Addressing the crowd at CPAC on Saturday, Argentine President Javier Milei explained how "none of the varieties of socialism can work" and said, "don’t surrender in your fight for freedom."
"The message is this: don’t let socialism advance, don’t endorse regulation, don’t endorse the idea of market failure, don’t allow the advance of the murderous agenda, and don’t let the siren calls of social justice fool you," he said.
"I come from a country that bought all of those stupid ideas and from being one of the most affluent countries in the world now we’re ranked 140.
"Don’t surrender your liberty, fight for your freedom. If you don’t fight for your freedom they will drag you into misery."
Milei said he also wanted to leave a "message of optimism," saying that his nation "seemed to be a country condemned to be like sheep, driven by socialists. And when I started my political career in Congress as a congressman I said that I wasn’t there to herd sheep but rather to awaken lions, and we continue to awaken more and more lions every day."
Milei, speaking on socialists and the economy, used the example of a time before lightbulbs and Thomas Edison, stating that "if we had paid attention to those who favored intervention, instead of having this conference at this lovely venue today full of light we would still have candles."
"That’s how socialists mess up our lives. So let’s get rid of Pareto’s optimality and let’s get rid of the socialist approach."
Milei said that "private property and free markets determine the price system and this is the basis of economic calculation," noting that when demand goes up, prices go up and vice versa.
"And this shows why none of the varieties of socialism can work," he added, saying that in "the most extreme cases there’s no private property so you can’t engage in the exchanges that the market would require. And in the milder varieties that do allow the existence of the private sector, what happens is that state intervention creates noise in the price system. And the more state, the more government there is, the more violence there is, the more distortion there is, and the worse the system functions."
