Argentina’s populist President Javier Milei stood before an audience filled with woke globalists, many of whom had hoped for his defeat in last November’s election, and assailed socialism while praising capitalism.
In an address on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Milei said world leaders must reject the “radical feminist” and “environmental” agendas fueled by socialism.
“I am here today to tell you that the West is in danger. It is in danger because those who are supposed to uphold the values of the West find themselves co-opted by a worldview that inexorably leads to socialism, and consequently, to poverty,” Milei said in the opening of his speech.
World leaders have abandoned the ideas of freedom, embracing instead several versions of leftism which Milei categorized as being versions of the same ideology of “collectivism.”
“We are here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world but, on the contrary, they are their cause,” Milei said. “Believe me, there is no one better than us Argentines to bear witness to these two issues.”
Milei recounted how Argentina, after having become a world power in 1860, had seen itself become impoverished over the past 100 years by embracing collectivist ideas.
“They say that capitalism is bad because it is individualistic and that collectivism is good because it is altruistic, and consequently they strive for ‘social justice.’ Milei said. “But this concept, which in the first world has become fashionable in the last decade, has been a constant in my country’s political discourse for more than 80 years.”
He continued: “The problem is that social justice is not only not fair, but also does not contribute to the general welfare. On the contrary, it is an intrinsically unjust idea, because it is violent. It is unjust because the state is financed by taxes and taxes are levied coercively — or can any of us choose not to pay taxes? Which means that the state is financed through coercion, and the greater the tax burden, the greater the coercion.”
Milei continued his address by stating that the world is at its best today thanks to capitalism. “
Milei said to business people: “Do not let yourselves be intimidated, do not surrender to a political class that only wants to remain in power. You are social benefactors, you are heroes, you are the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity that we have ever experienced. Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral. You are the true protagonists of this story and know that from today you have Argentina as an unconditional ally.”
He concluded by saying his now widely famous catchphrase: “¡Viva la libertad, carajo!” which roughly translates to “Long live liberty, dammit!”
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