In August 2023, after winning the primary elections, the president will become Javier Milei He had a television appearance that went beyond national borders. Milei stood in front of a board on which were attached small pieces of paper with the names of the various state authorities. He tore each of them off, flinging them through the air and screaming, “Get out! Get out!” The journalist who interviewed him once asked him:
-And Conicet?
-Let the private sector take care of it.
-You’ll have a mess.
– That they make money by offering goods of better quality and at cheaper prices to others, like good people do. What productivity do they have? What have scientists produced? Your contribution is not noticeable. “You will earn your bread by the sweat of your brow.”
The election victory in October gave Javier Milei the opportunity, in the second half of his term, to fulfill his most intense dreams, as expressed on the day of the small newspapers buzzing around on television. If two years ago a president of a minority party took office with almost no parliamentarians, today Milei leads a force stationed in the national territory and has become the undisputed leader of what could be called – without much respect for political categories – the center-ultra-right or of all social currents that share a strong anti-Peronist identity. It’s a global phenomenon: Donald Trump the Republican Party was swallowed, Nigel Farasch do the same to the Tories in the UK, José Antonio Kast displaced the liberal center tradition in Chile and Jair Bolsonaro It captured the traditional right in Brazil, to name just a few examples. In this world, Milei is a superstar.
With all this strength, he is now doing everything he can. Some of the measures, such as labor reform, are well known. However, others are not as widespread. The latter includes the decision of Completely cancel innovation projects in science and technology. Nobody has to know what it means, but it is a decision of dramatic importance. And to some extent it allows us to understand why the Mileist experiment is not just an attempt to organize the Argentine economy according to the principles of economic orthodoxy. It’s about something much deeper and more extreme.
It is easy to understand what the government has decided regarding basic research. Broadly speaking, government funding for Argentine science comes from two sources: Salaries, scholarships financed by Conicet and research projects financed in turn by the National Research Agency. Conicet is a structure that has a certain autonomy in its decisions. But the agency relies on the executive branch, which is logical because it means the government is defending its role in allocating funds. This has been established since the time of Carlos Menem. Until the arrival of Milei, around 1,500 projects were selected from around 6,000 each year, presented by very prominent scientists. The last ones were selected in 2022 but never received the agreed funding. Since then, not even new projects have been selected. It is now reported that all funding will be reduced to zero.
The decision is apparently based on very deep convictions. It is not as if the government has decided to purge a list of projects based on their relative merita, or eliminate the favoritism given to scientists who do not deserve it. In other words, it is not a question of reform, but of the disappearance of part of the state. They decided that thousands of scientists of various levels would be left without projects: obviously none of them were of any use. If these scientists want to pursue their calling, they have to emigrate. Nor is it a decision that obeys a tax criterion: The savings are only $80 million per yeara quarter of what the old war planes from Denmark cost.
The vast majority of rejected projects belong to this area Basic sciencewhich involves research that does not necessarily lead to tangible results in the short term. To an ignorant person like the author of this note, these works seem like useless affairs of strangers. But of course the same could have been said of Galileo or Copernicus: What purpose did they have for looking at the sky? Why didn’t they dedicate themselves to something useful? How productive were they? Why didn’t they devote themselves, like good people, to producing goods of better quality and cheaper prices?
In general, normal countries regret the brain drain. For example, in the latest national security document published and signed by the State Department Donald TrumpIt says: “We want to continue to be the most advanced and creative country in science and technology.” Invest in new technologies and fundamental research to secure our prosperity, our competitive advantages and our military hegemony for future generations“In this case, all incentives are aimed at sending heads to other countries where they are valued. And there are many of them, because they are urgently needed workers.”
Some particular stories allow us to understand what is being eliminated. For example, a few days ago it became known that a group of Argentine researchers had developed a vaccine that is intended to combat the most aggressive skin tumors. This shocking finding began 30 years ago when a group of researchers hypothesized that some tumors could be disabled if the immune system was properly trained to recognize and attack them. It was a bold idea that was only supported by a minority because the hegemonic view at the time was that the methods to fight cancer were chemotherapy and radiation.
The belief that there is a connection between the immune system’s response and the development of tumors led to other amazing discoveries in the wonderful and profitable world of research. For decades, another team led by biologist Gabriel Rabinovich devoted themselves obsessively to studying a protein called galectin 1. This enabled them to discover that the aggressiveness of many tumors – colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer and melanoma – is directly linked to the presence of this protein. They then proved that when this protein was eliminated, the lymphocytes were activated and were able to destroy tumors. Finally, they correctly speculated that the same protein could be used to combat autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis due to its ability to inhibit the action of the immune system. These discoveries brought the researchers international recognition.
The skin tumor vaccine or the application of research on Galectin 1 began in basic research and is now being phased out. But these are not isolated cases. Almost all discoveries – whatever: the Sabin vaccine, dog cloning – begin in laboratories studying things that are a waste of time and money for the ignorant.
The environment in which these studies were developed has suffered from the hardships of Argentina’s economy for many years, but since Milei took office it has suffered seemingly terminal setbacks. The data is impressive. The National Research Agency’s budget fell by about 85 percentthat of the National Institute of Industrial Technology 45, that of the National Institute of Agricultural Technology 35, that of the National Atomic Energy Commission 43, that of the Meteorological Service 33 percent. Researchers are gradually giving up their projects because the funding deficit is compounded by revenue losses of around 37 percent.slightly more than the income of university professors, which fell by 31 percent. To Milei’s credit, it must be said without a doubt that none of this should come as a surprise. This is the strict fulfillment of a campaign promise: the chainsaw, the mole that destroys the state from within.
Perhaps this example, that of moving away from basic research, serves to understand the differences between implementing a policy of spending cuts to combat inflation and the much more extreme experiment being carried out in Argentina. This characteristic, extremism, is reflected in many more areas than just scientific knowledge. The president’s fixation on deprive the disability care system of resources It follows the same view that whoever governs the country has no right to raise taxes to contribute to a person’s life. Parliament passed the Disability Act in both chambers. The president vetoed it. Parliament insisted on this with more than two thirds of its members. The president decided to disregard the law. The judiciary twice asked him to comply with the parliamentary mandate. The president didn’t move. Now he has just suffered a defeat in Congress because the budget bill called for the repeal of the law. He doesn’t want to give in on this point, which is sensitive for some very strange reason.
And something like that happens to him too industry. The economic opening and the geometric growth of Chinese products entering the market have led to development growing concern across the productive networkand in the society that surrounds it. This week an intervention from Orlando Canidothe owner of Manaus, in which he recalled the nineties to explain why he does not understand what is happening. “I remember that near my house, in Rafael Castillo, there were seven or eight huge textile factories. La Castelar, 6,000 employees, produced two fabrics that were exported all over the world in one dollar, and they all closed, that 50,000 real jobs were lost. Paolo Rocca He also claimed the same at the Uia Industrial Conference.
The president insists daily that anyone who raises these issues is corrupt or a businessman. This Thursday he said it in his favorite streaming. “When we talk about opening the economy, preventative parasites demand that Argentines pay more for goods of lower quality.. Do you realize that anyone who demands protection demands lower wages? Protection can be effective through a tariff or restriction, or through the introduction of an uncontrolled monetary policy of devaluation: everything leads to the same thing: salaries rise and the number of poor and needy increases.
Milei’s stunning progress involves, in short, a radical transformation of Argentine society. Without science, with less industry, fewer routes, less support for the disabled, less funding for public education and fewer labor rights. It is clear that this is due to a theory in which the President firmly believes, according to which all these sectors spend more than they produce and that their disappearance will not be a cause for regret but will be part of a positive process that will help Argentina to thrive because it will no longer have to bear the burden of such great inefficiency.
Flower of theory, the truth.
If everything is well coordinated, as Luis Caputo said about the band’s ceiling a month ago, few people will miss the Argentina that will be left behind.
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