Liliana Franco “Cautious optimism” is the best way to describe the mood of most businesspeople who attended the Idea Colloquium. After 60 years of meetings where discussions revolved around issues like education, economy, and the need for agreements, on Friday they met face-to-face with a president urging them to take charge of their businesses.
“You are responsible for your own destiny,” Javier Milei told them.
”If you don’t take care of yourselves, who will? The state? No, because the only thing the state can do is harm, it does not produce anything. When the state gives something, it is because it previously stole it from someone else. That is why we have implemented the most liberal policy in the history of Argentina,” he said.
The president was applauded sixteen times during his speech, albeit none sounded very enthusiastic. When he finished his speech in front of a packed room, however, many of the attendees crowded around to take selfies with him.
Deregulation Minister Federico Sturzenegger also challenged businesspeople in similar fashion earlier Friday. “Raise your hand how many of you have applied for the severance fund,” the minister asked. No one raised their hand, which allowed him to remind them that they are entitled to this tool, which is aimed at reducing uncertainty with layoffs.
Most of the attendees valued macroeconomic stability, bureaucratic deregulations, and the strict mandate of not creating fiscal deficit. However, it is also true that “so much freedom” generates concern, as one attendee put it: “No state to crush you is good, but total absence is not the way to go.”
This fear of “going too far” was expressed during coffee breaks. By this they meant the repetition of pendular cycles in Argentine politics, going from liberalism to populism and back again.
Auto parts businesswoman and Industrias Guidi owner Carolina Castro was the only one who dared say it aloud: “Argentina is going towards a new pendulum. I want to warn about the risk of an absent state.”
Other businessmen who spoke off the record also shared this view. Especially those who think that Milei’s government has a “financial” and not a productive view of Argentina’s course.
An important figure celebrated Sturzenneger’s announcement that there will be flights between Aeroparque and Buenos Aires province cities Tandil and Olavarría, and that negotiations are moving forwards for the same in Venado Tuerto and Junín.
Meanwhile, another one said that that was “great” but at the same time asked “who will control the quality and safety of these flights?” This example shows where the fear of a total absence of control expresses itself.
Other businessmen more enthusiastic with the government, however, explained that this fear may be due to decades of strong state intervention in the economy. “We learned to manage business that way.”
Alberto Arizu, the owner of a wine company of more than 120 years old, summed it up best. “Do you know what is happening? Companies now have to rethink their businesses because our costs and sales were based on a distorted economy,” he explained, referencing the fact that people were consuming to get rid of their pesos due to high inflation.
“Now we will have to look at our costs, improve services; in short, concentrate on our businesses,” he summarized.
An older businessman recalled that this same process occurred during the 1990s with convertibility, which pegged the Argentine peso to the U.S. dollar. “We had to go out and look for the customer,” he recalled.
In short, the Idea Colloquim reflected, with the presence of libertarian government officials, the beginning of a change in era. Sturzenegger best summarized what this new era could look like by saying that the best colloquium will be the one in which the presence of government officials is not important.
