When far-right “outsider” Javier Millei was elected President of Argentina in November, Italy's far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni became the first European leader to congratulate him. In February, Millais returned the favor by making Italy the first European country he would visit as president. Since then, the two leaders have had nothing but praise for each other.
It's no surprise that Meloni and Millay support each other, given that they share many far-right views and policy positions, from opposition to abortion to hostility towards the LGBT community. Both men are ostensibly socially conservative “populists” who are capitalizing on growing public discontent with establishment politicians they perceive to be serving “globalist forces.” . But the apparent bond between the two leaders, who spoke at a far-right convention in Madrid last weekend, is not based solely on ideological affinity. In fact, the politics of Mr. Millais and Mr. Meloni are by no means compatible. Italy's prime minister heads a nationalist/nationalist party with historical ties to fascism, while Argentina's president is a self-confessed liberal and “anarcho-capitalist.” There is. Meloni believes that curbing immigration is the government's main objective, while Millais is largely indifferent to the issue. The most important factor uniting the two leaders appears not to be their shared ideological beliefs but the hypocritical “neoliberal populism” they practice in the service of Western imperialism.
Indeed, a cursory overview of the social reforms enacted by both leaders during their time in office quickly reveals their so-called “populist” neoliberal ethos.
Milley rode a wave of anger over Argentina's decades-long economic crisis and crippling corruption to victory in the presidential election. He promised to reset the system, and his main campaign slogan was “everyone back out,” referring to Argentina's elite and traditional politicians. He promised to cut state spending through privatization, curb inflation, and put money in the pockets of long-suffering Argentinians. But in reality, his policies only further enriched the elite while bringing more misery to ordinary Argentines. Indeed, after coming to power, he made it clear that he had no interest in pleasing the people who brought him to power. Unmindful of his plummeting approval ratings, he moved to cut state subsidies for fuel and transportation while promising to cut the budgets of public universities by more than half. He remains determined to pass highly unpopular reforms that would strip workers of most of their basic rights and privatize major state-owned companies. To attract more investors and spur market optimism, he closed state institutions, fired tens of thousands of officials, and slashed pensions and salaries. With society, not the political class, bearing the brunt of his radical economic policies, many Argentines are already questioning the true nature of Millay's populism, while the International Monetary Fund, a global standard-bearer of neoliberalism, has already praised Millay's “ambitious stabilization plan.”
Meloni's credentials as a populist are similarly being questioned in Italy.
In August, the prime minister dealt Italy's banks a surprise blow by imposing a one-time 40% tax on profits from rising interest rates, after reprimanding them for not rewarding deposits. This is a traditionally populist move, siding with the people and against the banks, and earned Meloni considerable admiration and respect among his supporters. But just a few weeks later, a stern warning from the European Central Bank and a backlash from banking lobbies led Meloni to reconsider his populist position and significantly reduce newly introduced taxes in line with neoliberal interests. I decided to water it down.
And it wasn't the first time Mr. Meloni changed direction when it came to dealings with Italian banks. Before the 2022 elections that brought Meloni to power, Meloni and his Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) party took control of Italy's oldest bank, Monte dei Paschi di, which has been in crisis for years.・We campaigned against Siena's capital increase. . However, as soon as he came to power, he changed his stance and began to advocate privatization.
More recently, Mr. Meloni seems to have turned his back on his party's long nationalist history and abandoned any pretense of populist protectionism, with the sale of some of Italy's most valuable state-owned enterprises costing around 20 billion euros over three years. announced its intention to raise $21.7 billion. Japanese National Railways and Postal Service.
Unlike Mr. Millais, Mr. Meloni was elected on a completely protectionist charter. Her supporters are also inherently suspicious of the free market politics and pro-privatization demands of the U.S.-led world order. In other words, she has made no secret of her intentions to maintain the neoliberal status quo. But her actions speak louder than words, and Meloni's actions reveal for all to see the hypocrisy and shallowness of her “populism.”
A similar pattern can be seen in foreign policy. Millais is an openly enthusiastic supporter of the neoliberal consensus on all fronts, paying no attention to the popular consensus of his own country. He is biased or even hostile toward China, supports all American adventures abroad, and considers himself an “Israel fanatic.” He seems to live in a black-and-white world, where the moral and free West stands strong against a dangerous mishmash of murderous communists, Marxists, and socialists. Meloni, on the other hand, talks a populist story about standing up to the great powers and putting Italy back on the map as a strong, independent nation, but he never actually does anything to upset the United States.
Indeed, in his book I Giorgia, published in 2021, the Italian Prime Minister advocated better relations with Russia. But once she took over the top position in Italy's government, she quickly bowed to Washington and adopted her anti-Russian policies as her own. She stood firmly on the US side not only on the Ukraine war, but also on Israel's war in Gaza. Basically, the populist Meloni who won the election gave up his seat to the neoliberal Meloni, and Italy took just a few crumbs (but still a significant amount for a small country) from the huge cake of the military-industrial complex. I was able to get it.
Meloni showed exactly the same hypocrisy in his approach to Europe. On the contrary, she, like the majority of her core supporters, was a staunch Eurosceptic. But once in her power position, she quickly aligned herself with hawkish European representatives like Germany's European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Populist Meloni occasionally reappears to criticize Europe's inflexibility in dealing with Italy's debt, but this performance never translates into action.
Today, both Italy and Argentina struggle with serious problems resulting from the excesses of capitalism, from rising costs of living and crumbling social services to unemployment and a lack of prospects for young people. There is no doubt that there is an appetite for populist policy and institutional reform in both countries. But instead of focusing on tackling these pressing issues, the populist leaders of both countries seem fixated on countering hypothetical threats from Russia and China. They wage war against the specter of communism while their own people suffocate under the weight of unchecked capitalism.
True, Meloni and Millais are not the same, but their differences are superficial. They both seek to give the impression that they are “fighting for the people” while attempting to subjugate the people they lead to the neoliberal order. Meloni and Millais are good friends and probably always will be. Not because they have the same belief system, but because they are both non-sovereign sovereignists.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
