Foreign Policy > Javier Milei

How Javier Milei Took Dowm Keynes

The question is not whether Milei is right about Keynes. It is whether he can translate that conviction into durable structural change. 

Jeremías Rucci | May 2, 2026

Nearly a decade ago, before anyone in Argentina knew quite who this long-haired, hot-tempered economist was, his videos were racking up millions of views on YouTube. In those recordings, many filmed in low-budget cable studios, others in university lecture halls, Javier Milei dismantled John Maynard Keynes' General Theory point by point, with a mix of technical rigor and moral fury that was hard to look away from.

The videos spread across Argentina, but also through Spain, Mexico, Chile, and, more recently, libertarian communities in the United States. The algorithm did the rest: Milei became a go-to reference for popular anti-Keynesianism before he ever set foot in Congress as a legislator in 2021.

The character he built one appearance at a time arrived in power in December 2023. And on April 28th, on the 80th anniversary of Keynes' death, seated before an auditorium packed with cabinet ministers, economists, and libertarian activists at the Palacio Libertad (the former Kirchner Cultural Center, renamed with a symbolic weight the government makes no effort to hide) he did exactly the same thing again. But this time from the presidency.

A tribute to Keynes, Buenos Aires-style

The event, formally titled "Keynes and the General Theory," brought Milei together with economist Juan Carlos De Pablo, one of his key intellectual references, and congressman and close ally Adrián Ravier as........

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