Weeks before Argentina’s November 2023 presidential election, which saw the anarcho-capitalist economist Javier Milei ascend to power, 108 leading left-wing economists, including Thomas Piketty, Jayati Ghosh, and others penned an open letter denouncing the presidential front-runner. They wrote, “while apparently simple solutions may be appealing, they are likely to cause more devastation in the real world in the short run, while severely reducing policy space in the long run.”
Milei’s proposals were quite simple: abolish Argentina’s central bank, deregulate the economy, radically downsize the size and scope of the federal government, open up trade, and pursue the dollarization of the economy. While some of his most sweeping reforms have yet to take place due to opposition from the legislature, Milei used all options at his disposal to bring immediate relief to an economy and citizenry afflicted by decades of Peronism.
In December 2023, Milei signed the “Megadecreto” (mega-decree) laying out his vision for a new Argentinian economy and went to work dismantling the socialist programs of his predecessors. Milei’s decree abolished rent controls, relaxed or abolished housing, labor, and trade regulations, and created the Ministry of Deregulation and State Transformation. The administration permanently closed ten ministries and over 100 government agencies, laid off nearly 30% of the federal workforce, and cut spending dramatically across the board. In 2024, the administration slashed taxes by 90%, encouraged foreign investment in the economy via 30-year tax breaks, and privatized six large state-owned companies.
The results are clear. Argentina’s poverty rate fell from nearly 42% in late 2023 to under 32% in late 2024. After exiting a recession, the nation’s economy grew by 3.9% in Q3 2024, and as of Q2 2025, the economy has grown at an astonishing 7.6%, the best in over two decades. Monthly inflation, which peaked at a crushing 29% in late 2023/early 2024, dropped into single digits in mid-2024 and fell to just 1.5% in May 2025. Annual inflation fell from a peak of nearly 300% to an estimated 31.7% in Q1 2025, with projections in the low 20s for later this year.
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It turns out that simple solutions are often the best option. The answer to inflationary woes is to stop spending, and stop printing money. Free market solutions, not central planning, can fix a failing economy. Other areas of Argentinian society have improved as a byproduct of Milei’s reforms, the homicide rate dropped from 4.4 in 2023 to a historic low of 3.8 in 2024, with numbers expected to come in significantly lower this year.
Not even the most committed statists can deny that Javier Milei’s chainsaw approach to governance is working as he had hoped. There’s a lesson here for America.
Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.