Javier Milei has toppled the grip of the status quo.
The December 2026 edition of Reason surveys the achievements of Argentine President Javier Milei and outlines the tasks that remain.
Back in 1984, Milton and Rose Friedman released a compact volume titled Tyranny of the Status Quo. At the time, Ronald Reagan had been president for more than three years, Margaret Thatcher had led the United Kingdom for five, and the Friedmans sought to illuminate a frustrating pattern: politicians can win elections by promising sweeping reforms and even arrive in office with a genuine mandate, only to discover that the machinery of government is unusually adept at shielding itself from disruption.
The Friedmans argued that reformers face a narrow window of six to nine months to push major changes before bureaucracies adjust, beneficiaries mobilize, lawmakers reattach themselves to familiar routines, and the status quo reasserts itself. The clear takeaway was that winning an election is not remotely the same as securing victory for small government and free markets.
In the United States, libertarians—and the Libertarian Party—have had little luck even with the first step of winning elections. Libertarian ideas have often outpaced libertarian candidates, shaping tax policy, deregulation, criminal-justice reform, school choice, and related areas, without producing politicians who eagerly describe themselves as adherents of the entire platform or voters eager to identify with the label.
A longtime libertarian might be tempted to grow pessimistic about the prospects for real reform.
Libertarians are used to thinking of themselves as intellectual insurgents and outsiders. We argue about what politicians should stop doing, and then grouse when those very actions persist. Argentine President Javier Milei’s career presents a different question: what happens when someone who has spent years attacking the state—who has proclaimed that “my contempt for the state is infinite”—is suddenly entrusted with running it?
Milei campaigns as an anarcho-capitalist. (Although he often cites Milton and Rose Friedman, he may be closer in temperament to their son David Friedman, an anarchist economist.) He rose by broadcasting quotes from Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and other free-market luminaries. He pledged drastic reductions, widespread firing of government workers, and other radical reorganizations.
Speaking at a September conference co-hosted by Reason Foundation, the publisher of this magazine, Milei described his transition from the “cultural battle” into electoral politics. For years he had been laying out the case for liberty. Then someone handed him a ballot and asked where those ideas appeared on it. “Ideas alone aren’t enough,” Milei concluded. If you want to alter reality, you must participate in politics; once you’re there, you must deliver results.
Milei acted swiftly after taking office, perhaps heeding the Friedmans’ warning. In real terms, national spending contracted by about a quarter in his first year, and the government began posting surpluses within weeks. Exchange controls were loosened. From 25.5 percent in December 2023, inflation dipped below 2 percent by mid-2025, rebounded modestly at the start of this year, and then cooled to 1.7 percent by August. He eliminated 10 ministries, scrapped 29 public trust funds, and shuttered dozens of agencies. The privatization push progressed more slowly, largely due to resistance in Congress, but Milei’s administration continued reorganizing state enterprises and steering them toward private ownership where feasible.
Three years into Milei’s tenure, Argentina remains unshaped in certain respects. This issue of Reason examines with clear eyes what has been achieved and what still lies ahead. Dollarization—central to Milei’s initial campaign—has not occurred; Nicolas Cachanosky contends that without a more durable monetary reform, Argentina remains exposed to a future reversal. Milei’s record on press freedom has been problematic, including using criminal complaints against journalists and supporting new restrictions that clash with his stated commitment to free expression. Yet, by and large, Milei’s impact stands as a remarkable triumph of libertarian ideals and thought.
A libertarian in power was always bound to meet limits that do not appear in books, essays, or panels. There was little doubt that libertarian governance would falter when confronted with reality. But more than two years beyond the Friedmans’ most optimistic forecast, the opportunity for genuine libertarian change remains open in Argentina.
Milei continues to steer the national agenda, not merely to weather electoral challenges. His coalition captured over 40 percent of the vote in Argentina’s October 2025 midterm elections, strengthening his grip in Congress and expanding room to push his program forward. As Iván Carrino notes, Milei—perhaps following a playbook borrowed from his cherished Rothbard—may now possess something libertarians have seldom had: the beginnings of a broad base for libertarian economic ideas.
The cover of this issue proclaims it as “A New Argentina,” borrowing the title of a song from Evita. The older political promise associated with that phrase in the Broadway musical was Peronist and expansive, envisioning a larger role for the state in Argentine life. The new vision is more idiosyncratic and decidedly libertarian.
Reason‘s prior coverage of Argentina provides ample grounds for caution, and the Friedmans would remind us that the status quo could still prevail in Argentina. But for this anarcho-capitalist libertarian, Milei has offered a robust check on the pessimism that comes with being in the minority. He has demonstrated that these ideas can move from books and think tanks to a ballot, from a ballot to government, and from government to policy without collapsing under the weight of political reality.
Can this experiment be replicated? The United States in 2026 is not Argentina in 2023. Libertarians elsewhere cannot manufacture the kind of crisis Argentina faced, and they ought not to wish to. Argentina also harbors its own distinct liberal tradition, including figures like Jorge Luis Borges and Juan Bautista Alberdi. Yet Milei’s presidency shows that when circumstances align and a window opens, a principled and steadfast politician can achieve more than many might expect.
