National history as inspiration and nightmare: Argentina's "El Loco" version
The new President of Argentina, Javier Milei, aka, “El Loco,” ran a rightwing populist campaign. If we use the definition of Argentinian political philosopher Ernesto Laclau, populism is a method of doing politics which frames an opposition between The People and The Elite, the large majority against a self-interested small group with bad policies.
That definition of populism is ideologically neutral, insofar as the populist construction of politics can be used by the left or the right, or even as some combination of the two. Milei’s version of The Elite in his campaign this year was “la casta,” the Caste, by which he meant the politicians of the center and especially the Peronist left, and definitely not captains of industry or agribusiness magnates. MIlei has defined what he means by la casta as "those who are in politics but are immoral."1
Milei’s version of populism is about as rightwing as it gets. He’s a hardcore fan of Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992) and the modern-day neoliberalism based in significant part of Hayek’s radical “free-market” theories. Although the populist framework is a democratic-sounding one, the actual policies and specific strategies pursued can be the opposite of democratic in the goals and effects. And a populism based on a hardcore reactionary outlook like that of Von Hayek is aimed at empowering the wealthiest at the expense of everyone else.
A DW News report in English2:
One characteristic of reactionary politics, whether in a “populist” or in a raw fascist form, is to invoke a mythical memory of a noble national past.
There’s nothing inherently reactionary or anti-democratic about looking by inspiration moments in the past, either. William Hoagland recently wrote in a column where he was grumping a bit about what he sees as superficial readings of history as a guide to the present:
History isn’t an explanation of what supposedly happened and how it supposedly led to what’s going on now, with lessons on how to fight back. It’s an argument about what events in the past might mean, an argument dependent not on authority but on visible struggles with the record, ultimately bound to be in some ways wrong. Inherently political, history can indeed be, as the old New Left had it, “usable”—but usability has nothing to do with throwing down red meat in reaction to unfolding events, via supposed parallels (“Trump’s being just like Andrew Jackson today”) or overarching reassurances (“American democracy is nevertheless inherently strong because the Civil Rights Movement proceeded from founding principles”).
The old New Left, viewing history as a dialectical process in which the left was taking an active part—and toward a radical end, not restoration of norms or favorable settlements of old conflicts—was tougher-minded about this stuff than today’s MAGA-crisis liberalism, which blends the usable-past concept with the confront-national-sins concept to sentimentalize even those events in U.S. history we should find the most egregious, linking all of the national past, good and bad, to a drama about the present. What’s going on now—the eternal political present, a priori continuously climactic—gets cast as the final throwdown over all of the good and ill that has defined us as a people.3 [my emphasis]
A a fan of the reformist and democratizing elements of the Jacksonian Age of Reform, I feel obliged to add that, no, Trump is not like Andrew Jackson, whose politics were a kind of proto-populism (The People vs. the Money Power). Old Hickory would have probably challenged anyone who suggested such a thing to his face to a duel. Jackson actually carried around a bullet in his body for many years that he took in a duel. Just try to picture a whiny-ass, narcissistic rich kid like Donald Trump literally challenging someone to an actual duel. (No, I can’t either.)
Although, to be fair, after putting down the treasonous attempt by South Carolina to subvert the Constitution with the Nullification Act, a trial run for pro-slavery secession mastermind by his then-Vice President John C. Calhoun, the official evil spirit of American history, Jackson said - literally from his deathbed, that his one regret in life was that he hadn’t hanged John Calhoun because of his insurrectionary plotting. Donald Trump in the January 6 storming of the Capitol sent his followers, some of whom were demanding to hang Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence because he refused to go along with Trump’s insurrectionary plans.
So, what does this have to do with El Loco in the Argentina of 2023? Milei has just provided us an example of how rightwing demagogues - populist or not - use the image of a glorious Golden Age in the national past:
In its electoral platform, [Milei’s party] La Libertad Avanza explicitly states that Argentina should return to its glorious past, in order to end 100 years of decadence. In his speech on the steps of Congress on December 10, the President-elect said: "At the beginning of the 20th century we were the beacon of light of the West. Unfortunately, our leadership decided to abandon the model that had made us rich and embraced the impoverishing ideas of collectivism. For more than 100 years, politicians have insisted on defending a model that only generates poverty, stagnation and misery."
President Javier Milei says without euphemisms that Argentina must return to 1900. But what would it involve? Situating ourselves in the international division of labor as a producer of raw materials.4 [my emphasis]
Argentina was an increasingly prosperous power circa 1900 and in the years following. The subway system in Buenos Aires was the second in the Western Hemisphere after New York’s.
But El Loco’s version of calling on the memory of a mythical past 124 years ago is to say, look, if go back to the Good Ole Days before all this social insurance and public education nonsense, when oligarchs could pretty much do what they wanted without pesky government regulations and unions and labor laws and the like, everything will be wonderful. As Pabo Vera, writes there, it would mean placing Argentina permanently “in the international division of labor as a producer of raw materials,” a state of permanent dependency on foreign powers and commodities markets and defenseless against financial marauders on the world markets.
The myth comes from the extensive work of Angus Madison (1926-2010), who points out that in 1895 Argentina had the highest GDP per capita in the world. But there were no official figures. In fact, the official data in Argentina are only found [in estimates] first in the mid-1940s. Do they have value? Yes, of course, but only as approximations. Madison himself acknowledges the difficulties of his research. Not having the entire statistical series assumes that the growth of per capita output from 1870 to 1900 was equal to that of 1900/1913. That is to say, he did not notice the Argentine crises of 1873, 1885, 1890, 1913...
It is always good to reread Mario Rapoport in "The Theory of Economic Decadence and Argentine Liberalism". There, with the acuity and firmness of a surgeon, he demolishes the founding myth of the so-called Agro-export model [on which Madison’s claim relies]. [my emphasis]
In other words, Milei wants to go back to the often extreme neoliberal economic policies that dominated Argentina in 1975-1989, which Vera calls a particularly tough phase of economic decay. The neoliberal policies continued until the crisis of 2001, and were revived again by conservative oligarch Mauricio Macri during his 2015-2019 Presidency. Milei’s program calls, among other things, for privatization of public education, a disastrous idea for the vast majority of Argentines. He justifies the idea with “libertarian” rhetoric.
In the final presidential runoff election this year, Macri supported Milei over the moderate and non-populist Peronist candidate Sergio Massa. This is sadly very typical for how hard-right governments come to power, whether they make “populist” appeals or not: when allegedly conservative parties endorse the far right politicians and their programs.
Since Milei during his campaign expressed considerable sympathy for the abuses of human rights committed by the military dictatorship of 1976-19835, known as El Proceso - that is, he expressed sympathy for the commission of the crimes themselves, not for the many victims - Argentinians have good reason to question whether El Loco supports their democratic form of government at all.
De Los Angeles Raffaele, Maria (2023): ¿A qué se refiere Javier Milei cuando habla de "casta"? CNN Español 10/18/2023. <https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2023/10/18/javier-milei-casta-orix/> (Accessed: 2023-16-12). My translation from Spanish.
Milei vows new era in Argentina: What is about to change? DW News YouTube channel 12/10/2023. (Accessed: 2023-16-12).
Hoagland, William (2023): Saving Democracy: Does It Depend on Knowing American History? Hogeland's Bad History 11/01/2023.
Vera, Pabo (2023): Por qué es falso el mito de que la Argentina fue una potencia hace 100 años. Página/12 15.12.2023 <https://www.pagina12.com.ar/695648-por-que-es-falso-el-mito-de-que-la-argentina-fue-una-potenci> (Accessed: 2023-15-12). My translation from Spanish.
Phillips, Tom & Uki Goñi, Argentina’s far-right frontrunner reopens wounds of dictatorship. The Guardian 10/19/2023. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/19/argentina-javier-milei-dictatorship-presidential-election> (Accessed: 2023-16-12).