‘The public sector is the illness’: Javier Milei on his first year in office

‘I never wind down,’ says Argentina’s President Javier Milei when we meet in his Presidential Office at the Casa Rosada. ‘I work all day, practically… I get up at 6 a.m., I take a shower and at 7 a.m. I am already at my desk working. And I work all the way until 11 p.m. I enjoy my job. I enjoy cutting public spending. I love the chainsaw.’

It was a photo of Milei with a chainsaw – who was then the insurgent candidate – that propelled him to international fame last year. He waved it on the campaign trail as a symbol of what he would do to government regulations and bureaucracy if elected to the presidency. He had previously gone viral in a video showing him shouting ‘Afuera!’ (‘Out!’) while ripping names of government departments off a whiteboard.

These stunts drew attention to his election promise: to wage war on socialism and bring free markets to Argentina. He started at 16 per cent in the polls, but his pledges to curb inflation, abolish price controls, shrink the state and get the country back on a strong fiscal footing won over the majority of Argentinians, who were ready for change. He won the attention of leaders across the world, too.

Milei is proud of his global reputation as a state slayer. For many years as an economist, commentator and self-described ‘anarcho-capitalist’, he had been the country’s biggest critic of socialism. In 2021 he founded his libertarian coalition, La Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances). This month marks one year since Milei took office, elected with a mandate to overhaul 100 years of socialist rule – and he’s eager to trumpet the results.

‘Let me tell you a fun story.