Robert Reich on Twitter re 5 Richest Men
And I still hear people arguing that prosecuting a former president sets a “dangerous precedent.” The truly dangerous precedent would be to establish that presidents are above the law.
‘Taxing parasites’: Is this the fieriest speech ever given at Davos?
Davos | The West’s misguided or privilege-seeking political caste has junked free-market capitalism and instigated a form of socialism that will drag their countries into poverty, firebrand Argentine president Javier Milei has told the Davos elite.
In what is surely one of the most remarkable speeches a political leader has ever delivered to the jet-set conclave of the World Economic Forum, the recently elected arch-libertarian urged the C-suiters “not to surrender” to interventionist governments.
The motor-mouthed Argentine president was mobbed at Davos after delivering his keynote address. Bloomberg
“I would like to leave a message to all businesspeople here: … do not be intimidated either by the political class or by parasites who live off the state,” he told an audience that was half bemused, half bedazzled.
“Do not surrender to a political class that only wants to stay in power and retain its privileges. You are social benefactors, you are heroes. 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.
“Argentina is your staunch, unconditional ally. Long live freedom, dammit!”
Since winning office in December, the former academic economist has embarked on a frantic deregulation of Argentina’s economy, devaluing the currency and taking a sword to red tape of almost every kind.
The measures have sparked political protests, but have got a tick from the markets and from the International Monetary Fund, which last week provisionally signed off a $US4.7 billion disbursement from Argentina’s $US43 billion loan program.
Mr Milei took commercial flights to Davos, reportedly posing for selfies with passengers and boasting that he had fielded five dozen requests for meetings from other leaders at the WEF gathering.
In a rapid-fire address on the Davos central stage, Mr Milei declared that almost all political parties and ideologies in the West were collectivist in nature.
In almost every case, “well-meaning individuals” and “others motivated by the wish to belong to a privileged caste” had abandoned the wealth-creating engine of free-market capitalism, instead pursuing social justice.
“The problem is that social justice is not just. … It’s an intrinsically unfair idea because it’s violent, it’s unjust because the state is financed through tax and taxes are collected coercively,” he said.
“The higher the tax burden, the higher the coercion and the lower the freedom.”
Although the West’s economic model was not socialism as traditionally understood, it was collectivist at heart, and thus sapped incentives for entrepreneurs to succeed.
He rejected the idea that there could be something called market failure, since markets simply reflected participants’ voluntary exchange of ownership rights.
“On the pretext of supposed market failure, regulations are introduced which only create distortions in the price system, prevent economic calculus and therefore also prevent saving, investment and growth,” he said.
He described all state intervention as “harmful”, creating “a downward spiral of regulations until we are all poorer, and life for all of us depends on a bureaucrat sitting in a luxury office”.
Even monopolies were not market failures: breaking them up would hurt growth, and destroy entrepreneurs’ property and returns.
“Capitalists, successful business people, are social benefactors who, far from appropriating the wealth of others, contribute to the general well-being. Ultimately, a successful entrepreneur is a hero,” he said.
He sketched out an economic history in which per-capita economic growth had been largely stagnant throughout human existence until the 20th century unleashed free-market capitalism.
“Thanks to capitalism, the world is now living its best moment. Never in all of humanity’s history has there been a time of more prosperity today,” he said.
He said free countries were 12 times richer than “repressed” countries, and even the poorest 10 per cent of a free country were better off than 90 per cent of the population of a repressed one.
“Free enterprise capitalism is not just the only possible system to end world poverty, but also it’s the only morally desirable system to achieve this,” he said.
Now he just has to go back to Argentina and prove it.
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Hans van Leeuwen covers British and European politics, economics and business from London. He has worked as a reporter, editor and policy adviser in Sydney, Canberra, Hanoi and London. Connect with Hans on Twitter. Email Hans at hans.vanleeuwen@afr.com
