Javier Milei, a libertarian, may be elected to Argentina’s congress
His rise in Buenos Aires hints at disaffection with Peronism
“LONG LIVE liberty, goddammit!” proclaimed Javier Milei, a 50-year-old economist, at a meeting of comic-book aficionados in Buenos Aires in 2019. He went dressed as General Ancap, a character he invented who is the fictional leader of Liberland, a plot of land covering seven square kilometres that is disputed between Croatia and Serbia and which a Czech libertarian politician declared sovereign in 2015. Ancap is a portmanteau for anarcho-capitalist, a strand of libertarianism that seeks to abolish the state in favour of unfettered free markets. Mr Milei’s superhero mission is to “kick Keynesians and collectivists in the ass.”
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “No me pises”
From the October 9th 2021 edition
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