by Juan I. Núñez

Recently, I read a short essay by left-libertarian theorist Kevin Carson, titled “Everything But the Helicopters.”¹ In this short article of his, Carson launches a predictable yet heavy-handed critique against Argentina’s president, Javier Milei. Carson not only brands him as a “fake libertarian,” but outright compares him to a rogue’s gallery of authoritarians, including Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán and even Vladimir Putin. However, most of his analysis suffers from a fatal flaw: it is a critique completely divorced from the Argentine reality.

The Disaster and the Thereafter

As an Argentine, I was born into one of its greatest periods of economic and political turmoil in the country’s history: the early 2000s. I grew up under a succession of left-populist, corporatist governments that succeeded in one thing above all else: the destruction of all semblance of a normal life. Throughout the twelve uninterrupted years of Kirchnerist governance (2003-2015), the Argentine State was run as a populist kleptocracy, with an economic model best defined by a cruel threat: “We break your legs, then give you crutches, and you better be thankful.” While the post-crisis recovery saw a period of relative growth, it was a house built on sand—an unstable macroeconomy, relentlessly interventionist regulation, protectionist trade, and, ultimately, a slide into fiscal degeneracy. Even Mauricio Macri, the “neoliberal” hope who won the 2015 presidential elections, wasn’t able to turn the tide. He only worsened it.

This history of decline culminated in the 2019 return of the Peronist party, ushering in what is arguably the worst administration in Argentine history. The list of failures is a drumbeat of national humiliation: one of the longest COVID-19 quarantines in the world,² complete with VIP vaccination centers for the politically connected;³ the murder and forced disappearances of dozens at the hands of State police;⁴ racist comments from the president himself;⁵ and finally, the highest inflation rate in three decades.⁶ There was no shortage of scandals, each a testament to the regime’s corruption, ineptitude and economic illiteracy. To list all of them would require a separate, much longer essay.

Given this state of complete disrepair, the rise of a figure like Javier Milei was not just predictable; it was inevitable. The masses, burned by the previous failure of gradual reform and developmentarism under Macri, were finally ready for a radically different approach: not a reform of the State, but a war against it. Milei’s aggressive demeanor, his televised lectures on economics, his furious denunciations of socialism and the “political caste,” and his constant comparisons between a broken Argentina and a prosperous world—these were all efficient tools for him to skyrocket into the presidency in 2023.

And yet, despite this landscape of total collapse—a context that would make radical measures seem not only reasonable but essential—a chorus of libertarian critics has emerged. From the safety of their stable nations, they judge Milei not against the abyss he inherited, but against a sterile textbook ideal. Kevin Carson is chief among them.

A Matter of Necessity

Libertarianism comes in many colors. I dare say no two libertarians fully agree in every single issue; if any did, I would worry this ideology had become a cult! Undeniably, our political tradition has prided itself on the fact that internal debate is not merely accepted, but actively encouraged as the only means to refine our ideas and perfect our arguments (unless one is a Randian, of course).

Nevertheless, beneath this vibrant debate lies a fundamental schism. It is not the familiar divide between consequentialists and deontologist, nor between left and right. It is the divide between the dogmatist and pragmatist; between the orthodox ideologue and the heterodox reformer. It is a battle of wills: the will to sit and wait for ideological purity, versus the will to act and play a doubtful hand. It should come to no surprise that the first group—the dogmatists—, is largely comprised of those who have never had their backs against the wall.

The error of the dogmatic libertarian is to believe that because the State itself is illegitimate (which it is), any and all actions must be seen as equally so. I have previously argued that the legitimacy of the State as an organization is not something to be graded on a curve.⁷ To the contrary, the actions of the State are sometimes capable of being nominally “good,” but only in a corrective sense: when the State dismantles the very injustices it created. For the dogmatist, however, even this is anathema. In their view, the act of the State freeing slaves is no more legitimate than the act of enslaving them in the first place. The result of this logic, inevitably, is a self-unaware nihilism. It insists that in a world of States, true freedom cannot exist, yet simultaneously preaches that freedom can only be achieved by means that are yet to work when put into practice. I see this as the fatalism of a Nockian Remnant has yet to grasp its own futility, still expecting a mass conversion that history has proven will likely never come in our lifetimes—not even after endless wars and genocide. If they were right, modern-day Germany would be an anarchy.

What the dogmatist fails to grasp is that for most of the world, libertarianism is not an abstract ideal; it is a necessity for survival. The notion of free trade is one of utmost necessity for an Argentine trapped in a protectionist cage. The notion of property rights is a desperate necessity for a Cuban forbidden from owning even his own cattle. The notion of free speech is an undeniable necessity for a Chinese citizen who lives in fear of the State’s retribution. To reject any action from the State that would expand these freedoms—simply because it is the State acting—may be deontologically pristine, but in practice, it is the suicide of liberty.

One need not sacrifice first principles to be pragmatic; one must be pragmatic to give first principles meaning in a world where principles are worth as much as sand. The reality is that our modern world is not built on libertarian ideals, which makes the need for comparative judgments inevitable. Any libertarian who would treat a reduction of State size as morally equivalent to an increase is not defending liberty; they are defending an idealized abstraction at the expense of tangible freedom. It is so that anybody who values freedom should make pragmatic concessions, not as a betrayal of deontological principles, but as the only means to translate said principles into reality.

In Defense of Flawed Libertarianism

Libertarianism in theory is a well-defined ideology. In practice, it is a nominative mess. What passes for a “libertarian” policy in the real world—a tax cut, a deregulation, or a reduction in State size— is always a matter of interpretation and compromise. The simple truth is that no ideological plan survives first contact with the enemy, and for us libertarians, the enemy is our current reality itself. Pure political philosophy and pure economics cannot be implemented overnight; the world is burdened with far too many constraints that would render such an attempt counterproductive, if not catastrophic.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, perhaps the most important libertarian mind of this century, offered a clear example of this error when he criticized Milei for not immediately “closing the central bank.”⁸ Hoppe, as brilliant as he might be, made a critical mistake in his critique: he ignored reality. To close the Argentine Central Bank would require vaporizing a mountain of short-term bonds (Leliqs) and “puts” (insurance on government securities provided to banks), which represent significant contingent liabilities. Until fairly recently, there was also a massive monetary mismatch with a dozen different exchange rates and a huge breach between the government-sanctioned rate and the real, black-market rate. Outright closing the central bank would have made the Argentine Peso suddenly lose all value, likely triggering hyperinflation at a time when monthly inflation was 2-digits. The ensuing bank run would have caused banks to run dry on foreign currency at a time in which the Argentine Central Bank had negative foreign reserves. The Argentine State would have then lost all form of funding, and the end result would have been Milei being couped out of power, with “libertarianism” being likely branded the most idiotic ideology to have ever been applied. All of this implying Milei even had the political power to close the central bank in the first place. Bastiat explains it best:

“There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.”

By focusing only on the visible goal and ignoring the cascade of unseen consequences, Mr. Hoppe, in this specific instance, was acting as a bad economist. While I disagree with Milei’s subsequent verbal aggression—he called Hoppe “a libertardian”⁹—the criticism itself is a perfect reflection of the dogmatic mindset: a monastic preaching of the abstract that willfully ignores the concrete. And it is this very same mistake that defines the critique offered by Kevin Carson.

Milei as Chemotherapy

Any opponent of the State in all its forms must concede a clear truth: Javier Milei, as president, is the State. He wields its monopoly on violence, and in doing so, becomes part of the very problem we seek to abolish. However, this is where the dogmatist stops and the realist begins. The State is a cancer: if so, then Milei is not the cure; he is chemotherapy—a poison deployed to kill, or at least tame, a greater poison.

Of course, with any such treatment, the dose is everything. Too little, and the cancer wins. Too much, and the poison kills the patient. So far, Milei’s dose has been radical, certainly painful, but—for a nation in the verge of death—arguably necessary.

The “Dictatorial” DNU

Carson begins his critique, as many do, with the “Omnibus Bill.” Here, he makes his first factual error, conflating the massive bill sent to Congress (Ley Bases, Law 27742) with the mega-decree enacted just ten days into Milei’s term: Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) 70/2023.¹⁰ While one can debate the decree’s constitutionality endlessly, such a debate is sterile without understanding the political reality that forced Milei’s hand.

Two facts are paramount. First is that democracy, particularly Argentine democracy, is absurdly inefficient. The Argentine Congress is a swamp of bureaucratic inertia, historically incapable of swift or meaningful action. Voting for each article of the bill would have taken absurdly long, at the expense of a suffering populace. Second, and more importantly, Milei took office with virtually no legislative power. His party holds a meager 39 of 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and just 7 of 72 in the Senate. He faces an implacable wall of opposition from the 113 deputies and 33 senators belonging to the peronist Justicialist Party and the Trotskyist Workers’ Left Front. All the while his supposed allies, those from Macri’s center-right party PRO, have proven unreliable at best. Given this reality, the choice was not between a decree and a democratic debate; it was between a decree and total inaction.

Carson’s first criticism targets the decree’s alleged grant of “dictatorial” power to the executive. Deontologically, any such centralization of power is indeed a threat. But this is where a pragmatic analysis must take over. The choice facing Argentina was not between an ideal democratic process and executive fiat. It was between two concrete options:

1. Send hundreds of individual reforms through a hostile and gridlocked Congress, where they would be delayed for months, stripped of their substance, or killed outright by vested political interests.
2. Use the constitutional tool of a DNU to enact immediate change, while still subjecting it to Congressional oversight—an oversight which proved to be real when both chambers later voted to reject the decree.¹¹

The purist, ignoring reality, sees only the danger in the second option. The realist sees the certain catastrophe of the first: a continuation of the economic misery that forces the average Argentine to bear the crushing weight of a State that has no interest in reforming itself.

Carson then claims the decree “extends Milei’s anti-protest measures.” This is factually wrong. The decree contains no such measures. He is again conflating documents, this time confusing the DNU with the “Anti-Piquetes Protocol,” from the Ministry of Security’s Resolution 943/2023.¹² To understand the full extent of this resolution, one must understand the piquete itself, a uniquely Argentine form of political extortion.

Ever since the 1980s, the piquete became a common form of protesting. A piquete is not a protest; it is a blockade. Its explicit goal is to paralyze cities by blocking major arteries, violating the freedom of movement, granted constitutionally, for thousands. The “peaceful” nature of these protests is to be doubted. Since their goal is to obstruct movement, these should be considered a violation of the Non-Aggression Principle. It is the proverbial fist swinging into the public’s nose. It prevents the ability of non-consenting individuals to access their own property, workers from getting to work, ambulances from reaching hospitals, and goods from reaching markets. It is an aggressive monopolization of public space—space involuntarily funded by the very taxpayers being held hostage.

The “Anti-Piquete Protocol,” therefore, is not “an attack on the right to protest”; it is the State fulfilling what even minarchists like Robert Nozick would recognize as its core defensive function: protecting the negative right of free transit against organized aggression. While the State’s methods are always flawed, the principle here aligns perfectly with a Lockean framework where liberty is protected from license.

What Carson’s analysis also ignores is the corrupt machinery that powers these blockades. They are not spontaneous acts of civil disobedience; they are astroturfed events that follow the money. For decades, they have been organized by State-backed syndicates and political brokers (punteros) using State funds siphoned from social programs. The people in these blockades are either paid or coerced to be there, under threat that they will lose their welfare benefits.^{13 14 15} The result is not a protest, but a grim, State-funded performance of discontent.

And this performance is lethal. At the peak of this extortion racket, in 2022, there were over 8800 blockades in a single year.¹⁶ This is in no way a victimless act of defiance. Innocent people have been killed by piqueteros for trying to get through,¹⁷ while at least 11 people have died in ambulances trapped behind the human walls these “protests” create.¹⁸

So, I ask you directly, Kevin: is this what a legitimate protest looks like to you? Is it legitimate to have people coerced into blocking transit, forcing innocent civilians to pay with their time, their jobs, and sometimes, their very lives?

We can debate whether the State’s chosen penalties are draconian; perhaps they are, but that’s a question of degree. What we cannot possibly debate is the nature of the act itself. These are not legitimate protests. They are acts of politically-motivated violence. Their target is not the State, but society itself. There’s no freedom being defended by these blockaders; there’s only freedom being violated, while they ask for more State funding.

And as an additional rebuttal to the “authoritarian” charge, let us be clear: the protocol to stop this aggression does not even override constitutional rights, nor the authority of provincial and municipal governments.¹⁹ It is simply the enforcement of laws which protect negative rights that have long been ignored. The only thing that has changed is that now, finally, there is an administration willing to enforce them.

In fact, for those who claim this enforcement is not “anarcho-capitalist,” I would direct them to the father of the ideology himself, Murray Newton Rothbard. On the topic of managing State property before its ultimate privatization, Rothbard wrote:

“We must reject once and for all the Modal Libertarian view that all government-operated resources must be cesspools. We must try, short of ultimate privatization, to operate government facilities in a manner most conducive to a business, or to neighborhood control.”²⁰

A private road owner would never tolerate daily blockades that render his property useless and his income null. Why, then, should the taxpayer be forced to fund and use public roads that get blockaded almost daily for political extortion? Another question for you, Kevin: you claim this measure is not “anarcho-capitalist,” yet here is Murray Rothbard arguing for its core principle. Perhaps you should read more about anarcho-capitalist philosophy before deciding who gets to bear the label or not.

Another thing that Carson conveniently ignores is that beyond the deontologically fraught method of the decree lies its profoundly libertarian substance. DNU 70/2023 is not merely a power grab; it is a bonfire of statist controls. Consider just a sample of its provisions:

• The restoration of freedom of contract through the abolition of rent control (articles 249, 252, 255-257 & 262)
• A frontal assault on protected crony industries by repealing protectionist “Buy National” and price-fixing laws (articles 7, 9, 10, 38, 142, 156, 158, 164 & 165)
• The liberation of the individual worker by breaking the syndicate monopoly on healthcare and union dues (articles 77, 87, 88, 270, 295 & 311)
• The implementation of an “Open Skies” policy to deregulate air travel (articles 179, 185, 210, 213, 215, 222, 223, 246 & 248)
• A first step toward demolishing petty bureaucratic tyrannies like the corrupt vehicle registries (articles 352-357, 361 & 364).

These are not minor tweaks; they are radically anti-statist, pro-market, pro-individual rights reforms. Many of them, particularly those that empower individual workers against monopolistic unions, are measures a left-libertarian like Carson should champion. Their omission from his analysis makes me wonder whether he never bothered to read the DNU he harshly criticized, and just did the minimal effort necessary by formulating his arguments upon the claims of secondary sources, like Reason magazine, or he read it and chose to deliberately ignore any fact that contradicted his narrative. In any case, it speaks poorly of his otherwise admirable intellect.

Disaster Corporatism?

Carson’s next attack targets Milei’s plans to privatize State-owned enterprises, a critique he frames within the familiar socialist narrative of “Disaster Capitalism.” The history of industrial policy in Argentina is indeed a story of disaster, but it is a story written, edited and revised by the State, from start to finish. It is a nauseating cycle: The 1940s nationalizations of many industries by Juan Domingo Perón created inefficient monopolies; the 1990s privatizations under Carlos Saúl Menem handed those monopolies to both local and foreign political cronies; the 2000s renationalizations under the Kirchners brought the corruption back bearing gifts. In every case, the result was the same: an industrial disaster carried out by State action, not by the free market.

The truth is that many of these State-run industries are not just horrendously inefficient; they are a violent assault on the taxpayer. They are financial black holes, fundamentally anti-market entities that survive only by feeding on the wealth of everyone, including the downtrodden majority. The data from before Milei’s arrival tells the story: In 2021 alone, the operating deficit of these companies reached 0.78% of GDP, and they had been running at a deficit since at least 2009 (0,14%). The direct Treasury funds funneled to them exceeded 1% of the country’s GDP.²¹ This was not an anomaly; it was a chronic disease. These costs, of course, were paid for by the Argentine citizen—or, to call them by their proper name, the tax slaves.

Given this sickening reality, Milei’s plan to privatize these enterprises is neither absurd nor unnecessary; it is an act of long-delayed fiscal and political hygiene. These companies are not legitimate businesses: they are bloated, corrupt shells, historically used as honeypots for political patronage and nepotism,²² a hallmark of Argentine democracy. The case of the State airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas, is an emblematic example: it has long operated with far more employees than any of its private competitors, a clear sign of political padding, not operational need.²³ Any private company that did this would go bankrupt, so why should a State company not? To defend such a model—one of monopolistic, corporatist enterprise that bleeds the public dry like a cow—is not a principled, nor a moral stance. It is an endorsement of corruption, tyranny, and perpetual poverty.

Carson then resorts to the tired, fallacious historical analogy, comparing Milei’s plans to the crony fire sales of Pinochet’s Chile or Yeltsin’s Russia, as if context was a fictional social construct, and as if no human could ever learn from history. His lazy assumption implies Milei’s approach will be a repeat of the 1990s. In fact, Milei’s privatization scheme is already underway, and the initial results contradict Carson’s fears. The State’s majority stake in the metallurgical company IMPSA, for instance, was recently sold for $27 million USD to Consorcio IAF, who also assumed the company’s massive existing debt of $567 million USD.²⁴ If Mr. Carson understands economics, then he’d realize that this is not asset-stripping; it is a transfer of colossal liability from public hands (the taxpayer’s hands) to private hands. The privatization of other 11 public companies is already proceeding, and so far, there’s yet to be any hint of the cronyist giveaways that defined past failures. In other words, by preemptively condemning this process, Carson is not analyzing reality; he is projecting his historical priors onto it—not unlike he projects his purist theorism—unwilling to wait for results before rushing to judgment.

But there is a final, damning fact that Carson conveniently (and humorously) ignores—perhaps through a lack of due diligence, or perhaps because it demolishes his entire narrative. One of Milei’s most notorious proposals for these companies was not some crony giveaway. It was to hand ownership of the enterprises directly to their employees.²⁵ This is a purely Rothbardian, radically pro-labor solution that a left-libertarian like Carson should, in theory, celebrate—unless, of course, he’s a Groucho Marxist.

And how did the workers of Aerolíneas Argentinas respond to such an offer of collective ownership? Their union leader declared it would only happen if the government “literally killed” them first.²⁶ The reason for this violent rejection is as transparent as a window: they have no interest whatsoever in being responsible owners in a competitive market. They prefer their status as powerful political brokers, content to bleed the State dry from within a protected monopoly, while the consumers are forced to pay for flights they’ll never board.

Why, then, does Carson not champion such a proposal? Does he not, as a left-libertarian, glorify worker autonomy and voluntary cooperation? I’d be quite thrilled to hear his explanation of why the Argentine taxpayer should continue to bear the burden of such a useless, inefficient, bloated, corrupt and expensive corporatist system, when better options are on the table. His silence on this point renders his critique politically and philosophically incoherent, almost as if it was written from emotion; not reasoning.

Milei, as a pragmatist, is choosing from the only real options available for these State-owned enterprises. I invite Mr. Carson to do the same:

1. Privatize them by selling them to the highest bidder, and let the market decide their fate.
2. Workerize them by handing them over to the employees, as Milei proposed, and let them succeed or fail on their own.
3. Liquidate them by shutting them down completely and free the taxpayer, at the cost of immediate unemployment for tens of thousands.
4. Continue the statu quo of subsidizing corrupt, money-losing monopolies at the expense of an entire, poverty-ridden nation.

Which path does a principled libertarian choose, Kevin? Which path leads to less coercion and more prosperity? The first three options represent a move toward liberty, however imperfect. The fourth is the road to serfdom—a road you seem cavalier enough to watch Argentines walk down.

Workers’ Wrongs

Not satisfied by ignoring Argentina’s political history, or by making fallacious comparison, Carson continues his unrelenting attack on Milei by claiming he is “attacking unions and worker-owned enterprises.” I can concede to his description of what the law contains. Indeed, it places limits on certain strike actions. However, his analysis goes no deeper. He is technically correct about the text, but fundamentally wrong about the context—and it is the context that reveals the law’s philosophical necessity.

Let’s examine what the DNU actually does: nowhere does it say that strikes are now prohibited, or anything to that effect. It establishes minimum service requirements to prevent societal collapse, creating two distinct categories. First are the “Essential Services,” defined as those whose interruption would directly endanger life, health, or safety: sanitary and hospital services, production and distribution of drinking water, electricity, gas, and air traffic control. The necessity of this is self-evident, especially in an economy where these services are largely State-run, heavily regulated monopolies, or highly subsidized (with subsidies to offer, no less!). Second are “Activities of Transcendental Importance,” which are defined as those whose total or partial paralysis would significantly cripple the wider economy. This is the broader list Carson cites, covering industries from transport to banking. In the case of these services, the article specifies that strikes must be announced 5 days in advance so that the minimum service levels can be organized. In both cases, the goal is not to break a union, but to stop a union—commonly one that’s coercive and extractive—from breaking society.

To understand the law’s necessity, one must understand the scale of the damage. The economic cost of worker strikes during Milei’s administration, so far, has been of over a billion dollars.²⁷ This is no surprise in a country that suffers nearly twice the number of strikes as the global average. The overwhelming majority are driven by public sector unions, which account for a staggering 90% of all working hours lost to strikes, concentrated in the critical healthcare and education sectors, which averaged 360 strikes per year in the 2012-2022 period.²⁸ These two sectors also happen to be the most syndicalized (see below).

To be clear about what this means: State employees, whose salaries are funded by coercive taxation, are refusing to provide the very services they force the public to pay for. This is most egregious in education, where some provinces had already lost 38 school days by August of 2024.²⁹ This is not a new crisis; this is a chronic disease. The Argentine education system, one of the worst in the region, has chronically suffered due to these strikes, all the while private alternatives are suffocated by regulations, and thus, unaffordable. Is the “right” of a State employee to strike more sacred than a child’s right to an education—a child made to have no future by State corruption and massive deficit spending? If so, this is no longer just “taxation,” where one at least pretends to get something in return. It is armed robbery.

This time around, Carson’s entire critique rests on a fundamental conflation: he mistakes the actions of a coercive collective for the rights of the individual. This is because he does not understand the nature of Argentine syndicates. While public sector unionizing is high—around 40% overall, and nearly 50% in education and healthcare, as of 2019³⁰—these are not the voluntary associations of libertarian theory. They are hierarchical, State-supported, corporatist remnants of Perón’s economic fascism. Workers are often pressured into joining, and even non-members are legally forced to pay a “solidarity contribution,” equaling 1% to 2% of their salary, directly to the union bosses.³¹

This coercion is not informal; it is enshrined in law. Law No 23.551,³² the charter of much of this system, is an appalling violation of voluntary association rights. Articles 47-52 grant union delegates de facto legal immunity by protecting them from being fired without “just cause” and a judge’s authorization. Article 31 gives legally recognized syndicates a monopoly on all collective bargaining. And—most concerningly—Articles 25, 28-30 and 56 outlaw competition by making it impossible for more than one syndicate to exist per industry.

The conclusion is that these are not unions; they are State-sanctioned mafias that invade workplaces, attack and extorts both workers and business owners alike.^{33 34 35 36} They do not represent workers’ interests; they are coercive, corrupt, and monopolistic entities, a fact well-documented not only by what’s written in the law itself, but by decades of academic research.^{37 38} This is the reality Carson ignores, projecting an idealized image of a righteous “union” onto a system of pure political plunder.

To all of this, Carson also fundamentally misunderstands the decree’s mechanism. No worker is to be jailed for striking or forced to work at gunpoint. The DNU simply restores an employer’s right to terminate a contract when an employee refuses to work, shifting power from the State back to private parties. The State does not punish the individual. What a libertarian can and should criticize, however, is the power the decree gives the State to sanction the unions themselves with fines or loss of legal status. Is it wrong for the State to interfere with voluntary association? Absolutely. But I will beg the question: are these truly voluntary associations? The answer would be a resounding “No.” As proven throughout the previous paragraphs, they are State-sanctioned monopolies funded by legally-mandated fees, even from unaffiliated members. This is the dilemma: a flawed action by the State is being used to discipline a coercive, State-created entity. It is a dose of the State’s own poison being turned back on itself.

So, Kevin, let me ask you one more question: if these syndicates are there to protect the rights of workers, and are not the monopolistic, self-interested political entities I have described, then why was the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) completely silent during the Kirchnerist government of 2019-2023? Why did they not call a single general strike?³⁹ More than just that: why did they call fewer strikes per year under the 12 previous years of Kirchnerism than they did under Raúl Alfonsín’s, Mauricio Macri’s, and Javier Milei’s administrations? Let us not forget the reality workers faced under their supposed political allies: over 12000 SMEs driven to bankruptcy,⁴⁰ 3-digit interannual inflation, a 20% collapse in real wages, soaring informal labor, and a plethora of other disasters?⁴¹ Where was the outrage then? Where were the general strikes?

And where, for that matter, were you, Kevin?

The “Ghost” Coops

Carson’s next angle of attack is the claim that Milei is seeking to “close cooperatives and reduce the economic and labor liberties of workers.” This is yet another case of a critique born from ignorance of the facts on the ground—an ignorance which, at this point in his essay, becomes exhausting.

The reality is that this does not appear to be an attack on legitimate co-ops; it is a fraud investigation. The audit specifically targeted cooperatives created during the previous administration, between 2019 and 2023. During this time period, according to spokesman Manuel Adorni, the registry of cooperatives increased by a whopping 138%. The data cited reveals a clear pattern of corruption: 11.853 cooperatives had been suspended in 2019, but continued to receive funding. 70% did not submit financial statements or records of assembly. 22% listed the same members as other “different” co-ops. 20% were registered under the same e-mail address. 9% shared the same physical address.⁴² These don’t look like the hallmarks of a thriving cooperative movement. They are the fingerprints of a mass-produced network of shell companies, designed for the sole purpose of being a black hole for State funds. Best case scenario, they would seem to be an attempt to monopolize the cooperative market in the hands of a few people. Carson can paint this as an attack on workers if he likes, but the evidence points to a long-overdue crackdown on State-funded corruption.⁴³

To understand the why of this network of shell companies, one must follow the money, and the money flowed primarily through a single State program: Potenciar Trabajo. Implemented in 2020, this program paid beneficiaries 50% of the minimum wage to participate in coop-coordinated “socioproductive and communitarian processes,” such as cleaning public spaces or manufacturing goods. So egregious was the abuse of this social program, that even the Kirchnerist administration had to audit it due to widespread irregularities. Their own audits revealed that over 2000 recipients had been found to be making large transactions in foreign currency,⁴⁴ over 150.000 were on the State’s payroll without having declared it,⁴⁵ and over 27.000 others were removed from the program for other “various irregularities.”⁴⁶

So what, then, are both the reader and I to conclude? Is Carson truly defending this system? Is he arguing for the preservation of “cooperatives” that materialized ex nihilo at rates not seen before, that operated with glaring irregularities, and that existed almost exclusively to collect taxpayer subsidies? To defend this network of State-funded fraud in the name of “worker-owned enterprise” is a truly novel interpretation of anarchism, is it not, Mr. Carson?

Of course, in a truly free society, no one should need a license or State permission to carry out business. The issue is, however, that Argentina is not a free society. To simply abolish these mechanisms without dismantling the State-funded programs that are being used to defraud would be a recipe for unchecked embezzlement. Yet it is equally impossible to abolish those social programs overnight without first creating the economic conditions for genuine wealth generation—conditions the State itself devoted its last century of existence to destroy. There is no easy and painless way out of this trap. There only exists the hard road of realistic, sequential reform.

Finally, we must address the romanticized premise of Carson’s source material: the companies recovered by their workers (ERTs). Let me be clear about what these are. They are enterprises that, after the 2001-2002 economic crisis, were seized by their employees to prevent the rightful owners from liquidating their own assets, and later legally granted to them by the State through eminent domain. So, Mr. Carson, I have a few more questions for you: do you believe in property rights? Do you believe that the person who homesteads or legally purchases a property has the right to dispose of it as they see fit? If the answer is “yes,” then how can you justify the seizure of that property by a collective that simply disagrees with the owner’s decision? And if your answer is “no,” then what principle separates you from any other totalitarian statist who, through Rousseauian logic, places the will of the collective above the rights of the individual?

Open Borders? Or Unilateral Suicide?

Yet another criticism from Carson is aimed at Milei’s anti-immigration reforms, which he lazily equates with Donald Trump’s. This comparison is not just flawed; it is fundamentally dishonest. I challenge Carson to provide a single piece of evidence that Milei has deployed militarized agents to chase down documented and undocumented immigrants alike throughout the country, as Trump has done. Without such proof, the comparison is nothing more than another case of bad-faith slander.

But the error is more than a faulty analogy. Carson’s position implies that a core tenet of anarcho-capitalism is the demand for national suicide. I have scoured our foundational texts and have yet to find it. In fact, I have only been able to find the opposite!

“The immigration policies of the States that are confronted with the highest immigration pressure, of the US and Western Europe, have little resemblance with the actions of a trustee. They do not follow the full cost principle. They do not tell the immigrant essentially to “pay up or leave.” To the contrary, they tell him “once in, you can stay and use not just all roads but all sorts of public facilities and services for free or at discounted prices even if you do not pay up.” That is, they subsidize immigrants — or rather: they force domestic taxpayers to subsidize them.”⁴⁷

Interestingly enough, in this same essay, Hoppe mentions that “[t]o their credit, left-libertarians recognize some of the consequences this policy would have in the present world.”⁴⁸ Which either means Hoppe is wrong, or Carson is an outlier in his own camp. Regardless, the critique is not unique to Hoppe, in fact, Murray Rothbard himself argued that what we call “open borders” is a fiction:

“[T]he regime of open borders that exists de facto in the U.S. really amounts to a compulsory opening by the central state, the state in charge of all streets and public land areas, and does not genuinely reflect the wishes of the proprietors.”⁴⁹

And to cite Hoppe one more time:

“By admitting someone onto its territory, the state also permits this person to proceed on public roads and lands to every domestic resident’s doorsteps, to make use of all public facilities and services (such as hospitals and schools), and to access every commercial establishment, employment, and residential housing, protected by a multitude of non-discrimination laws.”⁵⁰

In a world of Nation-States with hard borders, unilateral open borders are not a beacon of liberty, but a magnet for disaster. What is a nation to do when it becomes a sanctuary for foreign criminals, terrorist cells, and hostile State actors? What Kevin Carson is criticizing is the idea that, perhaps, it would not be coherent to allow just anybody into Argentine territory, let alone when all of South America is under siege by violent drug cartels, and much less so in a country which has been directly and repeatedly threatened by the Islamic Republic of Iran.^{51 52} And no, this is not hyperbole. This is history. Iran has already struck Argentina twice, bombing the Israeli embassy in 1992, and the AMIA Jewish community center in 1994, killing over one hundred people.⁵³ These terrorists did not sneak across the border; they walked through it, aided by the State’s own ineptitude and corruption. To demand that these doors remain wide open is to demand that Argentina invite its enemies to strike again. Carson, however, doesn’t appear too worried about this; after all, the blood would not be in his hands, or on the floor.

But the security threat is not the only problem with unilateral open borders. The most pressing issue is the Welfare State. For years, Argentina maintained a policy of largely free borders with its neighbors, a suicidal act of one-sided generosity. The result was, for instance, widespread “medical tourism,” such was the case in the border city of Orán, in Salta Province, where the local hospital’s weekly patient load went from 300 people to just 5, after Milei’s administration allowed hospitals to charge foreigners.⁵⁴

And what was the reciprocity to this charity from the unwilling Argentine taxpayer? Argentines being denied treatment and left to die in Bolivian hospitals.^{55 56} This same one-way street applies to our public universities, which foreigners can attend for free, a privilege no other nation extends to Argentines.⁵⁷ To be in favor of this system is to be a financial tyrant and sadist: a Welfare State that expropriates wealth from its own citizens to provide for those of other nations. This is not freedom; it is slavery by proxy.

Let me be clear: I do not believe in the false premise of “national borders.” But I also don’t believe in logical contradictions. As long as a Welfare State exists—and Milei is yet to abolish Argentina’s—open borders are a fantasy. The two are mutually exclusive. It is a pragmatic contradiction that Mr. Carson, in his devotion to abstract theory, chooses to ignore (too). He focuses on what might be ideal in a world that does not exist, while ignoring the disastrous consequences of applying that ideal to the world we actually inhabit.

A Reactionary Dictator in Waiting (and Other Alarmist Absurdities to Tell Yourself)

What may be Carson’s most inflammatory claim is that Milei is a “brutal authoritarian thug,” comparable to the likes of Donald Trump, or even Vladimir Putin. His entire case rests loosely on associating Milei’s social semi-conservatism with that of other leaders, which would seemingly be enough to place him in the same category as a protectionist Christian nationalist, or a statist imperialist allied with North Korea. He even implies Milei is an ethnonationalist and contrasts his speeches with none other than Adolf Hitler’s. A case of Godwin’s law, perhaps?⁵⁸

Yet beyond these inaccurate associations—so flimsy they could be severed with a piece of paper—Carson fails to provide a single piece of convincing evidence to support such an extreme accusation.

I will begin with a criticism of my own: Milei’s foreign policy is often a case of profound cognitive dissonance. It is concerning to see a man who claims to despise the State embrace a figure like Donald Trump or the actions of a State like Israel. It is self-delusion. However, while I personally oppose these alignments, as a pragmatist, I must analyze the choice he faced. Milei could follow one of these three paths:

1. Ally with the United States and NATO powers to secure tangible benefits, such as help with the YPF debt judgment⁵⁹ or inclusion in the US visa waiver program.⁶⁰
2. Ally with no one and condemn Argentina to geopolitical irrelevance.
3. Continue on Argentina’s previous path, joining BRICS and deepening ties with autocracies and dens of mass corruption.

Faced with this trilemma, Milei chooses the first. And despite his fiery rhetoric or his friendship with Trump or Bolsonaro, the truth of his geopolitical approach is that it has been surprisingly balanced. He has maintained open trade with China, pursued trade deals with the European Union, and even tried to keep a positive relationship with neighboring nations, including Brazil, whose president, Lula da Silva, Milei had harshly criticized previously by calling him a “communist.” This appears not to be the work of a dogmatic ideologue; it is the work of a pragmatist navigating a world of bad options.

Just as Carson builds a caricature of Milei’s foreign policy, he engages in an even more egregious distortion of his social views. He paints Milei as a hardline conservative, yet his policies have done nothing to reduce the individual freedoms of any minority group thus far. While Milei certainly rails against what he calls “woke neo-Marxist nonsense,”—however pointless this might be—his actual positions reveal a far more libertarian, live-and-let-live philosophy.

Milei has publicly stated he doesn’t care about what people do with their own bodies or about how they identify, so long as the State doesn’t force others to go along with this.⁶¹ He explicit rejects the idea homosexuality as a “disease,”⁶² and holds it to be a “personal choice.” He has also supported drug legalization, gay marriage (as a private contract), and the legality of sex work. What, precisely, is so “conservative” about this? Maybe it could be conservative by 2125 standards? That would best explain Carson’s critique.

Carson makes the strange claim that Milei appeals to Hoppeans—a claim easily disproven by the very public intellectual feud between the two men. Even if this were true, the broader point is utterly irrelevant. Are we now to judge ideas by the situational political bedfellows they create? Are we to discredit someone because some of their temporary supporters are “paleolibertarians, conservatives, and racists” If so, this is not arguing, Mr. Carson, it is hardly anything more than childish name-calling.

Even on Milei’s opposition to abortion, his actions defy the “authoritarian” caricature. Despite his strong vocal disapprovement, he has repeatedly said that any change would first require consulting the public through a non-binding plebiscite.⁶³ This is the method of a democrat, not a dictator. It is just another case where his critics confuse his personal philosophy with his actions.

Carson’s most specific charge is the “mass-firing of transgender public sector workers.” He conveniently fails to mention that the article he cites explicitly admits that many of these individuals were hired under an affirmative action quota. Question time: since when is it libertarian to endorse positive discrimination by the State? Why this specific quota, for this specific group? Are aboriginals, the disabled, and the Trotskyists also not marginalized groups? Could it be that, maybe, just maybe, this policy was never about helping transgender people, but about the Kirchnerist party desperately pandering to the LGBT collective for votes?

Such laws do not help minorities; they harm them. They create social resentment and poison the well of public perception by having many label an entire group as “State parasites.” Society tends to perceive such laws as unfair.⁶⁴ While a small active class seeks political favors, the majority of the LGBT people who strive to succeed on their own merits are thrown under the bus, perceived as rent-seekers with a manufactured identity. In fact, Argentina’s laws regarding sex change on IDs can lead to such behavior, allowing anyone to do some paperwork and be granted access to any affirmative action meant for marginalized people, whether they actually belong to such group or not.⁶⁵ I do not just say this as a theorist; I say this from my own personal experience and contact with LGBT friends and acquaintances in Argentina and abroad.

If the Peronists were ever so concerned about women and minorities, then I am sure that their now-abolished “Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity” would not have denied assistance to the First Lady even as she was being beaten by their own president.⁶⁶ Their party lists have been riddled with rapists and pedophiles.⁶⁷ And if their affirmative action policies were so effective, why did hate crimes against LGBT individuals consistently increase during their time in power?⁶⁸ While Carson’s priorities lie elsewhere, there’s one inconvenient fact he has missed: after Milei abolished the bloated “Ministry of Women”, the femicide rate in Argentina fell by 8,4%.⁶⁹

So I will wait patiently for Mr. Carson to provide his proof. I hereby invite him to demonstrate how, exactly, Milei transformed Argentina into the “cisheteronormative, patriarchal ethnostate” of his imagination. He can easily get my email. I will be happy to concede defeat.

Denialism and the Duality of Ignorance

One other critique by Carson that I will formally address is that Milei and his allies are “apologists” or “denialists” of the 1976-1983 military junta. This is a loaded accusation, and one that is very easy to make when one’s entire understanding of modern Argentine history comes from biased or foreign sources. Because this topic is so fraught with emotion and propaganda, I will approach it with the utmost care, appealing only to what is proven, what is probable, and what remains, perhaps, unknowable.

To address this, I must first dismantle the simplistic narrative Carson relies on. The Junta did not begin in a vacuum in 1976; it was the culmination of over four decades of political violence, State decay, and ideological warfare. The cycle began with the military coup of 1930, the first coup in Argentine modern history, where Felix Uriburu, a corporatist fascist, took power alongside the military. This coup led to the “Infamous Decade,” a period of democratic corruption characterized by a rural exodus and a switch to protectionist and nationalistic policy. This directly led to the nationalist Revolution of 1943.

From that “revolution” emerged Juan Domingo Perón, a high-ranking military man who was eventually elected president in 1946. Perón was an orthodox fascist who openly admired Mussolini and spoke positively of the Nazi economy. He modeled his corporatist State on Italian fascism. He was an actual authoritarian thug who repressed his enemies, committed genocide against the indigenous Pilagá people, and treated the State treasury as his personal bank account.

After his increasingly anti-Catholic stance—which included church-burning—led to his ouster by the military in 1955, a new force emerged in the vacuum: Marxist-inspired guerrilla groups like the EGP, MNT, and later ERP and Montoneros. While Perón was exiled in Francoist Spain, these groups began campaigns of terror, attacking government officials, armed forces and businessmen. The stated goal of many of these guerrillas’ goal, ironically, was to force the return of the fascist Perón, whom they delusionally saw as the key to their own socialist revolution.

The period between 1955 and 1973 was a blur of political turmoil, a repeating cycle of military coups followed by fragile democratic governments. Trying to explain the dynamics of this time would require an entire essay of its own. This chaos culminated in 1973 with the return of Perón himself, after the elected Peronist president, Héctor Campora, resigned so that new elections could be held. The day Perón arrived, his own orthodox faction massacred the leftist Peronist youth who had gathered to welcome him, an event now known as the “Ezeiza Massacre.” After winning the subsequent election, Perón declared open war on the leftist “subversives,” calling them “callow and stupid” during a Labor Day speech in Plaza de Mayo. One important reason for this was the 1973 murder of Ignacio Rucci, a syndicalist very close to Perón. Under his democratic government, and before the 1976 coup even began, over 600 people were forcibly disappeared.⁷⁰

After Perón died of an illness in 1974, he was succeeded by his politically weightless and inept wife, who was merely a puppet for her right-hand man, the bizarre esoteric fascist José López Rega. It was López Rega who ran Perón’s paramilitary death squad, the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A). And it was Isabel Perón who, in 1975, signed the infamous “Annihilation Decrees,” which gave the military formal, legal license to “annihilate” anyone deemed a subversive. The Dirty War, in effect, was legally authorized by a democratic government before the first soldier of the 1976 junta ever left his barracks.

The power vacuum left by Perón’s untimely demise plunged Argentina into a state of paranoia and terror.⁷¹ Leftist guerrillas were engaged in a campaign of assassination that, in just a few years, claimed more lives than ETA’s decades-long conflict in Spain.⁷² The chaos was so profound that broad sectors of society, including many Peronists, were willing to welcome a military intervention to “restore order.”⁷³ This desperation was amplified by the geopolitical context: at the time, virtually every neighboring country was ruled by a US-backed military dictatorship that had already brutally “solved” its own guerrilla problem. In other words, military regimes in the region were not an exception; they were the rule. The 1976 coup wasn’t a case of an attack on a successful democracy, but rather, it was the final, tragic act in a Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

Naturally, this context is not an excuse. It is an explanation. The desires of the majority are no justification for tyranny, though the world often mistakes what is popular for what is just. The truth is that the leftist guerrillas, despite their campaign of terror, never posed a true existential threat to the Argentine State. Their numbers were hardly above 3000~ active members between all groups at any given time. They had limited access to firearms and munitions. The populace did not support them. For them to seize power through force could only happen in a fiction story.

The military, however—whether through paranoia, incompetence, or pure malice—chose to believe they did. They acted on this belief with savage disproportionality. The result was the systematic forceful disappearance, torture, and summary execution of thousands. While some of the victims were indeed terrorists, the vast majority were innocent civilians, unionists, students, and intellectuals. To be merely suspected of dissent was, often, a death sentence.

With the history lesson over, it is the time to address Carson’s claims, starting with the most symbolic: Milei’s refusal to accept the 30,000 forcefully disappeared victims of the junta. Let me be blunt: 30,000 is not a real number. It is not statistical data. It is merely a political symbol,⁷⁴ one that carries an important moral weight, but has no credible epistemological basis. To question this number is not so much denialism as it is a demand for historical accuracy.

Carson’s concern here is not for the truth. He is merely repeating an empty, decades-old political catechism that weaponizes the dead for a simple purpose: to create a “moral” bright line that allows any political opponent to be smeared by association with the rather-eclectic junta.⁷⁵ It is a discourse designed not to uncover truth, but to enforce ideological conformity.

This inevitably leads to a question that has haunted Argentina for almost 50 years now: what is the actual number of victims? The foundational 1984 research effort from CONADEP identified only 8,961 cases of forced disappearance. A more recent 2015 study by RUVTE arrived at a similar figure of 8,631.⁷⁶ These are the only official State-sponsored counts of the desaparecidos, and these are the numbers Milei and his allies typically cite.

However, these numbers are concerningly incomplete. Many cases of disappearances were never reported for a variety of reasons (trauma, fear, rural areas, etc.), but most importantly, these numbers do not include those confirmed killed. According to a 2003 research effort from the Secretariat of Human Rights, the total number of fatal victims of the junta was around 13,000.⁷⁷ However, just as not all disappeared were ever reported, so was the case with the dead.

So where does this leave us? In 2020, a netizen by the name of Spinoff published a blog post which tried to cut through the political noise. The 80,000-word analysis written by this person reached the following conclusion: the number of victims between 1975 and 1984 was close to 20,000.⁷⁸ The researcher backed this claim through an extensive compilation of intelligence reports, military claims, and research by various other people. This analysis stands to this day as the most extensive and intellectually honest case against both the bad-faith reductionism of the right and the bad-faith inflation of the left.

While this article sprung a thorough, long debate with an acquaintance over its methodology and validity,⁷⁹ one thing is true: Carson criticizes Milei for denying a false number by citing what is, in effect, another false number. Milei, whether through malice or ignorance, often cites only the incomplete data on the desaparecidos as if it were the final death toll. This is an epistemological error. Carson’s mistake, however, is to conflate this epistemological error with a moral one. He takes a flawed historical claim and falsely presents it as proof of an anti-libertarian, denialist stance.

Libertarianism is not a historical methodology. It does not prescribe how history must be interpreted, nor which specific set of facts one must accept. Parroting an inaccurate historical narrative may be an epistemological failure, but to claim it is also a moral or ideological failure is a leap of pure inference.

If we applied Carson’s standard consistently, then shouldn’t we revoke Murray Rothbard’s “libertarian license” for arguing Allied provocation helped start World War II, or that the US entered the war for imperialist reasons, rather than humanitarian ones? Do we excommunicate libertarians who argue the Holodomor claimed 3.5 million lives instead of 6 million? Do we cast out those who question the death tolls of the Mongol invasions?

Of course not. We are not talking about outright denial or glorification of atrocities. We are talking about a disagreement over numbers, born from the difficult and partial interpretation of historical data. To treat such a disagreement as a betrayal of principle is not only absurd, but tribalistic.

Carson or his supporters could now simply claim that Milei has no good reason to deny the 30,000 figure, and that doing so is a backdoor attempt to legitimize the State’s actions. Perhaps Milei is simply ignorant, or perhaps he is pandering to conservatives. His exact motives remain speculative. However, I fail to see how it is necessary to lie in order to delegitimize the State.

First, If the 30,000 number is an anti-State symbol (and not just political virtue signaling), then why has the State tried to illegalize the denial of this number?⁸⁰ More importantly, if the goal is to delegitimize the State by highlighting its atrocities, why settle for 30,000? Why not 60,000? Why not 300,000? At what point do we concede that using lies to advance our cause is ultimately self-defeating and makes us no different to our enemy? That is a lesson I hope both sides of this debate, including Milei himself, will eventually learn.

And for those who still insist the 30,000 number is necessary to convey the true horror of the junta, I ask a simple question: are you arguing that the evil of the State is quantitative, not absolute? Or in other words, are you implying that the State can only be condemned once it has killed a sufficiently large number of people? If so, then the statist conference is down the hall. They have rooms on both the left and the right.

I will not deny that certain figures close to Milei, most notably Vice President Victoria Villarruel, have made concerning statements about the dictatorship and have refused to condemn the junta in unequivocal terms. However, it is also a fact that Villarruel has been largely sidelined within the administration precisely because of her nationalist and statist views.⁸¹

To leap from this single, controversial figure to the claim that Milei and his entire government are “denialists” is an extraordinary leap of logic, though. It requires far more evidence than Carson provides. A disagreement over a symbolic number and a historically-grounded description of the period as a “war” are not proof of apology for mass murder. They are proof only of a different, more complex interpretation of a tragic history, whether wrong or right.

As a final note: for a would-be “denialist” or “apologist”, Milei seems to be confused: he has ordered the declassification of all secret archives pertaining to the military’s actions during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.⁸² Last time I checked, denialists hide evidence; they do not release it. This single policy action reveals more about his true intent than any debate over a symbolic number ever could.

Free Market, or Pro-Corporate?

Carson’s final claim—that Milei’s reforms are merely “pro-corporate” and pander to “billionaires, 20-something channers and cryptobros”—is also in a close competition for the laziest of them all, as well as being quite revealing. By this point in his essay, it becomes clear that the pretense of a well-informed critique has been abandoned completely, if it ever existed to begin with. What remains is an emotionally-driven attack, indicting Milei for the unforgivable sin of acknowledging that reality has constraints.

I would have certainly appreciated it had Carson decided to even remotely develop his point. Instead, he resorted to an empty strawman and called it a day. His intellectual dishonesty is not just evident, but palpable. So let me ask him directly: how, exactly, are Milei’s policies “pro-corporate” and not pro-market?

• Is it “pro-corporate” to abolish price controls?^{83 84}
• Is it “pro-corporate” to slash the inflation that benefits indebted legacy firms at the expense of savers?
• Is it pro-corporate to pass labor reforms—vocally supported by over 2,000 SMEs⁸⁵—that make it easier for small businesses to hire?
• Is it “pro-corporate” to offer tax pardons of up to 90% and benefits specifically to SMEs?⁸⁶
• Is it “pro-corporate” to lift currency exchange quotas and let the exchange rate float freely?⁸⁷
• Is it “pro-corporate” to restore contractual law by erasing State-mandated severance packages?⁸⁸
• Is it “pro-corporate” to pass a mini-RIGI investment scheme and lift import restrictions for SMEs?⁸⁹

Milei has waged war on the bureaucracy that strangles small businesses.⁹⁰ The results speak for themselves: Carson is proven empirically wrong by a 25.5% year-over-year increase in SME sales.⁹¹ Mr. Carson, did you know of the existence of search engines like Google? Or do you ignore evidence when it is not convenient for you?

To understand the significance of these reforms, one must understand the cage they are breaking. For decades, Argentine industry operated under an Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) scheme that strangled competition. This system monopolized the market, making basic goods like technology or clothing absurdly expensive compared to the rest of the region.^{92 93} The result did not resemble a competitive market, but a zoo, where politically-connected corporations used regulatory capture as their license to hunt.

Under this system, imports were treated as a sin, systematically suppressed through outright bans, prohibitive taxes, punitive exchange rates, and, when all else failed, outright theft by customs officials themselves.⁹⁴ Milei’s reforms are not “pro-corporate”; they are an attack on this entire corrupt, corporatist system.

Please, Kevin. We are both adults—you more so than I. If we are to take ourselves seriously as thinkers, then we must substantiate our claims, not build them on conjecture or misinterpretation. Failing that, I invite you to name Milei’s specific policies that are “anti-small business,” or that aim to create the American-style corporatocracy which all libertarians have learned to fear. For you, I am all ears.

But there’s always the possibility that this whole thing was a big misunderstanding. It’s possible that Carson’s critique is simply an excellent showcase of post-irony. I am not a published author, though, so it is perhaps not my place to judge.

The View from the Trenches, and the View from the Ivory Tower

So far, this essay has focused on the specifics of Kevin Carson’s critique, but it is his method that is truly flawed. I will concede, as any honest interlocutor must, that he makes some valid points, which I will address momentarily. But the overwhelming impression left by his article is that of a biased, reductionist attack on an immensely complex subject. He approaches the chaos of a nation on the brink of collapse not as a realist, but as a purist theorist, applying a static, idealized model to a dynamic and broken reality.

His false equivalences to politicians with whom Milei shares no real policy, his wild conjectures about economic effects he has not researched about, and his complete failure to engage with the substance of the reforms themselves—this is the quality of analysis one expects to find in the comments section of a Reddit post. It is not what one expects from a published author, let alone a renowned contributor to the libertarian movement.

What I can’t help but to see in his criticism is the vision of a man up in his ivory tower. Mr. Carson, you have the luxury of theorizing from a nation that has never truly collapsed. Mr. Carson, neither you nor your countrymen have ever seen your currency debased into worthlessness, suffered hyperinflation, endured a military dictatorship, or had your State systematically run as a kleptocracy. The average American has never known the desperate necessity to escape their homeland, a necessity that has driven nearly two million Argentines into exile since 2013 alone.⁹⁵ This is not to say America is without its problems. But a simple thought experiment proves the chasm between our worlds: ask anyone, anywhere, which country they would rather live in. The answer tells you everything you need to know about which is freer, and which is closer to the abyss.

I do not write this to insult you, or those who share your view. On the contrary, I am an admirer of your work and the left-libertarian tradition in general, even if I believe it to have flaws. But my view is not from the seminar room; it is from the trenches. When you are looking down the barrel of a life of abject misery, when your neck is about to be broken by the boot of a collapsing State, the demand for ideological purity is a luxury one cannot afford. It is quickly replaced by a desperate, realist, and consequentialist cry for survival.

Reality is this complex interconnection of near-infinite, ever-changing variables, and much of libertarian theory inevitably requires certain pre-existing conditions—lack of coercion, respect for contracts, a functioning civil society—that in Argentina, simply do not exist. It is therefore impossible to ask for purity where none can realistically exist in practice. Milei is not a monarch. His power is limited, his political support is fragile, and his detractors are constantly waiting for an opportunity to depose him, just as they did with President De La Rúa in 2001.

He is a lone libertarian in a sea of statists, surrounded by neoconservatives of convenience. He is attempting to reform a nation whose institutions, from the federal to the local level, are a massive spider web of entrenched interests from hundreds of groups with their own agendas, interests, stakes and mechanisms to abuse State power. One could simply not explain the degree to which this nation’s institutions have been ruined. The idea that any president, let alone a libertarian, could navigate this landscape while remaining ideologically pristine is wishful thinking at best. This does not shield Milei from all criticism, but to compare him to a true autocrat like Putin is, frankly, absurd.

Ultimately, the question of whether Milei is a “true” libertarian is a sterile, semantic debate. The relevant question is this: can anyone name another political leader in recent history who has attempted reforms this radical, this anti-statist? In a world where the unquestioned statu quo is that the State is our savior, Milei stands virtually alone. He is flawed. He is inconsistent. He might not even be truly libertarian, but he is the best hand the libertarian movement has been dealt in a century. His presidency is the first real-world, high-stakes opportunity to prove that our ideas are not delusional fantasies—that economic deregulation, a smaller State, and respect for private property and individual liberties are not just theoretically sound, but practically superior to any statist alternatives.

While you may focus on whether Milei falls under a particular label or not, Mr. Carson, I’d much rather focus on the content of his policies, and their result, which have been nothing short of miraculous (or expected, rather):

• Monthly inflation has collapsed from 25.5% to 1.5%, the lowest number since May 2020.⁹⁶
• Argentina’s long-term debt rating has been upgraded.⁹⁷
• The poverty rate has plummeted from 52.9% to 31.6%.⁹⁸
• The economy is forecasted to grow by 5.5% in 2025, surpassing China’s growth.⁹⁹

• Household consumption increased to match 2008 levels.¹⁰⁰

• Real wages are once again rising above inflation.¹⁰¹

This is just a sample of the data. These are the direct consequences of Milei’s sweeping reforms. So, unless I have fundamentally misunderstood our own philosophy, and these policies—fiscal discipline, deregulation, sound money, respect for contracts and voluntary association—are not libertarian in essence, then what is happening in Argentina today is the first great empirical proof of our ideas in the 21st century.

An honest assessment, however, must also acknowledge Milei’s flaws. He is no anarcho-capitalist saint. Since taking office, he has at times drifted toward a more neoconservative, statist approach on certain issues. On this, Carson is not wrong: the proposals for AI-powered crime prediction, the restrictions on anonymous access to public information, the increased defense spending—these are all moves in the wrong direction which I have no interest in defending.

Milei’s personal judgment and his handling of his inner circle have also been a source of concern. The bizarre $LIBRA cryptocurrency promotion-turned-scam, for which he was later acquitted, was a disaster of his own making that rightly called his reliability into question. Similarly, it was simply despicable when Santiago Caputo, son of the economy minister “Toto” Caputo, and Milei’s right-hand, interrupted an interview when Milei began making claims that could put him in a bind.¹⁰² These are not the actions of a flawless libertarian hero. They are the actions of a flawed man navigating an impossible situation. Actions that should be criticized.

Whether these statist drifts are born from Milei’s own convictions or are pragmatic concessions to his neoconservative allies is, for now, impossible to know. What is clear is that these policies are difficult, if not impossible, to defend from any libertarian perspective. But this kind of nuanced, pragmatic critique is not what interests Mr. Carson at all, it would seem.

The truth is, I doubt he would have written a single word about Argentina had the Peronist candidate, Sergio Massa—architect of the 2022-2023 crisis as “super minister”—won the election. If Argentina were now descending into a Venezuela-style collapse under a deeply statist, leftist government, would Carson be dedicating his time to critiquing its policies? I suspect not. It seems that for some, the label is all that matters. As long as the tyrant is not called a “libertarian,” his tyranny and its victims are of no concern.

This is the closest the modern world has come to an actual libertarian experiment. It is certainly not the end of the road, but it is the first, crucial step toward a world where our ideas are finally taken seriously. Rome was not built in a day, nor was it built by purists. What, then, do we gain by endlessly debating labels and semantics? We risk losing everything. If our purist infighting allows Milei to be defined as just another “conservative” or “neoliberal,” then those movements will claim his successes as their own. Perhaps, a decade from now, statists will be using Milei’s name, while applying the opposite to his policies, like they did with the American founding fathers. And libertarianism will remain exactly what its critics claim it is: a permanent niche, an irrelevant ideology for online teenagers and corporate CEOs.

This is the view from the trenches, Mr. Carson, and in the trenches, there’s no space for doubt; it is kill or be killed.

Footnotes

1 Carson, K. (2025, July 15). Everything but the helicopters. . . Center for a Stateless Society. https://c4ss.org/content/60533

2 Smink, V. (2020, August 21). Coronavirus en Argentina: los efectos que está teniendo la cuarentena más larga del mundo sobre los argentinos. BBC News Mundo. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-53857858

3 Wikipedia contributors. (2025, April 5). Argentine COVID-19 vaccination scandal. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_COVID-19_vaccination_scandal

4 Coordinadora contra la Represión Policial e Institucional. (2020, August 16). Cuarentena: 92 personas asesinadas por el aparato represivo estatal. CORREPI. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.correpi.org/2020/los-datos-de-la-represion-en-pandemia-al-9-8-2020/

5 Argentine president says Brazilians “came from the jungle”, sparking uproar. (2021, June 9). Reuters. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentine-president-says-brazilians-came-jungle-sparking-uproar-2021-06-09/

6 Moreno, C. M. (2024, January 11). Argentina closes 2023 with skyrocketing inflation unseen in 34 years. EFE Noticias. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://efe.com/en/economy/2024-01-11/argentina-closes-2023-with-skyrocketing-inflation-unseen-in-34-years/

7 Myself. (2025, July 19). The Israel trap. A Withered Remnant. https://awitheredremnant.substack.com/p/the-israel-trap

8 Hansen, K. M. (2025, February 6). Hoppe versus Milei on Central Banking: Breaking Down the Differences. Mises Institute. https://mises.org/mises-wire/hoppe-versus-milei-central-banking-breaking-down-differences

9 Rough localization to English; the original phrase in Spanish was “Libertarado”, a mix of “libertario” and “tarado”, which is an insult akin to “stupid”.

10 Bases para la reconstrucción de la economía argentina – Decreto 70/2023. (2023, December 21). [Press release]. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/decreto-70-2023-395521/texto

11 Reuters. (2024, March 14). Argentina Senate rejects economic “mega decree” in blow for Milei. Reuters. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-economic-mega-decree-faces-senate-debate-test-milei-2024-03-14/

12 Boletín Oficial de la República Argentina – Ministerio de Seguridad – Resolución 943/2023. (2023, December 14). [Press release]. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.boletinoficial.gob.ar/detalleAviso/primera/300917/20231215

13 Klipphan, A. (2024, May 15). Quiénes son los piqueteros involucrados en la causa por extorsión y los jefes de las organizaciones investigadas. Infobae. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/politica/2024/05/15/quienes-son-los-piqueteros-involucrados-en-la-causa-por-extorsion-y-los-jefes-de-las-organizaciones-investigadas/

14 Obarrio, M. (2022, May 3). Beneficiarios de planes sociales denuncian que los obligan a ir a las marchas o pagar para no perder su ingreso. A24. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.a24.com/politica/beneficiarios-planes-sociales-denuncian-que-los-obligan-ir-las-marchas-o-pagar-no-perder-su-ingreso-n1013989

15 Many welfare programs in Argentina, until before Milei, did not have State funds given directly to the welfare recipients, but rather, to a middle-man, commonly known as a puntero. These punteros would often receive all the funding for the welfare programs for the people in a given neighborhood, and would then use it as leverage to force them to go to political protests, while also generally keeping a percentage of said State funding for themselves. This is nothing new, and has been happening for over a decade:

Redacción Perfil. (2009, February 2). Un estudio revela cómo los punteros políticos canjean planes sociales por favores personales. Perfil. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.perfil.com/noticias/politica/un-estudio-revela-como-los-punteros-politicos-canjean-planes-sociales-por-favores-personales-20090202-0002.phtml

Di Nicola, G. (2024, May 6). Cayó otra banda que conseguía planes sociales y se quedaba con la mitad del dinero de los beneficiarios. La Nación. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.lanacion.com.ar/seguridad/cayo-otra-banda-que-conseguia-planes-sociales-y-se-quedaba-con-parte-del-dinero-de-los-beneficiarios-nid06052024/

16 Carrió, T. (2022, December 7). Piquetes récord en Argentina: el dato que alerta al Gobierno argentino en diciembre. Bloomberg Línea. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.bloomberglinea.com/2022/12/07/piquetes-record-en-argentina-el-dato-que-vuelve-a-encender-las-alarmas-en-diciembre/

17 infobae. (2022, June 28). Un camionero murió luego de ser atacado a piedrazos cuando quiso evitar un piquete de transportistas. Infobae. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/policiales/2022/06/28/un-camionero-murio-al-volcar-con-su-vehiculo-luego-de-ser-atacado-a-piedrazos-cuando-quiso-esquivar-una-protesta-de-transportistas/

18 Luján, E. (2023, July 19). Defensoría pide a manifestantes permitir pase de ambulancias: Derecho a protestar no debe afectar derecho a la salud. Infobae. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/peru/2023/07/19/defensoria-pide-a-manifestantes-permitir-pase-de-ambulancias-derecho-a-protestar-no-debe-afectar-derecho-a-la-salud/

19 Giménez, J., & Tarricone, M. (2024, January 24). Qué establece el protocolo “antipiquetes” del gobierno de Javier Milei – Chequeado. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://chequeado.com/el-explicador/que-establece-el-nuevo-protocolo-antipiquetes-del-gobierno-de-javier-milei/

20 Rothbard, M. N. (1992). Right-Wing populism: a strategy for the Paleo movement. Rothbard-Rockwell Report, p. 9. Retrieved from https://www.rothbard.it/articles/right-wing-populism.pdf

21 Giménez, J. (2024, June 12). Empresas del Estado: cómo evolucionaron el déficit operativo, los aportes del Tesoro y el número de empleados. Chequeado. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://chequeado.com/el-explicador/empresas-del-estado-como-evolucionaron-el-deficit-operativo-los-aportes-del-tesoro-y-el-numero-de-empleados/

22 Genera, F. D. (2015). Cristina al gobierno, ¿La Cámpora al poder? Un Análisis de la organización kirchnerista. In XI Jornadas de Sociología. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires. https://cdsa.aacademica.org/000-061/829.pdf

23 Sohr, O. (2016, February 10). Costantini: “Son 12.200 [empleados en aerolíneas argentinas] (. . .) hay un exceso.” Chequeado. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://chequeado.com/ultimas-noticias/costantini-son-12-200-empleados-en-aerolineas-argentinas-hay-un-exceso/

24 Giménez, J. (2025, May 20). Mauricio Macri: “El Gobierno no cerró ni privatizó ninguna empresa pública” – chequeado. Chequeado. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://chequeado.com/ultimas-noticias/mauricio-macri-el-gobierno-no-cerro-ni-privatizo-ninguna-empresa-publica/

25 Cabot, D. (2023, December 21). Decreto: Javier Milei allanó el camino para entregar Aerolíneas a los empleados de la empresa. La Nación. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.lanacion.com.ar/economia/decreto-milei-allano-el-camino-para-entregar-a-aerolineas-a-los-empleados-de-la-empresa-nid20122023/

26 Página/12. (2023, November 22). Biró a Milei: “Si se quiere cargar Aerolíneas, nos va a tener que matar literalmente”. Página/12. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.pagina12.com.ar/686139-biro-a-milei-si-se-quiere-cargar-aerolineas-nos-va-a-tener-q

27 Zalazar, M. (2025, May 11). Paros durante el gobierno de Milei: el costo económico ya supera los USD 1.000 millones. Infobae. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/economia/2025/05/11/paros-durante-el-gobierno-de-milei-el-costo-economico-ya-supera-los-usd-1000-millones/

28 Ventre, F. B., & Vijarra, V. (2022, August). Argentina es el país con mayor conflictividad laboral del mundo ¿Qué provincias lideran el ranking? Bolsa De Comercio De Córdoba. Retrieved July 29, 2025, from https://www.bolsacba.com.ar/instituto-de-investigaciones-economicas/detalle-informe/144/

29 Marin, L. (2024, August 18). Educación, servicio esencial. Hay provincias que ya perdieron 38 días de clase durante este ciclo lectivo. La Nación. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.lanacion.com.ar/sociedad/educacion-servicio-esencial-hay-provincias-que-ya-perdieron-38-dias-de-clase-durante-este-ciclo-nid18082024/

30 Riccobene, A. (2019, May 29). Paro general: ¿cuál es el nivel de sindicalización en la Argentina? Chequeado. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://chequeado.com/el-explicador/paro-general-cual-es-el-nivel-de-sindicalizacion-en-la-argentina/

31 Grimaldi, I. (2025, March 22). El “lado B” del paro de la CGT: los aportes sindicales de los no afiliados. La Nación. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/el-lado-b-del-paro-de-la-cgt-los-aportes-sindicales-de-los-no-afiliados-nid22032025/

32 Ley N^o 23.551. (1988, April 22). Retrieved July 30, 2025, from https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/ley-23551-20993/actualizacion

33 Ferrer, F. (2022, September 27). Sindicalistas de Camioneros ingresaron a una empresa y golpearon salvajemente al dueño y a los empleados. Infobae. Retrieved July 30, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/politica/2022/09/26/sindicalistas-de-camioneros-ingresaron-a-una-empresa-y-golpearon-salvajemente-al-dueno-y-a-los-empleados/

34 Carabajal, G. (2024, May 9). Detuvieron a una patota del gremio de Camioneros por extorsionar a empresas de transporte. La Nación. Retrieved July 30, 2025, from https://www.lanacion.com.ar/seguridad/detuvieron-a-una-patota-del-gremio-de-camioneros-por-extorsionar-a-empresas-de-transporte-nid09052024/

35 Ruralnet. (2025, July 25). Imputan a ocho sindicalistas de ATILRA por bloqueos y amenazas contra Lácteos Vidal. Ruralnet. Retrieved July 30, 2025, from https://ruralnet.com.ar/2025/07/25/imputan-a-ocho-sindicalistas-de-atilra-por-bloqueos-y-amenazas-contra-lacteos-vidal/

36 Meaños, F. (2020, July 17). El sindicato de Camioneros de Moyano bloquea depósitos de Mercado Libre y peligra la entrega de productos. Infobae. Retrieved July 30, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/economia/2020/07/16/el-sindicato-de-camioneros-bloqueo-depositos-de-mercado-libre-y-peligra-la-entrega-de-productos/

37 González Senén, C., Trajtemberg, D., & Medwid, B. (2010). Tendencias actuales de la afiliación sindical en Argentina: evidencias de una encuesta a empresas. Relations Industrielles / Industrial Relations, 65(1), 23078258. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23078258?seq=1

38 Marshall, A. (2021). Re‐explorando la sindicalización en la Argentina y sus determinantes: ¿fisuras en las pautas tradicionales? Trabajo Y Sociedad, 22(37), ISSN 1514–6871. https://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1514-68712021000200167

39 Marina, R., & Ferreiro, I. (2025, April 9). Tercer paro general contra Javier Milei: ¿qué presidentes enfrentaron más medidas de fuerza desde 1983? Chequeado. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://chequeado.com/el-explicador/tercer-paro-general-contra-javier-milei-que-presidentes-enfrentaron-mas-medidas-de-fuerza-desde-1983/

40 infobae. (2023, May 26). Cerraron 12.000 empresas en los últimos tres años, con un promedio de 80 por semana. Infobae. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/economia/2023/05/26/cerraron-12000-empresas-en-los-ultimos-tres-anos-con-un-promedio-de-80-por-semana/

41 Chequeado. (2024, January 3). ¿Qué país dejó Alberto Fernández? Chequeado. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://chequeado.com/balance-alberto-fernandez/

42 El Cronista. (2024, March 27). El Gobierno dará de baja más de 11 mil cooperativas por “irregularidades.” El Cronista. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.cronista.com/economia-politica/el-gobierno-anuncio-que-dara-de-baja-11-mil-cooperativas-por-irregularidades/

43 I will concede to the fact that the statistics cited come directly from a government official. A libertarian’s first—and most justified—reaction should be not to trust it, but also to ask one question of incentives: what would the Milei administration gain by baselessly revoking the licenses of thousands of legitimate cooperatives, knowing the immense political, economic and social backlash such an action would provoke? In the absence of any coherent answers, the most logical explanation remains that the data, even if imprecise or manipulated, points to a real and substantial problem of corruption.

This said, I have consulted the corresponding State agencies in order to obtain the sources of this data, and compiled them in the following link:

Myself. (2025, August 6). Appendix: Links to documents regarding the 2024 cooperative audits. Pastebin. Retrieved August 6, 2025, from https://pastebin.com/vBFP6RJg

44 Gobierno de Argentina. (2023, April 21). Aclaraciones de la ministra Victoria Tolosa Paz sobre Potenciar. Argentina.gob.ar. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.argentina.gob.ar/noticias/aclaraciones-de-la-ministra-victoria-tolosa-paz-sobre-potenciar-trabajo

45 Gobierno de Argentina. (2023, April 20). Finalizó la validación de datos del Potenciar Trabajo. Argentina.gob.ar. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.argentina.gob.ar/noticias/finalizo-la-validacion-de-datos-del-potenciar-trabajo

46 Ministerio de Capital Humano. (2024, January 25). Boletín Oficial de la República Argentina – Ministerio de Capital Humano – Resolución 13/2024. boletinoficial.gob.ar. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.boletinoficial.gob.ar/detalleAviso/primera/302141/20240129

47 Hoppe, H.-H (2014, September 30). A realistic libertarianism. LewRockwell.com. p. 18. https://cdn.mises.org/A%20Realistic%20Libertarianism.pdf

48 Ibid, p. 19.

49 Rothbard, M. N. (1984). Nations by Consent: Decomposing the Nation-State. Journal of Libertarian Studies, 11–1 (Fall 1994), p. 7. https://mises.org/journal-libertarian-studies/nations-consent-decomposing-nation-state

50 Hoppe, H.-H. (2002). Natural order, the state, and the immigration problem. Journal of Libertarian Studies, 16–1 (Winter 2002), p. 92. https://cdn.mises.org/16_1_5.pdf

51 Ámbito. (2025, June 21). Irán lanzó una amenaza contra el argentino Rafael Grossi, director del OIEA: “Nos ocuparemos de él.” Ámbito. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.ambito.com/mundo/iran-lanzo-una-amenaza-contra-el-argentino-rafael-grossi-director-del-oiea-nos-ocuparemos-el-n6158877

52 Lugones, P. (2025, July 16). Irán señaló a Argentina y a Javier Milei por “respaldar las acciones militares del régimen sionista.” Clarín. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.clarin.com/politica/iran-senalo-argentina-javier-milei-respaldar-acciones-militares-regimen-sionista_0_Q2CF5gIspf.html

53 Redacción. (2024, April 12). AMIA: la justicia argentina responsabiliza a Irán y Hezbolá del atentado de 1994 contra el centro judío, que considera un “crimen de lesa humanidad.” BBC News Mundo. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/cjr7dpxl07zo

54 Infobae. (2024, September 10). El hospital de Orán pasó de atender 300 personas por semana a un promedio de 5 tras el inicio del cobro a los extranjeros. Infobae. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/politica/2024/09/10/el-hospital-de-oran-paso-de-atender-300-personas-por-semana-a-un-promedio-de-5/

55 Infobae (2022, July 11). Un argentino murió en Bolivia luego de que le negaran atención médica y Cancillería elevará una protesta formal. Infobae. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/politica/2022/07/11/un-argentino-murio-en-bolivia-luego-de-que-le-negaran-atencion-medica-y-cancilleria-elevara-una-protesta-formal/

56 Firpo, J. (2023, September 15). Lo apuñalaron en Bolivia y denuncian que no lo atendieron: “No nos vamos a quedar con una sola versión”, dijo el embajador argentino. Clarín. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.clarin.com/sociedad/apunalaron-bolivia-denuncian-atendieron-dice-familia-podria-falta-grave-dijo-embajador-argentino_0_hK3gwkyF1h.html

57 Marina, R. (2024, December 3). Extranjeros en las universidades argentinas: representan menos del 5% del total de estudiantes – Chequeado. Chequeado. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://chequeado.com/el-explicador/extranjeros-en-las-universidades-argentinas-representan-menos-del-5-del-total-de-estudiantes/

58 Williams, B. (2024, May 10). No, Milei is not a fascist. Mises Institute. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://mises.org/mises-wire/no-milei-not-fascist

59 Grainger, J. (2025, July 16). Trump backs Argentina in legal bid to suspend YPF share handover. Buenos Aires Times. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://batimes.com.ar/news/economy/trump-backs-argentina-in-legal-bid-to-suspend-ypf-share-handover.phtml

60 Buenos Aires Herald. (2025, July 28). Argentina begins entry into US program that would allow visa-free travel. Buenos Aires Herald. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://buenosairesherald.com/world/international-relations/argentina-begins-entry-into-us-program-that-would-allow-visa-free-travel

61 Sánchez, G., & Niebieskikwiat, N. (2021, November 4). Javier Milei: “No voy a cobrar mi dieta y voy a hacer un sistema de donaciones para que la gente me pague lo que ellos quieran.” Clarín. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.clarin.com/politica/javier-milei-voy-cobrar-dieta-voy-hacer-sistema-donaciones-gente-pague-quieran-_0_rkok59xBY.html

62 Molina, F. R. (2023, August 15). What’s going on inside Javier Milei’s head? El País English. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-08-15/whats-going-on-inside-javier-mileis-head.html

63 El Cronista. (2023, August 15). Javier Milei dijo que piensa en un plebiscito para anular el aborto: “No es un derecho ganado.” El Cronista. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.cronista.com/economia-politica/javier-milei-dijo-que-piensa-en-un-plebiscito-para-anular-el-aborto-no-es-un-derecho-ganado/

64 Greig, S. M., Coundouris, S. P., Fletcher, G. L., Henry, J. D., & Von Hippel, C. (2022). The help that hinders? a meta-analysis of reactions to affirmative action. In European Journal of Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2991

65 Redacción Clarín (2021, September 23). “Cambié de género y ahora soy la primera mujer con nombre de hombre en el país”, la broma machista que se fue de las manos. Clarín. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://www.clarin.com/viste/-cambie-genero-ahora-primera-mujer-nombre-hombre-pais-broma-machista-manos_0_vwuDyZAxv.html

66 Infobae. (2024, August 11). Fabiola Yañez pidió ayuda al Ministerio de la Mujer pero nadie la asistió. Infobae. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/politica/2024/08/11/fabiola-yanez-pidio-ayuda-al-ministerio-de-la-mujer-pero-nadie-la-asistio/

67 Fesquet, S. (2024, August 19). Sexo, usos y abusos del peronismo en el poder. Clarín. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.clarin.com/opinion/sexo-usos-abusos-peronismo-poder_0_ZhcKNhUqeu.html

68 Agencia Presentes. (2024, May 6). Aumentaron los crímenes de odio LGBT en Argentina durante 2023. Agencia Presentes. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://agenciapresentes.org/2024/05/02/aumentaron-los-crimenes-de-odio-lgbt-en-argentina-durante-2023/

69 Roffo, J. (2025, March 9). 8M: los femicidios cayeron 8,4% en 2024, según cifras oficiales. Infobae. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/2025/03/09/8m-los-femicidios-cayeron-84-en-2024-segun-cifras-oficiales/

70 Sued, G. (2020, July 8). Hubo 600 desaparecidos antes del 76. La Nación. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/hubo-600-desaparecidos-antes-del-76-nid875007

71 Campos Pereira, D. (2025, March 24). Dictadura militar en Argentina: causas y consecuencias. Politize! Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://politize.org.ar/dictadura-militar-en-argentina-causas-y-consecuencias/

72 Reato, C. (2021, January 29). Montoneros y el ERP mataron más que ETA y en menos tiempo. La Nación. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.lanacion.com.ar/opinion/montoneros-erp-mataron-mas-eta-menos-tiempo-nid2547514

73 Redacción Clarín (2023, March 24). Golpe de Estado de 1976: cronología y secretos de cómo se gestó una de las etapas más oscuras de la Argentina. Clarín. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://www.clarin.com/politica/golpe-de-estado-de-1976-cronologia-y-secretos-de-como-se-gesto-una-de-las-etapas-mas-oscuras-de-la-argentina_0_jd3VPZLaK.html

74 Da Silva Catela, L. (2025, February 3). Son 30.000. Museo De Antropología. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://museoantropologia.unc.edu.ar/2024/03/son-30-000/

75 Centenera, M. (2016, August 13). Insultos y piedras contra Mauricio Macri en un acto oficial. El País Argentina. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://elpais.com/internacional/2016/08/12/argentina/1471017015_149766.html

76 De Vedia, M. (2024, April 4). Lejos de los 30.000, la Conadep registró 8961 víctimas. La Nación. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/el-numero-de-30000-desaparecidos-esta-lejos-de-las-victimas-registradas-por-la-conadep-nid25032024

77 Calvo, P. (2003, October 6). Una duda histórica: no se sabe cuántos son los desaparecidos. Clarín. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://web.archive.org/web/20110818233900/http://edant.clarin.com/diario/2003/10/06/p-00801.htm

78 Spinoff. (2025, April 26). En Argentina hubo 20.000 desaparecidos desde 1975 a 1984. Explicación (Con fuentes) – Refutación a Luis Labraña – Posición Nominalista VS Posición innominada en la cifra de desapariciones. Spine-off. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://spineoff.blogspot.com/2020/01/en-argentina-hubo-20000-desaparecidos.html?m=1

79 Myself. (2025, July 29). Sin título [Respuesta a Adam]. Pastebin. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://pastebin.com/85VZbCS9

Adam. (2025, July 30). Notas. Rentry.co. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://rentry.co/i2ac7kr2

Myself. (2025b, July 30). Respuesta al amigo Adam. Pastebin. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://pastebin.com/Wc2CvHRQ

80 Televisión Pública. (2023, November 7). Una ley contra el negacionismo recorre el Congreso. Televisión Pública. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://www.tvpublica.com.ar/post/una-ley-contra-el-negacionismo-recorre-el-congreso

81 Chaves, F. (2025, July 17). Milei, Villarruel y una pelea tóxica en la cima del poder con impacto institucional y final abierto. Infobae. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/politica/2025/07/17/milei-villarruel-y-una-pelea-toxica-en-la-cima-del-poder-con-impacto-institucional-y-final-abierto/

82 Giménez, J. (2025a, March 26). El Gobierno de Javier Milei anunció que desclasificará archivos sobre el accionar de las Fuerzas Armadas durante la dictadura. Chequeado. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://chequeado.com/el-explicador/24-de-marzo-el-gobierno-anuncio-que-desclasificara-archivos-sobre-el-accionar-de-las-fuerzas-armadas-durante-la-dictadura/

83 Leis Montero, E. (2023, December 27). El DNU de Javier Milei: ¿qué implica la derogación de las leyes de Abastecimiento y de Góndolas? Chequeado. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://chequeado.com/el-explicador/el-dnu-de-javier-milei-que-implica-la-derogacion-de-las-leyes-de-abastecimiento-y-gondolas/

84 Ámbito. (2024, November 19). El gobierno de Javier Milei desregula el comercio y elimina 43 normas de control de precios. Ámbito. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://www.ambito.com/economia/el-gobierno-javier-milei-desregula-el-comercio-y-elimina-43-normas-control-precios-n6083368

85 Marina, R. (2024a, September 28). Las 5 claves sobre la reforma laboral que reglamentó el gobierno de Javier Milei. Chequeado. Retrieved July 29, 2025, from https://chequeado.com/el-explicador/las-5-claves-sobre-la-reforma-laboral-que-reglamento-el-gobierno-de-javier-milei/

86 Infobae. (2024, January 13). Más de 2.000 Pymes y emprendedores expresaron su apoyo a la reforma laboral que impulsa el DNU de Milei. Infobae. Retrieved July 29, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/economia/2024/01/13/mas-de-2000-pymes-y-emprendedores-expresaron-su-apoyo-a-la-reforma-laboral-que-impulsa-el-dnu-de-milei/

87 La Nación. (2025, April 12). Fin del cepo cambiario: cuántos dólares se podrán comprar libremente y a partir de cuándo. La Nación. Retrieved August 2, 2025, from https://www.lanacion.com.ar/economia/fin-del-cepo-cambiario-cuantos-dolares-se-podran-comprar-libremente-y-a-partir-de-cuando-nid11042025/

88 La Derecha Diario. (2024, December 30). El Gobierno de Milei extendió beneficios para PyMEs, percepción de IVA y Ganancias. La Derecha Diario. Retrieved July 29, 2025, from https://derechadiario.com.ar/economia/gobierno-milei-extendio-beneficios-para-pymes-percepcion-iva-y-ganancias

89 Calero, J. (2024, November 27). Funes de rioja uia industria. iProfesional. Retrieved July 29, 2025, from https://www.iprofesional.com/economia/417874-habra-importantes-beneficios-impositivos-para-pymes-como-es-plan-de-javier-milei

90 Vásquez, I. (2025, July 19). Desregulación en Argentina: Milei aplica medidas drásticas contra la burocracia y los trámites administrativos. Infobae. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/opinion/2025/07/19/desregulacion-en-argentina-milei-aplica-medidas-drasticas-contra-la-burocracia-y-los-tramites-administrativos/

91 Asociación Empresaria de Rosario. (2025, February 10). Las ventas pyme de enero 2025 subieron 25,5 anual. Asociación Empresaria de Rosario. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.aer.org.ar/las-ventas-pyme-de-enero-2025-subieron-255-anual/

92 Infobae. (2021, November 20). La Argentina es el país más caro para comprar tecnología, según un ranking. Infobae. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/economia/2021/11/19/la-argentina-es-el-pais-mas-caro-para-comprar-tecnologia-segun-un-ranking/

93 Infobae. (2024, September 6). Por qué la Argentina tiene la ropa más cara de la región y cuáles son las prendas que más cuesta comprar. Infobae. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/economia/2024/09/06/por-que-la-argentina-tiene-la-ropa-mas-cara-de-la-region-y-cuales-son-las-prendas-que-mas-cuesta-comprar/

94 Infobae. (2019, November 25). Un video reveló cómo funcionarios de la Aduana y operarios del puerto de Buenos Aires robaron mercadería de los contenedores. Infobae. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/politica/2019/11/25/un-video-revelo-como-funcionarios-de-la-aduana-y-operarios-del-puerto-de-buenos-aires-robaron-mercaderia-de-los-contenedores/

95 Nöllmann, M. (2024, November 26). El Gobierno divulgó cuántos argentinos estarían viviendo en el exterior y los principales países donde se asentaron. La Nación. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.lanacion.com.ar/sociedad/el-gobierno-divulgo-cuantos-argentinos-estarian-viviendo-en-el-exterior-y-los-principales-paises-nid26112024

96 Lorca, J. (2025, June 12). Argentina registra la inflación más baja en cinco años: fue del 1,5% en mayo. El País Argentina. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://elpais.com/argentina/2025-06-12/argentina-registra-la-inflacion-mas-baja-en-cinco-anos-fue-del-15-en-mayo.html

97 Grainger, J. (2025b, July 20). Moody’s upgrades Argentina’s long-term debt rating. Buenos Aires Times. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/economy/moodys-upgrades-argentinas-long-term-debt-rating.phtml

98 Grainger, J. (2025a, March 31). Poverty dropped to 38.1% in second half of 2024, reveals INDEC. Buenos Aires Times. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/poverty-reached-381-in-second-half-of-2024-reveals-indec.phtml

99 Buenos Aires Herald. (2025, April 24). World Bank improves Argentina’s 2025 growth forecast to 5.5%. Buenos Aires Herald. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://buenosairesherald.com/economics/world-bank-improves-argentinas-2025-growth-forecast-to-5-5

100 Infobae. (2025, July 25). Creció fuerte el consumo de los hogares y el primer semestre del año es uno de los mejores desde 2008. Infobae. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.infobae.com/economia/2025/07/25/crecio-fuerte-el-consumo-de-los-hogares-y-el-primer-semestre-del-ano-es-uno-de-los-mejores-desde-2008/

101 Luján, A. (2025, July 26). Según INDEC, los salarios le ganan a la inflación. Pescare. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://pescare.com.ar/segun-indec-los-salarios-le-ganan-a-la-inflacion/

102 La Nación. (2025, February 18). Santiago Caputo interrumpió la entrevista a Javier Milei sobre $LIBRA y el Gobierno salió a dar explicaciones. La Nación. Retrieved July 27, 2025, from https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/santiago-caputo-interrumpio-la-entrevista-a-javier-milei-sobre-libra-y-el-gobierno-salio-a-dar-nid18022025/

Juan I. Núñez is an Argentinian writer, programmer, and independent researcher focused on libertarian theory, Austrian economics, and political philosophy. He writes on ethics, intellectual property, and anti-statist thought. When not writing, he spends his time archiving media, contributing to metadata projects, composing music, and feeding stray cats.