Summary of the Debate: Philipp Bagus (pro-Milei) vs. Alessandro Fusillo (critical)

The debate revolves around one central question: Is Javier Milei delivering (or at least moving toward) a genuine libertarian revolution in Argentina, or is he merely a charismatic conservative reformer who has broken his radical promises?

Alessandro Fusillo’s core criticism is that Milei sold a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist revolution during the campaign (abolish the central bank, drastic tax cuts, private-law society), but has delivered something very different in office. 

The central bank is still alive, Wall Street establishment figures (Caputo, Sturzenegger, Bausili) run economic policy, foreign policy is aggressively pro-Israel and pro-Ukraine, new IMF debt is massive, and many reforms (direct seizure of bank accounts, emphasis on a “more efficient state”) actually go in antilibertarian direction. 

For Fusillo, the result is at best Thatcher/Reagan/Berlusconi-style liberalism, not a libertarian breakthrough, and the identification “libertarian = whatever Milei does” is damaging the ideology.

Philipp Bagus counters that politics is the art of the possible and that Milei is following the exact two-pillar strategy recommended by Huerta de Soto and compatible with Mises and Rothbard: (1) uncompromisingly spread libertarian and Austrian ideas (which Milei does brilliantly on the world stage), and (2) move as fast as real-world constraints allow toward the ideal without ever reversing direction. 

Bagus highlights unprecedented achievements in two years: 30 % real cut in state spending, fiscal deficit turned into surplus, thousands of regulations abolished, rent controls lifted, currency competition introduced, monthly inflation collapsed from 25 % to ~4 %, and poverty rate down from over 50 % to around 30–35 %.

The still-existing monetary overhang and swings in M0/M3 are explained as the controlled release of the previous government’s “repressed inflation”, not new money printing by Milei.On foreign policy, Bagus sees the pro-USA/pro-Israel shift as geopolitically unavoidable and not clearly worse than the previous pro-China/Russia/Iran alignment of the Peronists. Fusillo views it as emotional neoconservatism that has nothing to do with libertarian non-interventionism. 

Both agree that Milei is surrounded by non-libertarian advisors and coalition partners and does not have dictatorial power, but they disagree on whether the compromises made so far are still “in the right direction” or already a betrayal of the original programme.

In the end, the debate boils down to temperament and time horizon: Fusillo believes the radical promises have been broken and the window of opportunity for real change is closing; Bagus believes Milei has already achieved historic libertarian advances under enormous resistance and is still clearly moving in the right direction, therefore deserves continued constructive support rather than being labelled a traitor. 

Both nevertheless stress that open, friendly criticism within the libertarian movement is not only allowed but necessary. Full debate in original language: https://t.co/8CF2Oi8rLN