But most of the programme for government announced by Javier Milei, the demagogic new Argentinian president, feels eerily familiar, here in the northern hemisphere.
A crash programme of massive cuts; demolishing public services; privatising public assets; centralising political power; sacking civil servants; sweeping away constraints on corporations and oligarchs; destroying regulations that protect workers, vulnerable people and the living world; supporting landlords against tenants; criminalising peaceful protest; restricting the right to strike. Anything ring a bell? Milei is attempting, with a vast "emergency" decree and a monster "reform bill", what the Conservatives have done in the UK over 45 years. The crash programme bears striking similarities to Liz Truss's "mini" (maxi) budget, which trashed the prospects of many poor and middle-class people and exacerbated the turmoil that now dominates public life.
Coincidence? Not at all. Milei's programme was heavily influenced by Argentinian neoliberal thinktanks belonging to the Atlas Network, a global coordinating body that promotes broadly the same political and economic package everywhere it operates. It was founded in 1981 by a UK citizen, Antony Fisher. Fisher was also the founder of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), one of the first members of the Atlas Network.
This story is from the January 12, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the January 12, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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