Europe awaits its Milei moment

Almost three years ago, Javier Milei kick-started his term in office by telling a distraught country that the national treasure chest was empty so hard times lay ahead, especially for individuals who had grown accustomed to stealing from the public purse. With hyperinflation looming, that stark warning went down well. Many European leaders would like to emulate the self-styled anarcho-capitalist, but they know that most of their compatriots would rather not be told they would have to tighten their collective belts because otherwise their country will go bust. 

One such leader is France’s Emmanuel Macron. He understands that unless he manages to subject public spending to some drastic cuts, the financial markets, which have plenty of chainsaws that are far sharper than the one theatrically wielded by Milei, will step in and do the job for him. His country’s public debt will soon top 120 percent of the annual GNP and is likely to climb even higher, but in France there are many who think that the only real problem is their president’s mean-mindedness; were it not for him, everybody would see their income rise. This was made clear last Sunday when hundreds of trade unionists and their friends staged a big demonstration in Paris to protest against his decision to keep pay for public employees in the freezer for another year or so.

France is far from being the only European country that is sliding towards bankruptcy. The United Kingdom and even Germany, which is undergoing what looks alarmingly like an industrial meltdown, are going the same way, though at a slightly slower pace. Unfortunately for those who are in charge of financial affairs, in Western Europe, welfare is sacred and anything that smacks of austerity gets treated as an evil attempt by plutocrats to deprive honest people of what is rightfully theirs. This view is held not just by the left-leaning “progressive intellectuals” who still dominate the public discourse but also by less pretentious folk who have been personally hit by the technology-driven structural changes that are making life difficult for those in traditional occupations. If the prophets of Artificial Intelligence have it right, such changes are about to go into overdrive. 

Flinty-hearted reactionaries have long argued that welfare programmes are bad for society, not only because they are extremely expensive but also because they undermine people’s ability to fend for themselves by turning them into passive wards of the State. No doubt those who think this way feel vindicated by what is happening in France, the UK and other countries where politicians are well aware that being generous with the money tax-payers provide can help them reach power and the perks that go with it, which is why they adamantly refuse to do anything to keep the welfare bill under control. Needless to say, this is a very old story that began even before ancient Athens and then Rome institutionalised hand-outs in order to keep the plebs happy. As they and many others eventually found out, it cannot go on forever.

A couple of decades ago, European leaders took it for granted that, thanks to “soft power,” their part of the world was destined to become increasingly influential because it was, they told themselves, more civilised than the United States and more creative than China. Today, a generation later, they are haunted by the thought that Europe’s moment in the sun is about to come to an abrupt end. They are unsure about what this could mean for them and their offspring, if they have any, so they are not doing much to avert it.

The old continent’s economies are creaking and its military forces are weak in comparison with those of the United States, which under Donald Trump has made it clear that it is fed up with looking after a bunch of parasitical freeloaders who sneer at their transatlantic benefactor. In the United Kingdom, the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has let it be known that, as far as he is concerned, defence must take second place to social care. On the continent, government spokespeople are less explicit than the Labour politician, but to fulfil their promises to at least double military spending in the next few years they would have to reduce drastically the amounts going to welfare programmes of one kind or another or to pay the wages of public-sector workers. For evident political reasons, doing this will be extremely difficult. As the former boss of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, once said: “We all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it.”

The current situation in Europe bears a certain resemblance to that prevailing in Argentina before Milei suddenly appeared on the scene. Back in those days, politicians behaved as though they were convinced that the country could continue to live beyond its means for many years to come and, though they did not point it out, they would no longer be responsible for public finances.

However, in many ways Europe’s plight is considerably worse. Luckily for him, and for most other people, Milei has not had to worry about the negative results of a huge influx of people coming from the Middle East and Africa, who brought with them cultural habits, religious beliefs and political priorities which are radically different from those of the host populations. In Europe, the reaction against large-scale immigration, whether legal or otherwise, is now taken far more seriously than economic woes and is behind the sharp swing towards the right that is petrifying the progressive establishment.

Though Milei greatly enjoys playing the role of an “ultra-right-wing” extremist who is one of the leaders of a movement reshaping the entire world, the ideas he champions with such enthusiasm are very different from those of the followers of Marine Le Pen or their counterparts in German, Italy and other European countries. While they are ethno-nationalists who are quite willing to take economic measures similar to the ones favoured by leftist parties if it suits their purposes, Milei believes that preventing the markets from operating freely is positively sinful and that those who try to do so are condemning their countries to ruin. For understandable reasons, he keeps this to himself; were his right-wing friends in Europe to realise that he is a neoliberal fanatic at heart, they would immediately give him the cold shoulder.