um a lot of reports about uh growing poverty and well growing inequality first of all is something that still is a problem of course in Argentina and also not only poverty because on the poverty issue I’ve seen uh a few different data and I would like to have your opinion on that but uh effect that reform the impact of reforms on the most vulnerable segments of society. it is among the most important concerns of this uh current phase uh and also by ML’s critics. Um does he have any guarantee on these two fronts? So inequality and impact of reforms on the um the most vulnerable people. Yeah, as you said the poverty rate has been going down. So the most vulner there’s there are less most vulnerable people so to speak. There’s there are less poor people. Yeah. The poverty rate in the first 6 months of 2024 was over 50% I think 52.9%. And it’s still an incredible figure. Still an incredible number. Okay. It’s now have been gone 20 points down to 34%. Yeah. So 10 10 million Argentinians have come out of poverty. Even UNICEF uh the UN UN organization said that in 2024 1.7 million children in Argentina escaped poverty. So the for the poorest uh this is of course good if they are not poor anymore. Um so what what you have also taken into account is when you read about Argentina that they are very strong interests who will do anything to portray it as a failure especially in the statist mainstream leftist media. Why do I say so? Because if MLE is successful and it becomes over with the months it becomes ever more obvious that he is then it’s game over for them because they said we we need the states to solve the problems of poverty inequality and so on and Malay is showing no the state is not the solution the state is the problem so everyone who’s living off the state and wants and sees himself sees the as a solution. It’s a justification for what he is doing. Of course, wants MLE to fail. And if he if he doesn’t fail, what do they do then? Well, they take numbers from the past. Yeah. You you know at the beginning when the poverty rate was rising, it was all over the place in Europe. It was uh in the main in the newspapers there were poverty is rising in Argentina. Now it’s going down. And now now they’re silence. Yeah. Why is there silence? Because they it doesn’t fit into their worldview. Of course. So either they just don’t talk about it or they say that oh now now MLE you cannot trust the numbers anymore. Yeah. Before they published it of course when it went up but now you cannot trust numbers anymore. So um so one has to be careful because uh many of these leftist people they they don’t care for truth at all. They they care for their agenda and MLE did not cut he did not cut social security. Um what he did cut was um the Laccasta. For example, he laid off 50,000 government employees. He shut down 200 government agencies. So all these people who lost their job there of course are very uh angry on MLE and and will protest against him. But the po the poor people the social security he did not cut. actually increased terms. Yeah. Um so you think that the economic effects of these reforms some of which you have also uh told us uh are already uh going to towards the better and there’s no risk of backlash of the public opinion because even in the forward of your book Ronald Zelman writes in the brief time he has been in power he has accomplished a remarkable amount but um you have to of course wait because there’s always the risk that even shock uh resides, shock activities might have a backlash from public opinion. So, but but you don’t seem to be uh in doubt that he will be like some anti-establishment anti-establishment figures in Europe that turn out to be just political flashes in the pan. You don’t think it’s uh it’s a risk for that? Uh as I said uh the the economic recession had already started before Malaysia. Yeah. And then it accelerated due to the uh cuts in government spending because of course an economy needs time to restructure. Yeah. If you cut government spending 30%. Of course all these resources that before the state used Yeah. the 50% 50% of GDP was deficit and was eliminated by MLA. So 15% of GDP that beforehand the state used all these resources workers and so on now are available for entrepreneurs to for their projects to satisfy consumers by better products at lower prices. But of course this takes also time because you have to think about the new projects, you have to finance it, you have to execute it. So it’s it’s normal that in the beginning uh activity goes down but in April or May last year um there was also the bottom was found and now real wages they increased in 2024 13%. So you’re optimistic. Yeah of course you have to win the the the the propagandic war of course. Because it could be that people are better off that they have higher real wages but they feel worse off because people they have been told that they were they are worse off. Yeah, that will be that will be to be seen. Now we’re moving to well you you mentioned at least twice the cultural war. So I’m in the last 10 minutes that we have I would like to go into the cultural and political um battle that you describe very well in your book. Um now from the time he went into politics midle has explained even he has explained the difference between right left and libertarian thinking and you recall this video uh where he says that the right-wing person doesn’t care who you trade with but he does care who you go to bed with. Then he says the leftist doesn’t care who you go to bed with but he’s interventionist in the economic sphere. And um the libertarian on the other hand, this is MLE speaking, doesn’t care who you trade with or who you go to bed with. But despite this demarcation from the right, then MLE has politically and rhetorically moved towards the direction of what you call and it’s been called parallel libertarianism and I would say to simplify towards right-wing uh speech. Now he he he has been looking for allies in the right to fight against the left. So can you explain this the relationship between what you call the first liberal libertarian president but also the the right-wing government and the right-wing coalition that is building. Yeah, very interesting uh question. Yes, you said um he is following something that Mario Rothport also the 1990s also uh yeah provisioned so to speak which which is what Rothbart called the rightwing populism but not populism in the in the in the sense that we used the term uh mostly nowadays that is lying to people with simple answers because ML said no the opposite He he said we will cut government spending it will be harsh. Yeah. He’s not lying to people. He’s exactly doing what what he said and he explains it. No. Populism is a sense that there’s an establishment there’s an establishment that um exploits the common people the populace. Yeah. So uh right-wing populism defends the population against the establishment the elites that is the politicians that is the uh entrepreneurs that are corrupt and live off the state that is the unions that are connected with the states that that are the the intellectuals in public universities that find theories to justify the state and the media the leftwing media They are they are the elite. Yeah. And uh the right-wing populist defends the population against this elite and defends such ideas as uh well law and order. Yeah. the criminal is not the victim of society that he was treated badly by society in his youth and therefore it’s kind of justified that he no ma so who who does the crime has to pay for it yeah so this is also in line I think totally with libertarianism but also of course it’s rightwing in the in the sense that conservatives are normally uh those who defend law and border and responsibility against the leftist ideas and MLE is also against abortion which are also uh a right-wing idea. Yeah. So, and is that a libertarian idea? I mean to I mean once you’re in government of course as a libertarian you might think whatever you want but once you’re in government and then you enforce abandon abortion is that something that you do to make an alliance with right-wing politics or is that also defensible from a libertarian point of view? I I personally think that it’s defensible from a libertarian point of view. Rothbart thought otherwise by Rothbart in ethics of liberty defense abortion. Malay argues that life human life starts with conception. So from this point of view then abortion is not not justified. Um yeah. So so it’s not so it’s not something that he does because of the alliance he needs to build with right-wing politics. It’s something he believes in. Yeah. It’s something that certainly can be defended by a bellow bellow libertarian point of view and he has looked as you said for international not only international also local alliances because we have to be also uh honest about this with only libertarian votes MLE would not have won the election he would not have got 55%. he got in the first round um around 30%. 30 30 something. Yeah. So, so I think this might be actually the generally libertarian ones. So, you’re saying that yeah, he’s building an alliance of course to be in government as every party as every minority party does. And this alliance it’s it’s also my recall Robbar’s idea of a populist alliance against the left. Against the left. Okay. But um so in this battle there’s also a cultural side and I would ask you why is that important? So not only economics also of course economics is part of our current life and it’s also culture but also a few cultural issues you mentioned a few ones where ML insists a lot and only abortion but walkism free speech and all of that. So I would ask you to elaborate a bit and also elaborate a bit on a concept very interesting concept that you explain in your book that is the spiral of silence. Uh that is really interesting I think even for a European reader. Yeah. So um the cultural war is the war about the ideas and values that people have. Um because at the end we interpret the world through the ideas that we hold. That is through the the histories, the narrative, the values, the models, the stereotypes, the stories, the songs, the poems. Yeah. The art. Yeah. All these forms are the way we see our world and uh based on this we act. So if you can influence this world worldview through the culture war, you can actually influence how people act. Takes take the term social justice. Yeah. Um it’s another word I mean you can use for the same uh objective thing you can use the term social uh justice or theft. Yeah. If if you use theft or social justice, you see the world totally different. Yeah. So, and the left has been a that the majority of people call it social justice when the state under the threat of violence takes money from some people and give it to others. Yeah. So, most people interpret this as social justice and not theft. And there you see that the left has won the cultural war. Yeah. And so there there you see people act very differently if they interpret this as theft instead of social so-called social justice which is just a way to Yeah. I mean to to hide so so uh so deep instincts like envy and hate. Yeah. And to make it morally good somehow by by calling it social justice. So every every system needs also a mor moral justification to be able to survive in the long run. And the left has been very successful in undermine the legitimacy of the capitalist system by saying that is it well it may be more efficient than socialism but it’s unjust. They say because the capitalists exploit the workers they get richer on cost of of the workers. So there must be social justice. So they are undermining the values the moral justification of the system. And therefore the cultural war is so so important. It’s essential. If you lose it, you will lose you you will lose your freedom your society. You will lose free speech as you said. And uh and this vocism thing is is another way to destroy the values that are behind a capitalist bourgeoa society because this vocism creates artificial conflicts that doesn’t exist in capitalism because in capitalism there’s equality uh before the law. Um the mochism creates uh artificial non-existing exploitation and conflicts between well the papia the pataki the men exploit the women the white exploit the the black the hos exploit the the minority of the homosexuals uh uh humanity exploit nation uh nature. So of course then the question comes what do we do about it? Uh well we have to we have to help the poor minority that is ex is exploited in capitalism. So the state must help the minority. So what does the state need to help the minority? The state needs more power. So let’s give more power to the state. So it means less liberty and capitalism is is destroyed. And also the institutions that make capitalism possible in the long run like the family or Christianity are undermined. Yeah. The values of it. Yeah. So um the cultural war is is essential for the future of humanity. It’s it’s it’s the battle for for ideas and Mises calls it the battle for ideas. But it’s not only ideas, economic ideas. It’s also Yeah. Yeah. It’s general social ideas. Well, it’s interesting. The spiral. Yeah, the spiral of silence. Spiral of silence. Yeah. This is an idea by Elizabethman. It’s a jump political theorist which goes the following. Um, we people, human beings, we don’t like isolation. We don’t want to be isolated, which is normal because if 30 40,000 years ago we would be isolated from our tribe, we would probably not survive. So, we don’t want to be socially isolated. So sometimes we don’t dare to say what we think because we we believe that others may not like our ideas. So we rather stay silent. So as we stay silent these ideas that we have, our opinion is not expressed in public anymore or it’s less expressed in public. And therefore even less people dare to say their opinion because the opinion does not does not occur in the public sphere. So this is a spiral as even less people dare to say it. It’s even less present in the public sphere and therefore even less people dare to say it and it becomes even less. So it it may come to the extreme that a certain opinion is not expressed in public anymore even though a majority of people still holds it. What you need then is someone who doesn’t care. Yeah. Who doesn’t care about isolation. Yeah. And who who talks who talks about this ideas who who breaks this spiral of silence. And uh such a person is also Rava. Yeah. who broke the silence uh the spiral of silence and talked about these ideas saying that taxation is theft. Yeah. And saying that politicians are parasites and the state is not the solution. The state is is the problem. And about anarcho capitalism and suddenly also in the public sphere people talk about ano capitalism talk about libertarianism. Yeah. I only know the case of Germany but in Germany like five years ago you wouldn’t find in mainstream media the term libertarianism. Now you find it. So this is a good example of breaking the spiral of science. Thank you. Now last two questions really quick. One is about the relationship between Trump and Malay because they have publicly displayed their closeness yet there are undeniable differences between them for instance in their trade policies. So I’d like to ask you a brief comparison among these two leaders and also your forecast on how U the US tariff strategy might affect their relationship. Um yeah so MLE strategy and we talked about this before is to get allies also internationally on let’s say on the right. Yeah. So for example with Maloney of course he is also a buddy with or friend with and uh Trump and Alban they are all anti- socialist anti- vokeness anti I mean vokeness is a is a new form of socialism yeah is a new uh way it comes across so these are also ant they are all anti- socialist but of course they are not libertarians I mean Trump is not a libertarian and and Trump is also has no idea about economics otherwise he would not say these things about terrorists that terrorists would be good for the United States. I mean this is ridiculous. Um so what Malay I think is doing is first to get allies internationally because it’s not it’s not actually not good to be isolated internationally to and to help spread the ideas. Yeah. So he get a platform of course he gets a big platform if he if he speaks at at Trump’s CPAC and then try to convince these people these politicians of the advantages and superiority of liberty in all fields not only in some but in all. For instance, in March 24, um, MLE was invited to speak at CPAC. So, he was speaking in front of a MAGA public. And he he talked in favor of free trade. Yeah. Against protectionism. So, in front of a Trump audience. So, I think he tried he tried and still tries to convince Trump of of free trade. But apparently he has not been successful. But this is this is idea to look for someone who’s closest to you against the threat of socialism which is these right-wing people and try to convince them to bring them closer closer to to liberty. Okay, last question. What is the biggest challenge ahead of MLE for according to your opinion? Because you describe also the political situation in Argentina and do you think it will be possible in the future maybe after Malay as you said has been spreading the word uh to have a European MLE uh to a European MLE to emerge and under which conditions? Well, as you probably know, know there are important elections in October for the parliament because MLE doesn’t have hold the majority in the parliament. So, some very important and very urgent reforms he cannot do because he doesn’t have the majority in the parliament. Um most significantly a labor market reform. Yeah, that would be essential. So if you cannot do the reforms then the economic growth may come to to a halt or slow down the and the the opposition in the parliament whereas majority may do actually things to destroy what MLE is doing and they tried before. They tried to destroy for example the the um balance b budget or surplus that he had by increasing spending in education and pensions and this would be fatal because then there would be a deficit again. Then inflationary expectations will go up again and uh this could be self- enforcing uh speculative spiral against against the peso. So, so the biggest danger of is of course political. Yeah. That he will not get majority. If he does, then I I am quite optimistic. Um as for the European, I mean, is is it possible? Under which conditions? Under which conditions? Yes. Um there was like a few months ago like uh a survey in Spain. If there would be a direct uh election of the president and the two candidates would be Pedro Sanchez which is the actual president and Javier the majority would vote for Kavia. So it is certainly certainly uh possible. You would need someone of course who knows perfect perfectly the ideas. Yeah. Would have no super superficial knowledge but knows perfectly their ideas, believes them in them and fights for them. Has a has an is has integrity uh and is as a good speaker and charismatic um derivator of the ideas as is as is Malay. So you would need also the right person I guess but the conditions the uh the objective conditions so to speak are are there in the sense that we are in a crisis in Europe. Europe is going down in the sense that um like 20 years ago or 25 years ago the GDP of the European Union was the same as the United States. Now it’s much much smaller. So uh Europe is uh overregulated uh the state is suppressing entrepreneurial activity and liberties. So objective objectively we are in a crisis in Europe. So this condition is there. It’s not not so severe as it was in Argentina. We may get into a much harsher crisis in the future by I don’t know what may happen but there may be another recession for instance. Yeah. And the ideas in some countries are also already quite spread quite quite a bit but you need of course also movement and a charismatic leader and this may be still messy. Okay. So thank you to professor uh Philip Bagus. We went uh along uh we we had a conversation lasted even more than we thought and uh thank you and thank you Brolon for publishing and translating and publishing his last book the era Argentina’s new path. Uh it will be in Italian with the title deleier argentina. So thank you for professor Bagos for being with us. Thank you to our listeners and viewers and thank you to the Institute of Bruno Leon and enjoy the enjoy the reading of course. Thank you very much Marco. It was a great pleasure to talk to you.
Marco Valerio Lo Prete (Caporedattore redazione Politica Tg1) intervista Philipp Bagus (Università Rey Juan Carlos) in occasione della pubblicazione in italiano de “L’Era di Milei. La nuova frontiera argentina” (IBL Libri 2025), con Prefazione di Javier Milei e postfazione di Rainer Zitelmann
👉🏻www.brunoleoni.it/ibl-libri/policy/era-di-milei/
📌 Gli argomenti della discussione
00:00 – Introduzione
02:07 – Perché in Europa dovremmo interessarci all’Argentina?
05:22 – Il primo incontro con Javier Milei
07:08 – La conversione intellettuale di Milei
11:17 – Il genio della comunicazione e del marketing
15:33 – Il contesto argentino: crisi e populismo
21:13 – L’effetto delle politiche economiche di Milei
24:18 – Povertà e disuguaglianze: la critica alle politiche di Milei
27:45 – Tutto ciò è politicamente sostenibile?
Scopri di più sul catalogo di IBL Libri:
📘www.brunoleoni.it/ibl-libri/policy/era-di-milei/
O sfoglia il libro su Amazon
🔗https://www.amazon.it/Lera-Milei-nuova-frontiera-argentina/dp/8864405658