Introduction

In his book, Democracy: The God That Failed, Hans-Hermann Hoppe talks about the neoconservative movement in the U.S. emerging in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the left became increasingly involved with Black Power, affirmative action, pro-Arabism, and the counterculture of those times. In opposition to all this,

many traditional left-wing (frequently former Trotskyite) intellectuals and cold war "liberals," led by Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, broke ranks with their old allies, frequently crossing over from the long-time haven of left-wing politics, the Democratic party, to the Republicans. Since then the neoconservatives… have gained unrivaled influence in American politics, promoting typically a "moderate" welfare state ("democratic capitalism"), "cultural conservatism" and "family values," and an interventionist ("activist") and in particular Zionist ("pro-Israel") foreign policy.

The current president of Argentina, Javier Milei, is a world-wide phenomenon known as a libertarian hero. Even as president, he has said that the State is a criminal organization and that taxation is theft. As a libertarian defends his ideals as just and worthy for all the peoples of the world, one would think that such a man would radically confront the statist status quo not only at the national level, but also at the international one. Certainly, Milei may be better than most presidents we are used to, but he is not as good or libertarian as many people think.

Milei, the Right, and Abortion

Though so-called neocons are not truly concerned about cultural matters, they recognize the need of playing the cultural-conservatism card in order to win power. The majority of Milei's support in Argentina comes from the anti-leftists (which generally include libertarians) and the pro-life conservatives (generally very religious). Milei is not exactly the kind of cultural conservative that one could expect, given his ferocious supporters outside the libertarian sphere. This unmarried man with no kids that finds the social institution of marriage "aberrant" has gained support due to his remarkable anti-left, anti-socialist and anti-statist rhetoric and his stance on abortion in a country infested by statism and tax-funded cultural-leftism. Apart from this, the help of famous intellectuals on the Argentine right as Agustín Laje has favored Milei with an important amount of support to further secure his dominant place on the right. Nevertheless, the problem with the right in general—which frequently holds many libertarian and free market ideas either in Argentina or abroad—is the fact that their main desire is the replacement of any left-progressive elite in charge of the State by another elite that better represents the interests of the right. This is often seen very clearly with the problem of culture wars. We might ask, at what point will all these people finally realize that these obnoxious culture wars will find no ending without ending the State. At any rate, they will always remain a huge problem, unless we manage to get the State out of the picture as much as possible—for instance, getting the State completely out of education.