Manuel García Gojon: Even if Milei does not win the election, his attempt will have a deep and lasting effect. I would speculate the campaign to be even more significant than the 2012 Ron Paul campaign.
The core of Milei's support can be found in young men, regardless of socioeconomic background. Over 40 percent of men 18 to 30 years of age support Milei as their first choice among four competitive candidates.
Even people whose main occupation is food delivery are saving up to buy books on Austrian economics and are conversant in the arguments behind Milei's plans to reduce government spending, loosen labor laws, end protectionist measures, and abolish the central bank...
The youth is generally rebelling against the progressive status quo, as is also occurring in some parts of continental Europe. It is possible that this phenomenon will spread across Latin America, especially in countries where economic conditions are dire, but a figure with the specific combination of characteristics that Milei has might be a once-in-a-generation phenomenon.
Milei does not like to be perceived as a populist because of the negative connotation it carries, saying that people confuse being a populist with being popular. What makes him particularly interesting from an Austrian point of view is that he is a late convert. He was as neoclassical as they come for over two decades, and when he came into contact with the Austrian school in 2014, he had the intellectual humility to recognize that a lot of what he been teaching was wrong...
It does feel to me as if the present is pregnant with a significant paradigm shift in Latin America. That is a positive beginning.
~ Manuel García Gojon, Q&A, The Austrian, July-August 2023
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