For years they sold us an elegant lie. They told us that defending the "national industry" was a patriotic act, that closing the economy meant protecting Argentine jobs, and that questioning subsidies and tariffs was almost like betraying the flag. But behind that sugarcoated discourse there was no sovereignty or social justice. There was something much simpler and more rancid: the obscene alliance between rent-seeking businesspeople and politicians willing to eliminate competition in exchange for power and funding.
How the scheme works. First, the businessperson agrees with the politician in office on a tariff or a barrier that blocks competition. With the excuse of "protecting industry," politicians prevent consumers from choosing freely. The result is automatic: higher prices, stagnant quality, and workers turned into hostages of an artificial market. It is not free enterprise. It is legalized monopoly.
Then comes the second move. The extraordinary profits caused by that closed economy are not reinvested to innovate or compete globally. They are recycled into campaign contributions, regulatory favors, and new privileges. It is a perfect circle: the politician guarantees protection; the businessperson finances his continuity. Meanwhile, millions of Argentines pay the bill without knowing it every time they go to the checkout.
That's why, when someone opens the economy as Milei is doing, lowers tariffs, or allows consumers to access international prices, the reaction is immediate. The fear campaign begins. "Thousands of jobs will be lost." "The national industry will disappear." "It is a surrender plan". Free trade is caricatured as a threat, when in reality what free trade threatens is the privilege of a few. What really terrifies the rent-seekers is not unemployment: it is competition.
Competing implies something brutally honest. It implies that the customer can leave. It implies that success depends on your ability to persuade, innovate, and offer better prices. For those who got used to the right phone call and the timely decree, that exposure is unbearable. That's why they negotiate subsidies, barriers, guaranteed contracts.
The case of certain local magnates who multiplied their fortunes under the protection of Kirchnerism is illustrative. For years they defended the currency controls, applauded interventionist officials, and financed campaigns that promised more State. Meanwhile, they sold in the domestic market at prices far higher than international ones, shielded by a regulatory maze. When liberalization begins to loom and competition appears, they talk about crises and bankruptcies. But, in reality, what is collapsing is not private enterprise. It is the privileged position of a few crafty operators.
When the ballot boxes do not respond as the caste expected, the apparatus is activated. Journalists addicted to government advertising, union leaders who live off permanent conflict, politicians pushed out of the business, and businesspeople dependent on subsidies coordinate a ferocious attack against any reform. They plant fears, myths, and lies. If the citizenry insists on voting for change, they increase the pressure. If everything fails, the paid leftists appear who throw rocks and Molotov cocktails at democratic institutions while proclaiming that they defend "social justice."
What is at stake is not a technical discussion about tariffs. It is a moral battle. The difference between being pro-market and being pro-business, as Milei rightly pointed out, is the difference between defending freedom or defending privilege. The market doesn't guarantee outcomes; it guarantees equal rules. The rent-seeker doesn't want equal rules. He wants a secure position.
Economic freedom forces everyone to accept that nobody owes you anything. That property and voluntary exchange are the only legitimate foundation of prosperity. For those who turned the State into their strategic partner, that idea is almost obscene. They prefer that others pay for the discomfort.
That's why the advance of an agenda of liberalization and deregulation is not just an economic reform. It is a gesture of moral purification. It is overturning the tables of the modern temple where business was guaranteed by decree. Not out of hatred for commerce, but out of rejection of privilege.
The Argentina that is emerging doesn't need protected businesspeople. It needs free businesspeople. The difference between one and the other defines whether we are going to continue being a country held hostage by the caste or a nation of adult citizens who compete, produce, and prosper without asking for permission.
