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On the morning of January 17, Argentine President Javier Milei gave his first speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The far-right libertarian was sworn in on December 10, 2023 and since then has launched all-out attacks on the working class through presidential decrees and omnibus laws, all of which have been vehemently opposed on the streets.

Milei began his speech at Davos by telling those present: I am here to tell you that the West is in danger. All over the world, leaders who must defend the values of capitalism assume a vision that leads to socialism and poverty. The main leaders of the world have abandoned freedom for so-called collectivism, which is the cause of the problems.

The strongest argument of his speech was going to be that capitalism is the only tool to end hunger and poverty in the world, although he added: the leftist thinking attacks capitalism for being, according to them, unjust. They say it is bad because it is individualistic and they fight for social justice. This concept has become fashionable around the world, but social justice is an unfair, violent idea, because taxes are coercively collected. Nobody pays taxes voluntarily. The State is financed through coercion. If a company generates a good product it will do well, if the State punishes the capitalist for being successful it destroys their incentives, and the cake will be smaller. Collectivism ties the entrepreneurs hands.

He also spoke of enemies, who for him are those who use the State as a tool: everyone. There are no substantive differences. Socialists, conservatives, communists, fascists, Nazis, social democrats, centrists. They are all the same.

In this same sense, Milei attacked two of the most important agendas at the Davos Forum, gender inequality and climate change: The first of these new battles was the ridiculous and unnatural fight between men and women. Libertarianism already establishes equality between the sexes. The founding stone of our creed says that all men are created equal, that we all have the same inalienable rights granted by the creator, among which are life, liberty and property, he maintained.

He went further and said: the only thing that became of this agenda of radical feminism is greater intervention by the state to hinder the economic process, giving work to bureaucrats who do not contribute anything to society, be it in the format of womens ministries or international organizations dedicated to promoting this agenda.

In the same sense, he denied human responsibility for climate change: another one of the conflicts that socialists raise is that of man against nature. They maintain that human beings damage the planet and that it must be protected at all costs, even going so far as to advocate for population control mechanisms or the bloody agenda of abortion.

Finally, the only praise in Javier Mileis speech was for the businessmen, whom he treated as heroes and also told them: do not let yourself be intimidated by the political caste that wants to remain in power. You are heroes, you are benefactors, let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral, do not give in to the advance of the State, The state is the problem itself, you are the protagonists of history. Long live fucking freedom!

The president returned to Argentina on Wednesday on a commercial flight, after a couple of meetings and a bold speech that was not very widely accepted in Davos. He will face a massive national strike on January 24, called for by all the major trade unions and confederations in Argentina in opposition to his pro-capitalist, pro-businessman policies.

This article was first published in Spanish on ARG Medios.

More:
Argentinas far-right libertarian president warns in Davos, the West is in danger - Peoples Dispatch

Chase Oliver, who ran for Senate in Georgia in 2022, registered a plurality win with nearly 41% in unofficial results.

ATLANTA Chase Oliver, an Atlanta Libertarian Party candidate running for president, took a major first step toward securing the party's nomination Monday night as he appeared headed for a strong victory in the Iowa Caucus.

In unofficial results posted on X by the Libertarian Party of Iowa, Oliver had a plurality lead of 40.70% of the vote, well ahead of second-place Michael Rectenwald at 17.44%. The results were not yet official, and were still without three counties reporting at the time the Iowa Libertarian Party posted results just before midnight.

Oliver was Georgia's Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate in 2022, gaining a little more than 2% of the vote in the race that also featured Herschel Walker and Sen. Raphael Warnock.

The 38-year-old posted a message to X after the unofficial results were released.

"If you haven't seen by now, it's been announced unofficially that I have won the Libertarian Party of Iowa's presidential caucus. I am so excited for this victory, it is just a confirmation to me that hard work does indeed pay off," Oliver said. "We've invested time in Iowa, getting to know folks out here, traveling through the state and that allowed us to participate in the State Fair and Political Soap Box -- being the first candidate for president who's not a Republican or Democrat to ever to be able to do that. And it paid off with a wide margin of victory tonight."

"This (Iowa) combined with win this weekend at the Arizona state convention with their delegate straw poll, where we also won by a wide margin, tells me we have momentum in this campaign, that we are ready to keep on running at full speed all the way through the nomination process and beyond into the general election," he said. "To give voters a chance to vote for someone they feel good about."

New Hampshire has a party convention later this week, as does Florida, and the Libertarian Party of Georgia is scheduled to hold its convention Jan. 26-28.

Read more:
Chase Oliver Libertarian Party Iowa caucus result - 11Alive.com WXIA

Overview:

The desert town of Rio Verde Foothills ought to be a lesson in what happens when you buy a home in places without the resources needed for human life. But some people are doing their utmost not to learn that lesson.

[Previous: Why libertarian cities fail]

If youve been waiting for an update on Rio Verde Foothills, here it is!

As a quick refresher, Rio Verde Foothills was a libertarians dream: an unincorporated community in the rural fringes of Maricopa County, Arizona, northeast of Phoenix. To those who bought homes there, it was a desert paradise, with peace and quiet, gorgeous scenery, predictable weather, and best of all, very little government.

Arizona law requires homebuilders to prove that they have reliable access to waterbut that often involves taxes. Showcasing their dedication to freedom, the builders found a way around this. As I wrote previously:

Arizona law requires homebuilders in active management areas to secure a reliable source of water expected to last at least a hundred years. However, theres a loophole: the law only applies to subdivisions of six homes or more. You can guess what some clever developers do: they simply build lots of subdivisions each consisting of only five homes.

But then they made an awful discovery. It turns out, even when you find a way to skirt regulations about water humans still need water.

Like the grasshopper and the ant of fable, the inhabitants of Rio Verde Foothills found a solution: parasitizing their neighbors who planned better than they did. Specifically, they were driving tanker trucks into the neighboring community of Scottsdale, filling up from the municipal supply, and carting the water home.

This went on for a while until Scottsdale, understandably, got fed up and cut them off. This was at the beginning of 2023. What followed was months of misery, as RVFs residents had to skip showers and baths, eat off paper plates, and pay through the nose to have water hauled in from elsewhere in the statean expensive and unreliable proposition.

Eventually, the state of Arizona stepped in and imposed a compromise, ordering Scottsdale to let RVF use their water supply for one more year as an interim measure. In the meantime, Rio Verde Foothills will get a new pipeline built to carry water to the community at enormous cost to residents. It will also have a strict limit imposed on future expansion:

As the media frenzy around Rio Verde Foothills reached a fever pitch last summer, the state legislature passed a bill that forced Scottsdale to provide water to the neighborhood through 2025. A few months later, a state regulator approved a long-term agreement between the community and a large utility called Epcor, which agreed to build a new water standpipe in the neighborhood and import a new water supply from elsewhere in Phoenix. Rio Verde Foothills residents will pay for the $12 million project through water bills that could be double or triple current rates. The deal also limits future growth in the neighborhood, allowing for just 150 additional homes to access the standpipe.

Its been an exhausting, exhausting fight for this community, and people are not happy with how much it costs, said John Hornewer, a Rio Verde resident who runs the neighborhoods largest water hauling company.

Turns out freedom isnt free.

This story should be a lesson about the folly of building or buying property in places without the natural resources needed to sustain human life. But it isnt being treated that way.

Incredibly, after this ordeal, some people still havent learned anything:

Theres an appetite for [reform], but I think that will be lost in the shuffle, said John Kavanagh, a Republican state senator who represents the Rio Verde Foothills area. The home builders will be aggressively lobbying against a lot-split bill, and youve got some members with a more libertarian slant who believe in the right to property being almost unlimited.

Indeed, home builders are now pushing the legislature to move in the other direction, arguing that the 100-year water supply standard is holding back the states economic growth.

While Arizona solved this specific problem, it didnt close the loophole that made it possible in the first place. In fact, developers want the laws about water availability loosened. These wildcat communities are still being built in places without an adequate water supply, and the people who move there will pay the price.

Theres a clear take the money and run attitude at work. As the climate gets warmer and drier, limits on water availability will make new housing developments almost impossible in increasingly large swaths of Arizona and other desert states. Its likely developers are calculating that their best strategy is to build houses as quickly as possible, sell them off, and get out of Dodge before more people realize this.

The desert communities being built today are going to end up as desiccated, uninhabitable ghost towns. But developers have no incentive to care, as long as they get paid and move on before the bubble bursts.

What were seeing, in Rio Verde Foothills and other wildcat communities, is Ayn Rands cornucopian attitude in action. Its the habitual libertarian mindset of assuming that natural resources are limitless and free.

Specifically, they assume that there will always be water, somehow, from somewhere, so theres no need to concern themselves with where it comes from. Just move where you want, and everything else will work out. The capitalist principle of supply and demand can overcome any problemeven nature itself.

Because of this blind spot, libertarians dont understand why regulation is ever necessary. In their mind, laws that govern where people can live are arbitrary government tyranny, not a reflection of any underlying physical reality.

In a warming world, that assumption is slamming into a brick wall of reality. Thanks to climate change, the American West is getting hotter and drier. The Colorado River, which sustains millions of people, is overstretched already. Its flows have fallen 20% since the turn of the century, and its likely going to get worse.

We may soon witness history repeat itself. The spectacular cliffside city of Mesa Verde had to be abandoned by its builders, the Ancestral Puebloan people, because of a prolonged drought that rendered it uninhabitable.

The climate-change-induced megadroughts coming to the West in the future may well be even worse. When will lack of water force people to give up and migrate elsewhere? Will our modern desert settlements become arid, crumbling ruins preserved as parks a thousand years from now?

Read more here:
Libertarians in the desertan update - OnlySky Media

DES MOINES, Iowa Republicans werent the only ones who braved the bitter cold Monday night to do some political business.

The Libertarian Party of Iowa (LPIA) also conducted a statewide caucus and held its own 2024 Presidential Preference Straw Poll. LIPA says this marked the first time they had held a caucus during a Presidential campaign as a major party.

We firmly believe in the process that is the Iowa Caucuses, the proving ground of campaigns, says LIPA Chair Jules Cutler. It has been extremely exciting to witness candidates actively building their brands, expanding their teams, and fortifying our party well in advance of the LP nominee's selection by delegates at the Libertarian National Convention.

With 98 of 99 counties reporting results of the straw poll stand as such:

Chase Oliver - 42.70%

Michael Rectenwald - 16.85%

Michael ter Maat - 13.48%

Joshua Smith - 13.48%

Vivek Ramaswamy - 4.49%

Mario Perales - 2.25%

Robert Sansone - 2.25%

Jacob Hornberger - 1.12%

Lars Mapstead - 1.12%

Art Olivier - 1.12%

Chase Oliver is a former Libertarian Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in Georgia.

Too often our candidate in the past was starting way behind the other two major parties because they had only campaigned to Libertarians at various State Conventions and didnt have the structure and organization in place to move into the general election at full speed, says Cutler. With the results of our Straw Poll last night, its clear that those with support teams in place, putting in the groundwork, are beginning to position themselves not only for the LNC but also if they were to get the nomination, for the tough campaigning to come in the general.

Delegates elected Monday night will reconvene in Des Moines on February 16-17th for the District/State Conventions. They will play a crucial role in electing the new State Central Committee and delegates to the Libertarian National Convention in Washington D.C. on May 24th-26th.

Read the rest here:
Libertarian Party of Iowa announces the winner of its statewide Presidential caucus - KIMT 3

Was Milton Friedman the most important libertarian of them all? That's part of the conversation I had with today's guest, Stanford historian Jennifer Burns, who has written a masterful and definitive new biography of the Nobel Prizewinning economist. Without reservation, I recommend you check out her new book, Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative.

Friedman was arguably not just the most influential free market economist of the 20th century but the central figure in building the broad political and intellectual coalition that successfully challenged Keynesian economics and the top-down rule of experts in so many aspects of our lives. I talked with Burns about Friedman's conceptual and methodological breakthroughs in economics; his way-ahead-of-his-time collaboration with female economists such as Anna Schwartz and his wife Rose; his role in popularizing free market economics through his columns in Newsweek and the TV series Free To Choose;his controversial engagements with politicians such as Richard Nixon and Augusto Pinochet; and his role in ending the military draft and championing school choice. We also talked about Burns' previous book, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, and its connections to her new work.

This episode was taped at the Reason Speakeasy, a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy that doubles as a live taping of this podcast. Go here to get information about Speakeasys and all our upcoming events.

See the article here:
Jennifer Burns: Why Milton Friedman Matters More Than Ever - Reason