Just Added to AynRandCon LatAm: Javier Milei in Conversation with Yaron Brook

AynRandCon in Buenos Aires will include a last-minute addition to the program: Javier Milei, the president of Argentina. The conference, which runs April 6-7, explores the ideas of Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. Milei accepted an invitation to take part in a panel with Yaron Brook, chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute, who is a keynote speaker at the event.

Milei, an academic economist turned politician, was elected on a platform of undoing the socialist policies that ruined Argentina’s economy and enacting free market reforms. Milei has announced plans to eliminate government ministries and move Argentina’s currency to the US dollar.

What animates Milei?

In January he gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos that went viral. Elements of that speech, in my judgment, show the influence of Ayn Rand’s unique moral view of producers as heroic (Milei has said he has read some of her works). But the points of contrast between Milei and Rand are many – and fundamental.

For example, Milei describes himself as a “libertarian,” telling The Economist in an interview that he regards “anarcho-capitalism” as an ideal. Rand, who rejected libertarianism, opposed anarchism as destructive of individual rights. Whereas Rand was an uncompromising moral advocate of the right to abortion, Milei recently told students at a Catholic school in Buenos Aires that “abortion is murder.”

Here are just a few of the many questions I’d love for Milei to be asked (alas, I cannot attend the event): How significant is the influence of Rand on Milei? What role does anarchism play in his thinking? What does he see as the path to greater – and lasting – freedom in Argentina, and what are the challenges?

AynRandCon in Buenos Aires, first announced in February, is hosted by the Ayn Rand Center Latin America, an independent organization with which ARI has collaborated. The conference, whose theme is “The Motor of the World,” will feature talks by Brook and other ARI speakers. Topics include: why a free society requires a government limited to the protection of individual rights – not as a necessary evil, but as a necessary good; why rational egoism is the only proper moral foundation of capitalism; what individualism actually is – and how it should shape politics; and why the right to abortion must be inviolable.

For more information, please visit the conference website.

[Update: The format and details of the panel with Milei will be confirmed closer to the event.]

Image credit: scrollah/Shutterstock.com.