All is not well in Ancapistan (Argentina). The police force of the Misiones province has joined the ongoing teacher’s strike against Milei’s austerity measures. Federal forces called in to keep order
Bro broke the NAP so badly that he’s got the cops doing labor solidarity
Multiple people have called me optimistic for saying so but when the fucking pigs start squealing their hatred of you in solidarity with public servants you know it's not going well
Provincial police have a long history of going on strike for better salaries. It happened in the province of Tucumán many years ago. However, this time around, milei has decided not to give provincial states any funds and Misiones (which is also a small ish province) has zero budget for shit like this. And in the context of raging inflation and incredibly obsolete salaries, well, it's a recipe for disaster.
Now, the moment these cops get their raise they will immediately start bashing heads left and right of other protesters. No worker should see a cop as a potential ally. They're always the enemy.
Always pay your guys on time. Don't try telling them you can pay them later, the moment you admit you don't have the money they're no longer your guys.
Yeah it's looking bad. Not only the provincial governments suffered tremendous cuts to their personnel, but at the same time milei is actively undermining them by retaining automatic transfers of funds from the central government to the provincial governments, known as the Federal Co-Participation scheme, which is constitutional. These funds come from some national taxes that we all pay.
In my view, this retention of funds serves two purposes: First it gives milei a powerful tool to force governors to follow him or at the very least present as little resistence as possible. Let us remember now that milei's party, La Libertad Avanza, has very limited political power despite being in the Executive power. They don't have a majority in either upper or lower chambers, they depend almost exclusively on support from PRO (standard neolibs) and UCR ("socdem" neolibs) if they want to pass on any project. They also have a grand total of zero provincial governors of their own, meaning that here they rely exclusively on support from PRO-aligned provincial governors and others like-minded individuals. So, by retaining funds he might be able to force some governors to do X or Y thing like support his ridiculous law packages, or directly undermine rival governors like the peronist Axel Kicillof, governor of Buenos Aires (except the Federal Capital, this is a different entity).
Second, it serves as a mere propaganda tool. He insisted over and over again during his campaign about balancing the budget, the never-ending quest to reach "deficit zero", which means cutting down pretty much every public spending from public works to all social assistance programs. The Federal Co-participation scheme is yet another thing that "creates deficit".
In the case of Misiones the province is starved of funds like pretty much all others. The common thing governments do here is release some funds, pay the pigs and counterattack against the other protests. But we don't have a "common" government anymore, so it's all in the fucking air lmao.
“One more shock therapy bro. I promise bro, we double down on trusting porky we will have utopia any day bro. Communism bad because middle school said so bro. Cold War, bro. Please, just one more austerity measure bro and the wealth will finally trickle down!”
Anarcho-capitalism is NOT beating its meme ideology allegations.
So I recently found out Argentina has the second largest lithium reserves in the world, below Bolivia. Bolivia of course reversed the US coup against it and then Argentina "elects" this weirdo? Seems a tad suspicious to me.
I can imagine Milei calling Biden up and him saying how proud Argentina would be to support Israel. Argentina is ready, willing, and able to do something bold. Send troops - erm - observers into Gaza - maybe? All Argentina asks in return is a little help in protecting its democracy. And don't we know how fragile democracies can be?
When Iran retaliated back against the Israeli attack on its embassy, Milei and his cohort started talking about military support to Israel against Iran. Guess that didn't resonated even with its base that they cut it.
It is not uncommon in Latin America for low-ranking police officers and soldiers to take part in strikes to increase their salaries or obtain better working conditions. In most Latin American countries, they are banned from protesting, going on strike or even holding political office (mainly because civil society doesn't trust the military or the police due to the long history of coups).
Which I suppose it's good because it stops the cops and corrupt generals in the armed forces from getting power and sometimes bad because it leaves a class of people, who are usually poor people, specially in the case of low ranking soldiers, without political representation.
Milei stops paying federal officers who were sent in to maintain order?
Milei could still send the Army. But to do that he would require the congress to approve this, De La Rua tried this in 2000, and he failed because the Peronists hated him and they controlled the congress at the time. De La Rua's goverment (which Patricia Bullrich, Milei's current Minister of Security, was part of) collapsed after this and he had to escape Buenos Aires by helicopter.
Everyone hates Milei in the Argentine congress and senate, with exception of Milei's small party and Macri's neoliberals (Together they have 75 seats, while the Peronists alone have 99). And the UCR (Anti-Peronist Socdems, 34 seats) also hate Milei and will never approve this.
You mean when I weaken the state the state is weakened???
If Milei is serious about small government libertarian ancapism, he should keep the federal forces at home and let the will of the labour market do what they will (eventually secede).