Javier Milei just eliminated holiday days and slashed wages

Javier Milei is the libertarian leader of Argentina. If you’re unfamiliar with ‘libertarianism’, it’s the childlike belief that everyone can just get their own way all the time, and that people shouldn’t look out for one another – just for themselves.

In practice, libertarianism means cutting ‘red tape’ for businesses so they face no restrictions on how poorly they can treat their workers. This is how that’s currently working out in Argentina (complete with quotes from the UK leaders who wish to emulate this chaos):

Class war

As reported by Public Services International, Milei’s proposed assault on workers’ rights would see the:

• Extension of the working day to up to 12 hours
• Elimination of paid overtime, replaced by a “time bank” system where employers unilaterally decide when – or if – accumulated hours can be taken as time off or reduced shifts
• Introduction of “dynamic wages” based on productivity, allowing salaries to fluctuate from month to month
• Deduction of days not worked during sick leave, ending payment for medical absences
• Fragmentation of the traditional 30-day annual vacation, with employers deciding when workers take their leave
• Complete elimination of severance pay, encouraging mass dismissals and “fire-and-rehire” practices under worse conditions
• Severe restrictions on the right to strike
• Sweeping empowerment of employers, destroying the principle of equal bargaining power and leaving workers completely submissive to management

Imagine having no holiday days.

Imagine working more hours for the same or less pay.

Imagine not knowing how much you’re going to earn from month to month.

Of course you’d riot.

And if you wouldn’t riot, you’re a slug.

A worm.

But hey, at least the people fucking you over would despise you a hundredth less than they despise the rest of us!

It would be one thing if the world was actually running out of stuff, but that isn’t the case. Every year there’s more bounty; what’s changing is the concentration of wealth and power. In other words, the rich get richer and the rest of us get shafted.

The ideology of people like Milei and Farage is to constantly push things in the favour of their rich mates. There’s only so far you can push, however, and beyond that you get riots – riots and desperation:

Farage’s idols – including Javier Milei

As reported by the Guardian, Farage has praised other far-right leaders besides Milei:

Farage had huge praise for Javier Milei, the far-right libertarian Argentine president famous for posing with a chainsaw, saying he had been bringing in “Thatcherism on steroids – this is incredible, cutting and slashing public expenditure, doing all the things he’s done”, adding: “That’s leadership … he is amazing.” When asked to list the best leaders in the western world, Farage named Hungary’s rightwing leader, Viktor Orbán, a “strong leader”, and his “friend” Donald Trump, the US presidential candidate.

Previously, in 2016 on Fox News, Farage praised Vladmir Putin, the Russian president, who he said for “all his faults” was a “strong leader who believes in his own nation”.

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So to recap, Farage is taking notes from:

Out of all of them, though, we think Farage most wants to be Viktor Orbán – the corrupt overlord of a once prosperous European power. There’s no reason Britain can’t prosper now, of course, but where would the profit be in that?

Featured image via Gage Skidmore (Wikimedia)