For years, I’ve noted that millions of Americans don’t understand the miracle of capitalism, the greatest wealth creator and poverty reduction program ever devised.
Many Americans insist that free markets are all about greed, selfishness and exploitation.
Yet, in a free market system, it is only possible to be successful by serving one’s neighbor with goods and services of either superior quality or a better price.
Many Americans insist that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
Yet Uncle Sam’s own economic statistics have shown – decade after decade – that every income quintile in the nation has grown richer after inflation.
Not only has median household income risen in real terms… U.S. household net worth recently hit a record high.
Yet the mainstream media, academia and Hollywood continue to claim that a small percentage of “millionaires and billionaires” are doing great while everyone else sucks wind.
That is emphatically not true.
Worse, these same misinformed individuals advocate policies – higher taxes, increased government spending, more regulations and greater state control of the economy – that would make things worse for the middle class, not better.
Few people understand the stakes here better than Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei.
Late last year, he won a crushing victory over his Peronist rival Sergio Massa.
Why? Because Argentines are fed up.
When Argentina adopted capitalism in 1860, it became the world’s leading power in just 35 years.
Then the country embraced collectivism. And over the last 100 years, its citizens began to systematically impoverish themselves, until they fell to 140th in the world.
Milei is intent on reversing this by igniting an economic revolution.
His goal is to reduce the size and control of government through deregulation, privatization and dollarization.
Argentine stocks leapt on news of his victory.
Earlier this year, he addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and gave a truly inspiring speech.
Here are just a few key excerpts…
Thanks to free enterprise capitalism, today, the world is at its best. There has never been, in all of human history, a time of greater prosperity than the one we live in today. The world today is freer, richer, more peaceful and more prosperous than at any other time in our history. This is true for everyone, but in particular for those countries that are free, where they respect economic freedom and the property rights of individuals. For those countries that are free are 12 times richer than the repressed ones…
It must never be forgotten that socialism is always and everywhere an impoverishing phenomenon that [has] failed in all the countries where it was tried. It was an economic failure. It was a social failure. It was a cultural failure. And it also murdered more than 100 million human beings…
Collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems afflicting the citizens of the world, but rather – on the contrary – are their cause…
I would like to leave a message to all the businessmen present here and to those who are watching us from all corners of the planet… Do not surrender to a political class that only wants to perpetuate itself in power and maintain its privileges.
You are social benefactors.
You are heroes.
You are the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we have ever experienced.
Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral. If you make money, it is because you offer a better product at a better price, thus contributing to the general welfare.
Do not give in to the advance of the state. The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself.
You are the true protagonists of this story. And know that from today, you have an unwavering ally in the Argentine Republic.
Stirring words… particularly for Argentines.
Milei is an economist who found a “superlative conceptual clarity” in the work of Austrian economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises.
He was first elected to Congress in November of 2021.
Just two years later – after winning 21 out of 24 provinces against his rival – he was sworn into office as the country’s new president on December 10, 2023.
Milei didn’t waste time making good on his pledge to limit government.
In his first 30 days, he consolidated 18 government ministries into nine, fired 5,000 government bureaucrats, devalued the peso to bring it closer to the black market rate, and introduced a 350-page package of economic reforms that would have made Nobel laureate Milton Friedman smile.
Milei understands that the ingredients of a prosperous society are small government, individual liberty, economic and social freedom, and peace.
Yet he still has his work cut out for him.
There is an array of special interests aligned against him in the legislature.
However, voters handed him a lopsided victory and are demanding action.
Consumer and business confidence is already trending up. And so is the Argentine stock market.
I invite you to join me in welcoming President Milei to the United States, when he speaks alongside me and many others at this year’s FreedomFest at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 10-13.
This is one of my favorite conferences. It is always a delight. That’s why I have attended each year for over 20 years now.
This year’s event has a particularly distinguished lineup.
Fellow speakers include cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, authors Matt Ridley and Michael Shermer, publisher and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, former U.S. Congressman Justin Amash, Whole Foods founder John Mackey, Lisa Kennedy and Emily Compagno of Fox News, and even Grammy-winning artist Ice-T.
(John Mackey and I will also be arguing the affirmative against two Bitcoin bulls in a debate titled “Bitcoin Is a Financial Bubble.”)
To learn more about this exciting event – or sign up – just click here.
My subscribers can get $50 off the “Attendee” registration fee by entering the discount code OXFORD50 at checkout. Sign up here or call Hayley at 1.855.850.3733, ext. 202.
See you in Vegas in July!