0:00

Maybe he can try to

0:02

remove subsidies. Maybe he can remove labor

0:04

market regulations. Maybe he

0:06

can lower the taxes and lower the

0:08

spending. Fundamentally, as a libertarian,

0:10

you just want to lower the spending, lower the size of the state,

0:12

lower the taxes. Get out of the way. Hello

0:15

there. How are you all doing? It's been

0:18

a crazy week. Seems like we always

0:20

have crazy weeks in the world of Bitcoin. Firstly,

0:22

we had the election of Javier Millet

0:25

in Argentina. Now we had all the craziness

0:27

with Binance yesterday. What a world

0:29

we live in. Anyway,

0:29

welcome to the What Bitcoin Did podcast, which

0:32

is brought to you by the massive legends at RS Energy,

0:34

the largest NASDAQ-listed Bitcoin miner using 100%

0:37

renewable energy. I'm your host, Peter

0:39

McCormack, and today I've got my old buddy and

0:41

fellow podcaster, Stefan Levera, back on the show

0:44

after a long hiatus. Now, just a few

0:46

days ago, Argentina made history by electing

0:48

the first ever anarcho-capitalist

0:50

world leader. Javier Millet

0:52

is now in charge and promising some pretty

0:55

radical changes, but radical

0:57

changes that could see what Argentina needs. Radical

1:00

changes that maybe aren't radical, that actually

1:02

are common sense. Now, I recently

1:04

went to Argentina. I made a documentary ahead

1:07

of the election. I was looking at what was

1:09

happening with inflation in the country and who

1:11

people thought could win the election. So

1:13

if you haven't checked that out, go onto my YouTube channel, search

1:16

for Follow the Money. You will

1:18

see it there. I think it's the fourth film I've

1:20

made on this series. Anyway,

1:22

I was sat down with Danny. I was like, we've got to make a show about

1:24

this. And he was like, who do you want to talk to? I was like, come on,

1:27

man. It's got to be Stefan. Now, Stefan

1:29

and I have battled through libertarianism,

1:31

politics, democracy over the years. We

1:33

come from different viewpoints, but this was kind of one where

1:36

I felt like we both kind of won.

1:38

Democracy won and an anarcho-capitalist

1:41

world leader won. So I had to get him on

1:43

the show to talk through some of his policies, talk

1:45

about the changes he hoped that would come with Millet,

1:48

and whether this will encourage more libertarians to work within

1:50

government structures to bring about change. So I hope you enjoy

1:52

this. If you've got any questions about this or anything else, any

1:55

other feedback, please do get in touch. It's hello at whatbitcoindid.com.

1:59

Stefan,

2:02

how are you? Hey, Peter. Yeah, I'm doing

2:04

well. Right. We have a libertarian

2:07

president in place. How

2:09

do you feel about this? I

2:12

think it's remarkable. It's the first time we've

2:14

seen an explicitly anarcho-capitalist

2:16

head of state in the world. So

2:19

I think it's a remarkable step

2:21

in terms of liberty and

2:23

the philosophy getting a

2:26

certain level of exposure that

2:28

it had never gotten before. And I think this

2:31

may be the new wave,

2:33

right? If people think about Ron Paul in 2008 and

2:35

in 2012, this may be the next big wave, potentially. Now,

2:42

of course, there's things that could go wrong here too. But

2:44

also, I think it's fair to say that this

2:46

is a big step forward in terms of awareness

2:49

about the ideology and philosophy

2:52

of libertarianism. Well, listen,

2:54

this is a show I had to make. So I got on

2:56

the phone with Danny. As soon as he was

2:59

elected, I said, look, we've got to make a show on this. And he was like, who

3:01

do you want to make it with? I was like, Stefan, definitely

3:03

Stefan. I was like, we

3:05

have butted heads now for about five

3:08

years where there's things we agree

3:10

on and disagree on and sometimes argue

3:12

about. But it was kind of like this meeting

3:15

of all your ideas. But they

3:17

came through, I'm a pro-democracy person.

3:20

And so it came through a democratic process. So

3:23

I was like, I mean, I even privately messaged you. So I was

3:25

kind of like, Stefan's the person I've got to talk to,

3:27

because I've got so many questions

3:30

about this. So interestingly,

3:33

how closely have you been following

3:35

him? And in your world, your

3:37

anarcho-catholistic world, how

3:40

much does he align? Because I know there can be a lot of

3:42

differences. Sure. So

3:44

in terms of

3:47

how long has this guy been on my radar, probably

3:50

last six months or so,

3:53

like people were sort of talking about this guy. Now,

3:55

as you obviously know, I'm an English-speaking person.

3:58

I'm not fluent in... Spanish,

4:00

and so for that reason I wasn't as familiar

4:03

with him. But from what I've read of him,

4:05

it sounds like he sort of came up over the last

4:08

few years as a commentator

4:10

going on these shows and basically arguing with

4:13

statists about politics

4:15

and economics. And the funny

4:17

thing is, as you mentioned, in terms of the

4:20

broad, let's say, church of libertarianism

4:22

or the broad, you know, a big tent of libertarianism,

4:25

he's coming from the specifically Austrian

4:28

economics, let's say, wing

4:30

or part of that. Now, of course, I

4:33

have some disagreements with him, maybe on

4:35

the foreign policy aspects. But

4:38

for the most part, it seems like he aligns

4:40

with what many Austrian libertarians

4:43

and Austrian anarcho-capitalist would believe.

4:46

Of course, you know, I

4:48

think, as you can probably appreciate, sometimes

4:51

in certain circles online there can be a lot of purity

4:53

testing about exactly how much you follow

4:56

the ideology. And this can even happen even

4:58

in Bitcoin circles, right? I'm sure you see online people

5:00

sometimes they sort of compete about how hardcore

5:02

they can be about how much how many, you know,

5:05

coin joints they can do and how much multi-sig and

5:07

how hardcore they are with their security and how hardcore

5:09

they are about running their Bitcoin node. Now, of course,

5:12

you know, I encourage people to do these things, but I'm

5:15

not as much of a like to

5:17

the nth degree purity testing.

5:19

And I think the same thing can exist in libertarianism

5:21

where people can sort of be like, oh, see, I

5:23

agree with you on 95% of things. But

5:26

this last 5% is unforgivable and

5:29

people can sometimes miss

5:31

the forest for the trees. Which is

5:33

ridiculous when you have got a so

5:35

what should what should I be saying? Should I be saying he's anarcho-capitalist

5:39

or libertarian? Well,

5:41

I see them as I yeah,

5:44

so I see libertarianism

5:47

is the broader category and anarcho-capitalist is

5:50

let's say one type of libertarian

5:53

and you also have minarchist libertarians

5:55

who believe in a small state solution.

5:58

Now I think Javier Millay has said philosophically,

6:00

he's an anarcho-capitalist, but in practice,

6:03

in pragmatic terms, he's

6:05

more like a monarchist in terms of what are the policies

6:07

that he's actually going to be trying to drive.

6:09

So, I think it's

6:13

a fair position to take realistically,

6:16

given that you need time for

6:18

people to sort of get

6:21

familiar with that idea of, oh, okay,

6:23

a society where we've privatized everything.

6:26

Okay, so what is it that makes you a statist?

6:28

Everyone calls me a statist, but

6:31

he has come to power through a democratic

6:33

process, and he will

6:36

lead a party in government. So,

6:39

what part of that isn't statist? So, I understand.

6:42

Yeah, and that's a fair question, right? Because you

6:44

could say, well, hang on, is that a contradiction in

6:46

terms, right? An anarchist

6:49

who is trying to be

6:51

the president of a nation state and

6:54

presumably is going to be giving

6:56

orders within that nation state. It's a

6:59

fair question. I think the

7:01

way I would answer that is he

7:04

fundamentally is attempting to

7:06

reduce the size of the state, right? And as I'm

7:09

sure you might have seen, and listeners may have seen

7:11

some of the clips or the memes of exactly

7:13

the kinds of things he's saying, right? He's gone on

7:15

shows saying things like, f the state,

7:18

and I wipe my behind with the state. And,

7:20

you know, it's funny because sometimes

7:22

people sort of accuse people who are excited

7:24

about this of being statist. But if

7:26

there's one candidate who is

7:28

out here saying f the state, and I wipe

7:31

my ass with the state, I mean, if

7:33

that guy is there going in and trying

7:35

to reduce the size of the state, trying

7:37

to lower the taxes, trying to get rid of the regulation,

7:39

trying to bring about free trade, explicitly

7:42

saying he wants to end central banking,

7:45

well, then I think you can be excused

7:47

a little bit. Of course, you have to see

7:49

what he does in practice, right, of course, you

7:52

know, politicians, you can't really trust them, of course,

7:54

they could say one thing and do another. But

7:57

fundamentally, I think the important. The

8:00

important point that I would make is that this

8:03

philosophy has now gotten to this level

8:06

that a person who explicitly

8:08

calls himself a libertarian has now become president

8:11

of a nation as important as Argentina

8:14

with a population of 45 million people. And

8:16

I think it's important to point out here that there's a lot

8:18

of people who are trying to discredit him or they're trying to use

8:20

these terminology like, oh, he's far

8:22

right or he's Trump-like or he's fiery

8:25

or whatever, whatever these terms are. I think

8:27

libertarianism is not really far right.

8:30

It really is a different

8:32

category. Right now historically, libertarians

8:35

sort of use the term liberal or

8:37

classical liberal. Now of course,

8:39

that term liberal can mean different things.

8:42

In the American context, it probably means more like a

8:44

leftist nowadays. So

8:47

for better or worse, the term libertarian

8:49

and the ideology of libertarianism is now

8:52

going to be a lot more prominent.

8:55

People are at least going to look at it in the

8:57

same way that when Bitcoin got adopted

9:00

by El Salvador, it sort of

9:04

made it more credible in the eyes

9:06

of other people or quote unquote normal people

9:08

who've not been exposed to these ideas before. Well,

9:11

I guarantee you here in the UK, the majority

9:13

of people have never even heard of libertarianism.

9:16

And if they have, they probably don't really know what it means.

9:19

Boris Johnson always said he was a libertarian. He wasn't.

9:22

He was a conservative politician. And

9:25

so he's actually created a marketing

9:28

platform for libertarian ideas, which I think

9:31

is super cool. I tell you what

9:33

I like about it is you know how much I've wrestled

9:35

with this over the years. And the thing I've always

9:37

wrestled with the most is the idea of no state,

9:39

just like how does it work? And

9:41

is there a power vacuum? And do you ultimately give

9:44

up democracy and replace of a tyranny? I've

9:46

always worried about that. And I've always

9:48

questioned, well, how do you get a libertarian

9:50

country? And I've always thought,

9:53

why don't the libertarians

9:55

create political parties? Why don't they fight for

9:57

power? And so this is where it's kind of interesting.

10:00

it has happened. And you now have a libertarian

10:04

in place here in Argentina. And actually, by the way, it's

10:08

the 24th largest economy in the world still. And

10:11

so I think it's super interesting. One of the questions

10:13

I would put to you is, and I don't know

10:15

if there's a direct answer, particularly

10:17

nuance, but in

10:20

your ideal world, would he completely

10:23

dismantle the state, or

10:25

would he go

10:28

more the minicus approach and try and make it as small as possible?

10:31

Is there an answer to that?

10:32

So

10:32

this comes to, and you may have come across this

10:35

also, there's this kind of concept in libertarianism

10:37

or libertarian circles where they talk about the side of the red

10:39

button, would you press that red button and just eliminate

10:42

the state entirely? And so I guess,

10:45

yeah, if you asked me the question, just straight up, yes,

10:47

ideally, I would press that red button. That

10:49

would be the idealistic answer. I would

10:52

do it personally. But I understand

10:54

there's the world that I would

10:56

like to see, and there's the world that I think is likely. Now,

10:58

what is likely is that he's going to just

11:01

go in there and take a more minicus approach. And

11:03

you know what, with Argentina coming from such

11:06

a low,

11:07

that

11:08

will cause a huge win. There's

11:10

so much low hanging fruit here that

11:13

he could take away regulation

11:15

relating to free trade. He could end the central

11:17

bank. He could abolish various departments

11:20

with these government workers who

11:22

many of them are just not really doing productive

11:24

things. And they are in fact being a

11:27

burden. They're like an albatross hanging on

11:29

the economy of Argentina. So

11:31

I see it

11:33

as, look, to answer your question,

11:35

yes, I would press the button, I would eliminate the state, but

11:38

I understand that that's not the likely

11:40

pathway. And also I will note that in

11:42

this case now, to be clear, I do not

11:44

consider myself an expert on Argentina, but I've

11:47

done a little bit of reading. My understanding is

11:49

he holds

11:51

a smaller number of seats in terms of the

11:53

Senate and the House. So I believe he holds eight Senate

11:55

seats and 37 House seats. The

11:58

Peronista Coalition holds 34 seats. 72 Senate

12:00

seats and 108 of 257 House seats. So

12:05

Belay will have to govern by coalition. There

12:07

will be limited things that he can do by executive

12:09

order. And so that

12:11

means, you know, theoretically, he

12:13

wouldn't even have the power to sort of press

12:16

the red button anyway. But

12:20

there will be a lot of opportunity for trying

12:23

to fix this crisis that

12:26

Argentina is going through. I

12:28

said, because I don't know about this as well. So

12:30

did he win the popular vote, but his

12:32

party, did they have a vote for a president and

12:34

then a vote for party

12:36

seats? Right. So as I understand,

12:39

his party only holds

12:41

eight Senate seats and 37 House seats. And

12:44

I think when they have the next midterm, maybe

12:46

there's an opportunity for him to take

12:49

that up a bit more. If

12:51

he's doing a good job and able to win more power, then

12:54

maybe that's one pathway. And I think

12:57

he made a point similar to how

12:59

Pachela, when Pachela over in El Salvador

13:02

was first voted in that he, you know, he wasn't

13:04

necessarily voted in with a massive, you know, 90 percent of

13:06

the seats or something like that, that

13:08

he had to sort of grow to that level. So

13:11

I think obviously there will be parallels being drawn now

13:13

between Millet and Pachela

13:16

and let's say Bolsonaro from Brazil. They

13:19

obviously there are big differences between all of them. But I think

13:21

Millet is obviously the one who is most explicitly

13:24

talking about Austrian economics and

13:26

anarcho-capitalism. Yeah, I think

13:28

the comparison to Bolsonaro

13:31

and Trump themselves are particularly lazy because

13:33

I think their personality

13:35

comparisons, I don't think their policy comparisons,

13:37

you don't have to spend particularly long

13:39

to realize they come from a

13:42

different place in terms of policy. I

13:44

think that's

13:46

purely on the personality side. We

13:48

had an article that came out about eight hours

13:50

before the election in the UK referring

13:53

to, using the Guardian, of course,

13:57

referring to Millet as extreme

13:59

right. And I sent you a screenshot

14:02

for just when I put some makeup on Facebook. Yeah. About

14:05

a libertarian being elected. And, you

14:07

know, the first comment was somebody saying,

14:09

you know, they forgot the far right

14:11

extreme right. I think

14:14

that's lazy. Yeah. And

14:16

I'm with you. And I think there's one other point that's important

14:18

to make here because I think there

14:21

are some, let's say, MAGA, conservative,

14:23

you know, making America great again types who are

14:25

sort of heralding this. And maybe there's some

14:28

superficial level of agreement in terms of that

14:30

you would say they're both anti-woke, let's

14:32

say, but there's actually a lot of differences

14:34

between, let's say, a MAGA, a typical MAGA

14:36

person and a typical libertarian person,

14:38

right? Because a typical libertarian person is looking

14:41

to reduce the power of the state. He's

14:43

not trying to give money

14:45

to particular industries. He's, you

14:48

know, there are some when you

14:50

really look at the policies, he's

14:52

not, he's different from a Trump or

14:54

a Bolsonaro. Another big example

14:56

would be a MAGA person might be very pro-Tarras

14:59

and industry protectionism and

15:01

subsidies, whereas a principled libertarian

15:03

is going to be trying to reduce those or remove those,

15:06

right? A common thing, and this is another

15:08

thing that's interesting, is oftentimes they'll

15:10

call it a free trade agreement. But

15:12

in actual fact, free trade is often managed

15:15

trade. So in practice, it says, oh,

15:18

you're allowed to trade with this other country on this,

15:20

this and that provider with this import duty and this

15:22

particular regulation, when in

15:24

actual fact, it would be beneficial

15:27

for countries to go to a

15:30

more unilateral free trade approach. And

15:32

that's actually what Millet has spoken

15:34

about, this idea of just having unilateral free

15:36

trade and stopping this idea that you

15:38

need to regulate the trade between the nations. Now

15:42

Millet has made some overtures

15:45

that he doesn't like to negotiate or talk with

15:47

communist people. And there's been a little

15:49

bit of a back and forth between him and

15:52

Lula, the leader in Brazil. But

15:55

nevertheless, I think, you know, even if

15:57

that's happening at the government level, I think Millet is sort of

15:59

having this idea that, well, if you're a business in

16:01

Argentina, that doesn't stop you trading with a business

16:04

in Brazil. So, and that's

16:06

actually a little bit more aligned with how a libertarian is

16:08

viewing it. So there's some interesting differences

16:10

there between the libertarians and the MAGA

16:12

types. Yeah. And just

16:15

go back to the big red button, because I've read an article once

16:17

that Scott Horton wrote about this.

16:19

And he's actually against the big red button.

16:22

He thinks it's too fast,

16:24

it's like ripping off the band-aid. It's too fast, it's

16:26

too bloody, too dangerous. And

16:29

I guess from my side, I would see it

16:31

as the big red button would be kind of

16:34

risky. If he moves too fast, it

16:36

may cause too much pain that you

16:38

could see protests, another maybe

16:41

different type of populist revolution, because

16:44

there's certainly a large part of the

16:46

Argentinian population that rely

16:49

on government handouts. And so

16:51

my kind of view is that if he's going

16:53

to reduce the size of state, it might make sense

16:56

to do it a bit more slowly and almost

16:58

like a A-B test your way through it. So

17:01

I, and these are, this is actually the argument. So

17:04

to be clear, there's a lot of disagreement amongst libertarians

17:06

on this issue. I can't give you this kind of, this is the

17:08

answer. There's disagreement here. But one

17:10

of the arguments in favor of the big red

17:12

button, now I can't recall who, sadly,

17:15

I can't remember who wrote that article. It might be Murray Rothbard,

17:17

but one of the arguments about

17:19

it is that what happens in practice, if you try

17:22

to end up doing this incremental slowly but

17:24

surely approach, you end up getting captured

17:26

or you end up sort of trying

17:29

to do this gradualism approach, and

17:32

then you just end up sort of reversing back into

17:34

having a big state anyway, because people,

17:36

because every time you try to do something, there's kind of

17:38

an opportunity for somebody to sort of interrupt

17:40

you and say, well, we need a regulation for that, or we

17:43

need the government subsidy for this, you can't, you

17:45

can't just end it. And so

17:48

that's, that's where this disagreement lies that

17:50

actually, it would be the

17:53

pathway to actually get it done, as opposed

17:55

to getting caught in this sort of regulatory

17:59

morass or this sort of of big state morass

18:02

as it happens. But that is the argument between

18:04

libertarians there. Is that because the

18:06

state always centralizes? It's

18:08

an organic structure

18:10

that always grows. And think about it like

18:12

this, right? People have this conception

18:15

that libertarians are kind of pro big business.

18:19

In actual fact, it almost might be

18:21

the other way around, right? Yes, of course,

18:23

from an economics perspective, we like economies

18:25

of scale, and certainly that's there. But

18:28

what happens in practice is when you have a big

18:30

state, people want to control that big

18:32

state. And big business often allies

18:35

with the state to serve their own

18:37

interests. And that's what we saw, even

18:39

with things like the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913,

18:42

that big bankers were

18:44

trying to sort of make this case of why

18:46

they needed the state because it became

18:48

a way for the state to give

18:50

them protection that they would not otherwise have

18:53

in a truly free market. And

18:55

so that's why there's this kind of confusion where sometimes

18:58

people who are coming from a more left status

19:01

view can look at the libertarian

19:03

saying, Oh, see, you're just shilling for the big

19:05

business, when it's actually the other way around, it's

19:07

actually that we don't want there to be this

19:10

kind of big territorial

19:12

monopolist of law and order and taxation,

19:15

which is the state, to be there. Because

19:17

what happens is when it does exist, people want to

19:19

command that thing, and then they want to use it to their

19:21

own benefit, right? Because a lot of people have this

19:23

conception. And I, you know, I can almost,

19:26

it's hard to blame them in some ways, because in their mind,

19:29

they think of it like, Oh, you know, we

19:31

just need to bring it back, we even need to just just

19:34

get the right guy in charge, or we just need to

19:36

have a less corrupt government, right? And most

19:38

people would probably agree with that, right? If you said, Oh, would

19:40

you like the government to just be less corrupt? Yeah,

19:42

obviously. But the challenge is, how

19:44

do you achieve that? Because in practice,

19:47

you can't take the money out of the politics, right? That's

19:49

another one, right? They say this kind of, Oh, imagine if

19:51

we could just take the money out of politics. It's

19:53

like, no, they are irrevocably

19:56

tied together. And it's only by

19:58

reducing the power of the state. or ideally eliminating

20:01

the state and having a fully free market

20:03

privatized everything, that you can achieve

20:06

that idea. And so that's probably

20:10

an answer as to why

20:12

or a common confusion that comes

20:14

up with this idea of libertarianism and

20:17

their relationship with the state. So

20:19

is there a lot of excitement now, a lot

20:21

of further, a lot of discussion and debate

20:24

in libertarian circles about this? Absolutely.

20:27

Yeah. So we are seeing various

20:29

posts of people saying congratulations

20:31

to Javier Milla. They're saying things like,

20:33

okay, please make sure you get the full reserve

20:36

banking law in, or,

20:38

you know, because a lot of libertarians, we all have our

20:40

own kind of issue that we're kind of big

20:42

on. Obviously, I'm in the Bitcoin world. So I'm, you

20:45

know, I'm obviously would love to see something

20:47

that relates to Bitcoin. Of course, the

20:49

principal answer would be take away all government

20:52

control over money. There's no need for even

20:54

for a legal tender laws, just take all of that away,

20:56

let people choose whatever they wish. Take away

20:58

capital gains tax laws, take away all banking and

21:01

money laundering regulations, let the

21:03

market decide, right? That's the principled approach.

21:06

But, you know, there are different libertarians who

21:09

are, you know, they've got their own

21:12

issue that they would really like to

21:14

be addressed. I think there's

21:16

a few different camps, let's say there's some

21:18

people who are just sort of contrarian and just

21:21

against everything. And my answer

21:23

to them is sort of like, look, you've

21:25

got to learn to take the W, you know,

21:27

you've got to learn to just take the W.

21:30

Like, yes, nobody's going to be perfect.

21:32

There was there's literally nobody you could put up there

21:35

who everyone would be happy with, right? Even if somehow

21:37

you could magically just parachute

21:39

Ron Paul into, you know,

21:42

into the presidency of the United States, there'd

21:44

be some people who disagree. And I think

21:47

fundamentally, you just have to sort of stop

21:49

playing this kind of perfect period,

21:51

you know, purity game, and just accept,

21:54

okay, yeah, broadly speaking, he is a libertarian,

21:56

let's see what he can achieve, you know, and

21:58

so I think that's The other aspect

22:01

I would point out is

22:03

if

22:04

he starts to do non-libertarian

22:06

things, then it's important that libertarians start calling

22:09

that out and saying, well, hang on, you ran on

22:11

this platform of being a libertarian,

22:13

ending the central bank, etc., anti-the

22:16

globalists, anti-the WEF, all this kind of

22:18

thing. Now you're not doing it. So

22:21

that would be one area I think

22:24

that you have to be vigilant

22:27

because maybe people can get

22:32

corrupted over time or maybe they just sort of

22:34

don't end up achieving what they say they would. This

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network of Bitcoiners. Yeah

24:42

well my assumption is there's going

24:45

to be a certain amount of give-and-take

24:47

he's gonna have to play, some certain games he's gonna have to

24:49

play to move things forward. I

24:52

guess what would you want

24:54

him to do first? Yeah great question.

24:58

So as I said at the executive

25:01

level because he's a president there may be certain executive

25:03

things that he can do for example stripping

25:05

away certain regulations

25:08

or orders that relate to presidential

25:10

powers. So he may be able to just kind of do that

25:12

on day one and he

25:14

has already mentioned that he wanted to shut down, I can't

25:16

remember the name of the industry but I was not sorry

25:19

the department I think it was the department

25:21

of... I

25:24

thought it was the district office. Yeah right

25:26

so everyone's seen that meme video where he's kind of like stripping

25:28

away a few departments.

25:31

So I think I

25:33

don't know the full you know intricate intricate

25:35

details but as I understand he's coming in December

25:38

10th and I believe he's already slated there's

25:40

one department that's going to go on day one or you

25:42

know straight away and so

25:45

I think shutting down whatever departments

25:47

you know that he can shut down anything

25:50

that you know longer like once he sort

25:52

of gets into dealing with Parliament

25:55

and you know the Senate and the House maybe

25:57

he can try to remove subsidies maybe he can remove

26:00

labor market regulations that make it difficult

26:02

for Argentinian entrepreneurs to do business.

26:05

Maybe he can lower

26:07

the taxes and lower the spending. Like

26:09

fundamentally, as a libertarian, you just want to

26:11

lower the spending, lower the size of the state, lower

26:13

the taxes, get out of the way. That's

26:16

fundamentally what libertarians would say. Governments

26:18

should just get out of the way, let the private free

26:20

markets do business, decide

26:24

things, and there will be times where it's not

26:26

perfect, but that's life. There

26:28

are times where in

26:30

life, sometimes you have to, quote unquote, bite the bullet.

26:33

You just have to accept, okay, yeah, this is

26:35

not going to be perfect, but involving

26:38

the government is not going to make it better. In fact, it

26:40

may make it worse and create a

26:42

bad incentive for somebody to try to get in

26:45

power, create a government department, have

26:48

the size of that department just keep expanding, regardless

26:51

of the actual results that that government department

26:53

has gotten for the people, for the taxpayers

26:55

and the citizens. I

26:58

think those are a few ones, removing capital

27:00

flow restrictions, removing subsidies. Obviously,

27:02

as Bitcoiners, we want him to remove all

27:05

monetary interventions. Now, he has

27:07

stated a goal to dollarize

27:11

the economy. And I know you obviously

27:14

did a recent documentary, Follow the Money,

27:16

number four, I believe. I watched it earlier today. So

27:18

I think, yeah,

27:21

it was a great exploration of what's going

27:23

on in Argentina and how people on

27:25

the ground are seeing things. And

27:28

as you rightly point out, many people

27:30

in that economy have chosen to dollarize because

27:32

they don't know of any better or that's their

27:35

way to try and protect their purchasing

27:37

power. Now, of course, I'm a Bitcoiner. I wish

27:40

everyone would just jump straight to Bitcoin. I'll

27:42

always promote Bitcoin over stablecoin.

27:45

I don't promote stablecoins, I promote Bitcoin. But

27:47

I recognize why some people use stablecoins,

27:50

right? I understand why they do it. I think

27:52

that's important. That's the concession I would give.

27:54

But I always promote Bitcoin first, right? If

27:57

they're able to, if they are able to save, I

27:59

think Bitcoin is the way you would. to it. But

28:01

I understand that this is a common thing

28:03

where countries will dollarize. And

28:05

what happens commonly is maybe some economist

28:08

from like the Western world gets parachuted in someone

28:10

like, you know, Steve Hanke or someone and he'll say, yeah, get

28:12

a currency board and dollarize. I

28:15

think that again, so that that comes back to what I was

28:17

saying, what is ideal? And what I think is

28:19

likely what I think is likely is that someone will get parachuted

28:22

in and they'll sort of dollarize the economy. But

28:26

yeah, ideal, of course, is Bitcoin. Well,

28:28

there is something that very anarcho-capitalist

28:31

happening there anyway. So when I was

28:33

there, there was essentially two economies,

28:35

there's the economy and the real economy. And

28:38

I guess there's probably you probably refer

28:41

me to some writings that

28:44

have explained why this happens. But people

28:46

are so squeezed in Argentina in

28:48

terms of taxation, bureaucracy, regulation,

28:51

they've essentially

28:53

got to the point of they cannot can't take

28:55

it anymore. So they've essentially built this whole separate

28:57

economy, which is like a gray economy.

29:00

And they just they just ignore in the state. And

29:03

they're saying, the risk is worth it, because

29:05

I cannot do business and make money operating

29:07

with the state infrastructure. So what's

29:10

quite interesting is that it's not like from

29:12

a standing start, they have to develop this new economy

29:14

because it kind of already exists. Correct.

29:17

And I have done episodes on my show,

29:19

I did one a little while back with a guy who is

29:22

in Argentina. Now, he's actually a Dutch guy,

29:24

but he was talking a little bit about some of this. They've got the Cambios

29:26

and you have this sort of gray economy

29:28

and people were speculating it's anywhere from 40 to 50

29:31

percent of the Argentinian economy

29:33

just because the taxes and the regulations are that

29:35

high. And so if Malay

29:38

can deregulate and lower the taxes,

29:41

what may happen is that economy will then go back

29:43

into the quote unquote white market. And

29:45

if the taxes are low, people may just end

29:48

up paying them. And

29:50

that may end up sort of bringing

29:53

driving revenue for the Argentinian

29:55

state. Now, again, not endorsing the taxes,

29:57

but I'm saying that's what's likely. And

29:59

And so, you

30:01

know, currently the Argentinian

30:03

state makes some of it, some of their money out of export,

30:06

I think, tariffs and things like this.

30:08

So we'll see what the

30:11

way to sort of manage out of that,

30:13

because obviously, Millet has mentioned he wants to have

30:15

no export,

30:19

no trade restrictions and things like this.

30:22

But anyway, to bring it back to your point, yes,

30:25

there is a big gray market

30:27

in some of these economies. And what

30:29

that will do as deregulation

30:33

occurs is we will start

30:35

to see a flourishing

30:38

of things. Because as an example, if you had

30:40

to be an underground entrepreneur, if you had to sort of hide

30:42

things, then you can't operate

30:44

in a very efficient way. Right. And

30:47

I think you saw that even in the same in the example where

30:49

you were meeting a money changer

30:51

guy, and you give the guy, in that

30:53

example, you gave him some tether, and he gave you some

30:56

cash, physical cash. And

30:58

so, you know, they have

31:00

to do things in a way where you meet somebody

31:02

through a friend to get this contact, right, as

31:04

opposed to, let's say, there's just like a store

31:06

that you can go to or a foreign currency place,

31:09

you know, that you go to just

31:11

explicitly to do this changeover.

31:14

So those are a few examples, I think,

31:17

it, there will be an initial

31:20

pain period, right, I think everyone has to acknowledge

31:22

that there is going to be an initial pain period, because it's

31:24

a crisis, right? Because 50 to 60% of

31:27

the population is in poverty, they've

31:29

been dealing with over 100% annual

31:31

inflation for so long, they've had socialism

31:33

for decades, this parent, you

31:37

know, party or legacy

31:39

or whatever, they've been pushing that

31:41

agenda for, I don't know, 50 to 80

31:44

years. So it's going to take

31:46

some time to unwind that damage.

31:48

And of course, the political games will be played, right,

31:51

as Massa leaves, they'll make it really hard

31:53

for Malay and his team to come in and take things

31:55

over, you know, they'll try to pin things

31:57

on him and say, well, look, see, it would have been

31:59

fine. if you just kept it on me, kept

32:01

it with me, because they were sort

32:04

of living a lie, right? They were living in this beyond

32:06

their means debt scenario,

32:08

right? It's the equivalent of the guy who's got all his

32:10

credit cards maxed out. And he

32:12

thinks that just by getting another credit card,

32:15

that he can just keep things going. But

32:17

really, he's lying to himself. What

32:19

he needs to do is get his

32:21

spending down in check. And

32:24

in this case, the Argentinian government, it's

32:27

arguable, but I believe you can make the case that the

32:29

government, the Argentinian government should actually repudiate

32:32

the debt. They should just say,

32:35

look, it's not right that the Argentinian

32:37

people have to, quote

32:39

unquote, honor these contracts that were made

32:41

on their behalf by past leaders. And

32:44

I understand that can sound like an extreme big

32:46

step. But it's sort of part

32:48

of how you could quickly right the ship is

32:50

by repudiating the debt, lowering

32:53

the size of the state dramatically as much as you

32:55

possibly can. And then proceeding

32:57

from there. Now, that's the ideal,

33:00

that would be sort of the closer to

33:02

the ideal pathway, as we've mentioned, Millet

33:04

may not be able to achieve that given the actual

33:07

power he has, you know, currently.

33:09

But in a theoretical sense, that

33:12

would be the way to sort of quickly

33:15

try to right the ship. Is

33:17

that is the majority of that debt with the IMF? Do

33:20

we know the specific numbers? But you're basically saying

33:22

just default on it. Yeah, basically, like, in essence,

33:24

like, you would just say, look,

33:27

it's illegitimate, we are just

33:29

going to have to, you

33:31

know, it's living under this. And yeah, I'm

33:34

sure if you know, our friend

33:36

Alex Gladstein will

33:39

talk about this as well with the

33:41

debt restructuring and the IMF and his recent book. And, you

33:44

know, he's been talking about that. So I think it's a similar

33:46

thing there that these

33:49

external debtors can sort of

33:52

keep you keep people of other countries in chains in a sense, because

33:55

they're not earning enough that they can realistically

33:57

do that. basically

34:00

pay it back anytime soon and they just

34:02

end up having this sort of beggar-thour-neighbor policy

34:04

of constantly taking out a new credit card

34:07

to pay off the previous credit

34:09

card and it's just not a sustainable pathway

34:11

forward. And it's sort of, that's

34:13

where taking a little, you know,

34:15

it's a short-term pain for long-term gain approach

34:18

that allows you to really actually

34:22

move forward in a sustainable pathway. Yeah,

34:24

I wonder where the pain is on such a decision

34:26

with a guy who's totally free-market forward

34:28

anyway, because if

34:31

they want to dollarize, one of the challenges

34:33

that I've read is that to dollarize,

34:35

you need dollars. Most of all, you need

34:37

dollars in the economy. Are there enough

34:39

dollars in the economy? Can they get enough dollars in the economy?

34:41

And if they default on debt, will they

34:44

get any assistance to dollarize? Does

34:46

America want them to dollarize? I

34:48

assume America does. So

34:52

would they provide them with some support? And

34:54

this is where I wonder whether he kind

34:57

of has to do some deals. Maybe he has to

34:59

speak to the USG. Maybe he has to do something

35:01

to enable him to dollarize. I believe that's likely. And

35:03

I believe he has even mentioned that one

35:05

of his first flights will

35:07

be to the United States to sort of negotiate

35:10

with them. So

35:13

that's probably a likely pathway. And that may

35:15

also be where, you know, I think I

35:18

have some, let's say, foreign policy disagreements

35:20

on the positions he might have taken. But

35:23

I also understand where maybe from a cold

35:26

calculus position, maybe that's why he's taken them

35:28

because he wanted to align with the US foreign

35:31

policy establishment so that they would

35:33

be more amenable to sort of, you

35:36

know, not take him out. Not,

35:40

yeah, not take him out, basically. And if

35:42

they align a little more

35:45

on the foreign policy objectives, then

35:48

maybe the US government will be a little more amenable

35:50

to sort of helping them dollarize in

35:53

that way. Again, not endorsing it, but

35:55

recognizing what's likely. Yeah,

35:57

I mean, I think sometimes... that

36:00

we're not walking issues, we're not making

36:02

those decisions. Maybe

36:04

there's some practicalities to

36:07

achieving things he wants to achieve. I don't

36:09

know what the alternatives, I guess you would say, is a free

36:12

market for money creation, that the banks themselves

36:14

would create money. Right. I

36:16

would just basically say, look, the government should just

36:18

have nothing to do with money whatsoever, or banking

36:21

whatsoever, and just let the market decide.

36:23

Then what is likely

36:25

to happen in that case is

36:28

probably dollarization, but just from the bottom

36:30

up, at least for now, until we can

36:32

get Bitcoinization, which maybe that's a

36:34

few more years away, we don't know. But

36:37

I think that's the likely pathway, because that's

36:40

what many people in Argentina are doing already.

36:43

They're already going for dollars and cash.

36:46

But the point being that

36:48

if you give people a real true choice,

36:51

there's no legal tender laws, no capital gains tax

36:53

laws, it allows people to really choose what

36:56

they want as their

36:58

store of value. Many Argentinians

37:01

under those circumstances would probably choose

37:04

dollars, because that's what they know,

37:06

that's what they think of. Of course,

37:08

more and more of them over time will come

37:10

to choose Bitcoin because of all the obvious

37:13

superiorities that Bitcoin has. It's more

37:15

scarce, it's all the things that you and

37:17

your listeners are well aware of. Would

37:19

you expect in a fully free market

37:22

that you would get this free

37:25

banking era that Nick Carter wrote about where the banks themselves

37:28

would issue currency too? Possible.

37:32

But I would say this

37:34

gets into one other area of disagreement that I would have, which

37:37

is around full reserve versus fractional

37:40

free banking, where I believe fractional reserve

37:45

banking to be fraud. And on one count, it's fraud.

37:48

Secondly, it's also ineffective. It's it

37:53

causes the economic cycle. So

37:55

I don't know how deeply into the detail

37:57

you want to get into this.

37:59

So put

38:02

it this way. In

38:05

most circumstances, a lot of people

38:07

are not aware what's happening when they go to their fiat

38:09

banks. They think the

38:12

bank is sort of putting it away

38:14

and holding it in safekeeping for them. But in practice,

38:17

really they're contributing into this system,

38:19

which

38:20

pyramids the creation of new credit,

38:22

right? This is fiat fractional reserve. It creates

38:25

new money every

38:27

time new loans are created. And so

38:30

this system, in essence, is

38:33

backed by the central bank and by

38:35

government guarantees, things like implicit

38:40

bailout guarantees as an example.

38:42

So if, you know, these banks who

38:44

are going fractional, where to go down, government

38:46

steps in and saves them. That wouldn't

38:48

exist in a free market. There are no bailouts in

38:50

Bitcoin, or at least if they are, they

38:52

are privately funded. They're not state funded

38:55

and not socialized

38:58

to everybody. The cost is not socialized

39:00

to every holder or every user. It's

39:02

only an individual who chose to bail

39:04

out or with his own funds, recapitalize

39:07

that bank. And so I believe

39:11

that having

39:14

a full reserve law or at least some kind of

39:16

option. So as an example, let's say you went to

39:18

the bank and they gave you a choice.

39:20

Hey, Pete, when you set up this bank

39:22

account with us, do you want

39:25

to allow us to lend it out in future

39:27

as well? And you don't necessarily have the

39:31

full reserve aspect, or are you expecting it to

39:33

be in a full reserve context

39:35

and we're not allowed to lend it out? And maybe in that case,

39:37

we would actually charge you some money, but

39:39

at least it's an explicit upfront thing. So then it's

39:41

kind of like, at least you're getting an opt in aspect

39:44

to this. So Stefan Kinsella has

39:47

written a little bit about this, about what

39:49

a potential law could be that

39:51

could be brought in to sort of at least give people

39:53

that choice of whether they believe

39:56

they're opting into a fractional reserve situation

39:59

or whether they are opting into a a full reserve situation.

40:02

But, you know, of course, I think long term,

40:04

it's all going towards Bitcoin. And so we're going to be in a Bitcoin

40:07

context. It's just a question of time.

40:09

It's a matter of time until people

40:12

realize the superiority of Bitcoin. It's

40:14

simply a better money. It's simply a better saving technology.

40:17

It's just simply better. Are

40:19

libertarians in general agreement

40:21

on full reserve banking? No,

40:23

this is a big area of disagreement. So

40:26

this is a big area. So in the 90s and even

40:29

early 2000s, there were a lot of back

40:31

and forth volleys between libertarian

40:34

economists on this exact question.

40:36

So in the full reserve camp, you have people

40:38

like Hans Herman Hopper, Joseph

40:40

Salerno, Guido Halsman, Walter

40:43

Block. And then

40:45

in the pro fractional side,

40:47

you have people like Larry White, George

40:50

Selgin and others. I

40:53

guess in modern day context, you have others

40:55

like David Howden and

40:58

Philip Vargas as well, who are also in the full

41:01

reserve camp. Who are the de Soto is another one

41:03

in the full reserve camp. So

41:05

I'm personally in the full reserve camp. I'm sort of on that full reserve

41:07

camp, someone like safety, he would be in the full

41:09

reserve camp probably. Whereas

41:12

let's say someone like, as you mentioned, Nick Carter, he's probably

41:14

more in the fractional free

41:16

banker side. I think Nick

41:20

said that he just expects

41:22

that to happen. He said, I don't think you can avoid leverage.

41:25

Right. So I think the answer from

41:27

the full reserve side in that case would be that's

41:31

fraud, right? Like there should be laws to stop

41:33

that, right? So it's one thing to have a contract

41:35

between two people who kind of voluntary opt into

41:37

that. But the problem with that is that it

41:40

involves people who never agreed to that,

41:43

right? Because when people are forced

41:45

to use a particular legal tender, right, and this comes

41:47

back to the problem of legal tender laws, when you're forced to

41:49

use the US dollar or the Australian

41:52

dollar or whatever, the Argentine peso,

41:55

you are kind of like a forced third

41:57

party in that agreement. And so the full reserve

41:59

argument would be no, you're only allowed

42:01

to make agreements between you and that other person. You can't

42:05

force that onto other third parties.

42:07

And because they're being forced to use that as legal tender,

42:09

and because they're being forced because of

42:11

capital gains tax laws, right? Because if you use

42:14

something else as money, you're going to have to pay capital

42:16

gains tax every time you transact. That's

42:18

not feasible. And that's part of the full reserve.

42:21

That would be part of the full reservist answer, let's

42:23

say. So if you consider

42:26

that fraud, but others don't,

42:29

in such a scenario, how do you define

42:31

what the laws are? How would

42:33

laws be created? Say you have the big red button. I

42:36

know there's very limited laws

42:39

that libertarians want. I think it's

42:41

mainly to do with theft,

42:43

rape, murder, and stealing. Yeah,

42:47

it's like the

42:50

typical violence laws or the theft

42:52

and fraud. But I think violence

42:54

laws are fairly simple in some ways.

42:56

But how do you define fraud? Because within

42:59

your community, there's some people who think it isn't

43:01

fraud, and some who are. Is it

43:03

the fact that it would

43:06

only be fraud if it wasn't agreed

43:09

between parties as part of the contract?

43:11

So

43:12

this comes back to

43:14

what I was saying earlier, that there were some libertarians who were saying, hey,

43:16

Malay, we want you to get this

43:19

full reserve law in,

43:21

because they believe that this is how you

43:23

prevent theft, right? In their view, you're

43:25

stopping theft. Now, I'll be clear here. There's

43:27

two points here. There's two prongs. One is

43:30

the people who believe it's fraud. And secondarily,

43:32

the people who say, even if I gave you

43:34

that and just said, oh, we don't care if it's fraud or not, we believe it's

43:37

economically inefficient for the market to have

43:39

it that way, that it causes the boom and bust cycle,

43:41

like the dot-com bubble and the great financial

43:44

crisis, global financial crisis. So there's two

43:46

prongs to it. So you could be of

43:49

the view that, look, I don't think it's fraud, but I think

43:51

it's economically inefficient anyway. I also

43:53

take the view that I think in

43:56

the future Bitcoin world, it's

43:59

going to push us towards full reserve just

44:02

economically as well. But I

44:04

mean, you've asked the question in terms of how would it be made

44:06

illegal. And I think,

44:10

yeah, I think

44:11

it could be enforced by the

44:14

private defense agencies, like Murray Rothbard

44:16

talks about this sort of idea. It

44:19

could be seen as, in this particular

44:21

society, it's fraud to engage in fractional

44:23

reserve banking without it at least

44:26

being an explicit upfront thing. And

44:28

so that's one way of doing

44:30

it. Or another interpretation is that it will just

44:32

be, put it this way, economically enforced.

44:35

Let me make a quick example. Let's

44:38

say there is a fractional reserve

44:40

Bitcoin bank. Lots of people will do a

44:42

bank run on them and then they'll get

44:44

wrecked in the same way that Mt. Gox, FTX,

44:47

et cetera. Like if somebody tries to go fractional,

44:50

people who suspect them will

44:52

do a bank run and then that will be sort of like

44:54

a market test or a market check

44:57

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We've discussed this before many years ago just so

47:21

I understand. I understand

47:23

there'll be courts of arbitration for

47:26

people who have broken contracts and

47:29

committed crimes but which

47:31

crimes would be punishable by

47:34

say financial penalties and which would

47:36

be punishable say by a custodial sentence

47:39

within a I guess a free

47:41

market prison? Right, yeah. So this

47:43

is another area where there are various

47:46

resources I can point you to but if people are

47:48

interested I would say search Bob Murphy

47:50

chaos theory. Another

47:53

one is Bruce Benson the enterprise

47:56

of law so that's a great book and so I think they

47:59

there's different. conceptions of what the law

48:01

would be like under this anarcho, this

48:03

hypothetical anarcho-capitalism. Some

48:05

people say that it would be, it would just sort of evolve

48:08

over time in the same way that language evolves,

48:11

like a dictionary, you know, sort of, there's no

48:13

one arbiter of the English language, but there's

48:15

sort of, there's, you know, various dictionaries

48:17

that sort of try to codify what those

48:20

laws are. And so historically, anarcho-capitalists

48:23

and legal theorists and philosophers have

48:25

spoken about this idea, where historically,

48:28

those lex mercatorias, right, the law that related

48:31

to merchants. And so what were the, what

48:33

was like the common practice? What was the normal

48:35

culture, right? As an example, like, if

48:38

you and I, we go sit down in a restaurant somewhere, you

48:40

pick, you know, I want the ribeye steak, and

48:43

then, you know, they serve you the steak, you

48:45

eat it, and then they serve you the bill and you're like, what, I

48:47

didn't agree to pay for, I just wanted the, you know, it's like,

48:49

no, there's certain understandings that are just

48:51

implicit, right? Like you went into the restaurant, you

48:54

ordered this, you need to pay the $45 for

48:56

the steak or whatever, you know, I think there'd be

48:59

certain aspects that are just sort of understood

49:01

through custom. And there may

49:03

be other aspects where maybe it's

49:06

this law applies in this area. So it

49:09

may be, you know, in this particular, in the

49:11

Middle East, this is the custom and in the

49:14

Americas, this is the custom, you know, so I

49:16

think these are all interesting.

49:19

And, you know, we will see evolution

49:22

and innovation in this also, that we'll see

49:25

different approaches in terms of arbitration,

49:27

and how it could really work out.

49:30

But I think to give

49:32

some kind of a structure, the idea is

49:35

you might be a judge who's an expert

49:37

in this particular kind of law, whether it relates

49:39

to physical property disputes in

49:42

the Middle East, or something like that. And

49:44

you might be an expert about that area. And

49:46

you sort of know the precedent and the

49:48

common law in relation to that. And

49:50

people come to you, because they trust

49:53

your judgment because you have a reputation to uphold.

49:56

And so they're like, oh, Peter McCormack is an expert

49:58

in real estate in the Americas. So go to

50:00

him and people, if they have a dispute,

50:03

would go to you for that. And so

50:05

then you might issue down a judgment saying, look,

50:07

in my professional interpretation,

50:09

I know I've looked at the facts of the case. I've looked at

50:12

the history. Here's the precedent of the different cases.

50:14

And based on that, person A, you

50:17

own this land. And the

50:20

idea is, you know, parties A and

50:22

B would have to then say, okay, well, look, Peter

50:24

McCormack is a reputable judge in this particular

50:26

area of the law, in this area. We're going

50:28

to take that. Or maybe they don't. And then they

50:31

take it and they appeal it somewhere else. And eventually,

50:34

you're going to get to a point where it's sort of like, it's

50:37

cheaper to just accept

50:40

that, because you want to play in the broader

50:42

game of this legal

50:45

system. Because, you know, it's more profitable

50:47

for us to trade instead of like trying to go to war

50:49

and fight about it. You know, that's that's

50:52

one way of interpreting it, even

50:54

though I can't give you kind of an explicit vision

50:56

of exactly how it's going to work. I can give you kind of

50:58

a few sketches of what it might

51:01

look like. And what are some of the principles, the

51:03

contours of what it might look like?

51:06

Do you think we're going to see a wave of libertarians

51:09

move into Argentina? And yeah,

51:11

I mean, I could even point that question at you. If

51:14

he still start to deliver on it, do you think that's going

51:16

to be a kind of an attractive jurisdiction

51:18

view to consider living in? You know,

51:21

what kind of the world you want? It could

51:23

be it could be I think, obviously,

51:25

there's different aspects that we all have to consider, right?

51:27

Like, yeah, our family lives. I don't speak Spanish.

51:30

I mean, hey, maybe I could learn. But

51:34

I, I'd be open to

51:36

it. Honestly, I would honestly be open to it in

51:38

the future, right? If, you know, because I think Argentina

51:40

is, you know, even if we could

51:42

somehow resurrect Murray Rothbard and put him

51:45

in charge, it would take time

51:47

to undo all the damage that's been done,

51:49

right? They didn't get here overnight. They

51:51

got here after a process of, call

51:54

it 50, 80 years worth of this stuff. And

51:57

so it's going to take some time to fix things up.

52:00

But nevertheless, as

52:02

you and the listeners may be aware, Argentina

52:05

used to be a very rich country. And there's

52:07

nothing in principle that stops them from re-achieving

52:10

that

52:11

if

52:11

the right leadership and governance were

52:14

to be applied. And so, yeah, I would

52:16

honestly think about it in the future.

52:18

Maybe not right now. But

52:20

let's imagine, imagine hypothetically, Javier

52:23

Millet does really well, and

52:25

he gets re-elected again, and maybe

52:27

it's five years down the line. It

52:29

might be an option at that point. I'm not

52:31

saying I would definitely do it, but yeah,

52:34

I think so. And here's the other aspect. I think

52:36

it's going to inspire libertarians

52:39

and Bitcoiners around the world. More

52:41

and more people will start saying, well, hang on, they

52:43

did it over there and it worked. So

52:46

I think that is another

52:48

aspect where it helps libertarians and

52:51

the cause of liberty, even outside

52:53

of Argentina. Because if

52:55

it works, then more and more

52:57

people will start to take

53:00

that idea on and say, hey, why can't we do that?

53:03

And we may start to see other parts

53:05

of South America also say, hey, they got

53:07

a libertarian or, I mean, obviously with

53:09

Pakela and what happens in

53:12

El Salvador in terms of lowering the crime

53:14

rates, as you well know, there

53:16

are other South American countries who are looking

53:18

at that and saying, well, hey, look at what

53:21

he did. Why can't we do that? We

53:23

have low crime as well and

53:25

have, you know, actual

53:28

liberty in our country, too. And so I

53:30

think it all helps whether you move to Argentina

53:32

or not. Well, look, I completely agree,

53:35

Stefan. I want it here. I mean, I'm

53:37

pro-democracy and won't be voting in the next

53:39

election because who the hell do I vote for? I

53:41

can't vote for the Conservative Party and

53:44

I can't vote for the Labour Party because they're two

53:46

strands of the same thing, which is big government,

53:48

high tax, a vacant state. If

53:51

there was an equivalent to Malay in the

53:53

UK, you know, a

53:55

libertarian leader who was pro-small

53:57

state and pro-free of the United States, I think that's a big thing.

53:59

markets and pro Bitcoin.

54:02

That's an easy vote for me to make.

54:04

But I almost think it

54:06

hasn't got bad enough here for someone

54:09

to come in. That'd be right. Yeah. It

54:11

was so bad in Argentina. It's such

54:14

a shit show. It's been such a shit show for so long. They've

54:16

been stolen from wave

54:18

after wave for decades. Somebody

54:20

come in and said, yeah, basically, they're all full of

54:23

shit. I'll wipe my ass with them. It's obviously

54:25

an appeal. I think in the UK,

54:27

somebody like that would come across as a bit of a just

54:30

a nuts at the moment. But I would love

54:32

I would love that. I hope it inspires a wave

54:35

of generation of people who are going to start

54:37

reading Rothbard, right? Like, let's not get us off. It's

54:39

not that, you know, half of Argentina

54:41

went and read Murray Rothbard. And now,

54:43

you know, they've all gone to read man, economy

54:46

and state this thousand page book. No, but more

54:48

and more people are going to be curious about these

54:50

ideas. And I think the

54:53

interesting thing that's happened now is it's proven

54:55

that libertarian populism can work

54:58

like that. You can get elected on this bit.

55:01

Whereas historically, what we've seen in the libertarian

55:03

world is these arguments between the sort

55:05

of pure principled approach of like,

55:07

hey, just tell them exactly. And this

55:10

kind of, oh, just be like a little

55:12

bit more low attacks than

55:14

the right wing side and just sort of try to be a little

55:16

bit more moderate, the kind of moderates or

55:18

so-called pragmatics. And I think

55:21

this win now is going to show people

55:24

that you actually can win by being

55:26

a libertarian populist and being explicit about

55:28

it. But to your point, it is right, I think, to

55:31

say that part of what drove

55:33

this outcome is the culture

55:36

of Argentina that for so long, they've

55:38

had this big government, big

55:40

socialist sort of thinking, this

55:42

Peronist thinking. And that

55:45

was an important part

55:48

of the country's history, not in a good way, but

55:50

that because of that, and because of the high inflation,

55:53

there have been so many people who've been driven to this

55:55

point that they would vote for the anarcho-capitalist.

55:58

Now, maybe other countries will start to see what happens

56:00

there. And I think, you

56:02

know, the pro sort

56:05

of free markets people will point to examples

56:07

like Singapore, to some extent Dubai,

56:10

to some extent Hong Kong before maybe the

56:12

CCP came in, maybe Argentina,

56:14

maybe El Salvador will be other examples

56:16

of this that other people will point to and say, hey, we

56:19

want to be like that. Well, there's a couple of points

56:21

on that. Firstly, the leftists will definitely get scared

56:23

and will continue to throw their attacks and say these

56:25

people are extreme right, which is obviously nonsense.

56:28

Have you seen the film, Jerry McGuire? It

56:32

would have been a while ago, I've pretty much forgotten it, let's

56:34

be honest. There's a brilliant part in that film. But basically,

56:37

he writes, he works as a sports agent, if you've not

56:39

seen it, anyone listening, but he's a sports

56:41

agent, he writes this manifesto called

56:43

the things we think but do not say and he delivers

56:46

to everyone's inbox. And it was how

56:48

we should act as sports agents. And everybody

56:51

loved it and read it and they clapped their hands. And then

56:53

they fired him because they knew they'd make less

56:55

money if they did that. And

56:57

so he goes out on his own and he just represents one

56:59

guy and at the end, he gets in his contract and there's this moment

57:01

where they like see each other, him and the agent

57:04

and they have a big hug and it's really emotional. And

57:07

there's another guy, another American football,

57:09

he stood next to his agent, he says, why don't

57:11

we have a relationship like that? And so

57:13

what I hope is that things haven't got

57:15

bad enough here in the UK for anyone to think,

57:17

well, let's have an alternative

57:19

way. But what they may

57:22

see is somebody who does reduce taxation,

57:25

frees up the markets, has

57:27

less bureaucracy, less interference from the state,

57:30

and it leads to growth in the economy and

57:32

growth and prosperity. And so hopefully,

57:34

we won't have to have it go to absolute

57:36

shit in our country for people to try

57:38

and bring this alternative option. Right.

57:41

And we've seen, and I know in the UK, there've

57:43

been a lot of people struggling with cost of lockdown,

57:45

cost of living crisis, right? Like because

57:48

of the lockdown, a lot of people are sort

57:50

of, they've got their heads in the sand. They don't understand

57:52

that they don't understand just how

57:54

much lockdown cost them. These last few years have been

57:56

horrific for much of the world.

57:59

Billions have been people have suffered

58:01

the destruction of their rights,

58:03

the destruction of their businesses, the destruction

58:05

of their jobs, and the price

58:08

is being paid now for a lot of people, sadly.

58:11

So let's see. Yeah,

58:14

fingers crossed. You did mention specifically

58:17

you don't agree with him on

58:19

foreign policy. What in there is the things that

58:21

you don't agree with? Is it just that he has

58:23

foreign policy? Well, I think

58:26

he, I don't know exactly

58:29

his policy or thoughts on things like Ukraine

58:31

and Israel and things like this, but I believe

58:33

a more, let's say, Ron Paul style

58:36

libertarian would just be strictly non-interventionist.

58:39

Whereas the

58:43

dialogue over the last, let's say, few years

58:45

has been very,

58:48

the American government should support Ukraine or the American

58:51

government should support Israel and this kind of

58:53

aspect where

58:57

I think a strict libertarian interpretation

58:59

would just be,

59:00

no,

59:01

you're here to just make

59:04

sure that your own people have their

59:07

rights and freedom. If you were going to be a monarchist libertarian,

59:09

you would just say your own people should be free

59:12

and have economics and prosperity.

59:15

We shouldn't have an army that's out there trying to be

59:17

the world police. And maybe that's an American specific

59:19

thing, but it sounded a little bit like

59:21

Harvey Emmule was maybe supporting some

59:23

of that. So that's why I would say maybe on

59:26

the foreign policy aspect, I'd probably disagree

59:28

with him. He maybe

59:30

is a little closer to the Zionist sort

59:32

of perspective, it sounds like. So

59:35

that's probably where I might disagree with him.

59:37

And so,

59:40

yeah, I, but nevertheless, Argentina

59:42

is starting from such a bad

59:45

position right now that,

59:47

you know, just getting these domestic

59:49

things right in terms of deregulation and lowering

59:51

the taxes and demolishing government departments, that

59:54

may cause a big improvement in

59:56

the average day to day life for Argentinians.

59:59

And so, you know, know, that's

1:00:01

why I think, uh, so some people

1:00:03

that's like a deal breaker, right? Like this aspect of

1:00:05

like the foreign policy stuff, they think he's just not,

1:00:08

um, not, uh, he's not to be

1:00:10

supported. But, uh, I

1:00:12

think it's one of those cases where you need

1:00:14

to wait and see and give him a chance to try

1:00:16

and improve things in Argentina. Now, to be clear,

1:00:18

there's a lot of things that could go wrong, right? There's

1:00:20

a lot of things that could go wrong. He could, um, what

1:00:23

do you worry about most? I

1:00:26

wonder if there's maybe like an Argentinian deep

1:00:28

state that he wouldn't really be able to fight correctly.

1:00:30

Maybe, maybe, but I don't know, maybe

1:00:32

I'm sort of paralleling or thinking about

1:00:35

Trump and how he wasn't able to really do much now.

1:00:38

I don't, I'm not a fan of Trump, but, uh, he

1:00:40

sort of came in with this idea of trying to drain

1:00:43

the swamp and try to clean out the deep state

1:00:45

when really it sounds like he was not

1:00:47

effective at that. But maybe that's an American specific

1:00:50

thing. I don't know. Maybe that's America. Maybe

1:00:52

Argentina is a different case. Maybe it's

1:00:54

really more just about, uh, abolishing

1:00:59

government departments and just trying to bring

1:01:01

back, uh, get the government out of the way. Um,

1:01:03

but yeah, things that could go wrong. Maybe,

1:01:06

um, he gets too

1:01:09

into it, into his disagreements with Brazil

1:01:12

and Lula or someone, um, you

1:01:14

know, I mean, there's lots of things that, you

1:01:16

know, he could get sabotaged in various ways,

1:01:18

or maybe he's kind of in a gridlock. Maybe

1:01:21

he doesn't have enough power to actually abolish

1:01:23

various government departments and lower the spending, lower the

1:01:25

taxes. And so he's sort of stuck in this gridlock

1:01:28

and not able to implement actual libertarian

1:01:31

policies. Yeah.

1:01:33

I think there's the other one I worried

1:01:35

about is that whether he

1:01:37

would weaken democracy as a libertarian,

1:01:40

but then become tyrannical himself.

1:01:43

So people have made this, um, case as well.

1:01:45

I think historically in terms of Latin

1:01:48

America politics that

1:01:50

they say, Oh, it's swung from extreme

1:01:52

to extreme. Um, but

1:01:55

I think in this case, he,

1:01:58

he does seem to be a genuinely. Austrian

1:02:00

economist, right? Like, whereas historically, people have

1:02:02

looked at, let's say, Chile and said, oh, it's the

1:02:04

Friedman boys went in. In this

1:02:06

case, he I think he genuinely is interested

1:02:09

in Austrian economics. He has written

1:02:11

a chapter in a book praising Hoerter

1:02:13

de Soto, who is a

1:02:15

well known Austrian economist. And

1:02:18

so, I think, economically,

1:02:21

I'm expecting that he should be sound.

1:02:24

But the question is whether he will be able to implement

1:02:26

those things. And, you know, like I said,

1:02:28

we never really know exactly how

1:02:30

things go. But I'm cautiously optimistic

1:02:33

about what this means for the cause of liberty

1:02:35

around the world. Yeah, back back

1:02:37

to the being strict in non

1:02:40

interventionist. What is the thesis

1:02:42

behind that? Because I understand

1:02:45

this just, you know, we seem to be in forever wars

1:02:47

now, they're completely ineffective. But there have been times

1:02:49

where there has been intervention, USA

1:02:52

in World War Two, I think Thailand

1:02:54

originally in Cambodia, when the genocide

1:02:57

was happening there, and, you know, anything that may

1:02:59

have happened in Rwanda, there are cases like

1:03:01

genuine cases of genocide. What

1:03:04

is the kind of thesis behind being completely

1:03:07

non interventionist? So I think, firstly,

1:03:10

it would be this case that why

1:03:13

should the state go and do things

1:03:15

by coercively funding, you know,

1:03:17

taking taxpayer funding to go do these other causes

1:03:19

that those taxpayers don't agree with, right? If those taxpayers

1:03:21

agree with it, they should go to war

1:03:23

in those countries, they should fund the war in those countries.

1:03:26

So if you war bonded them, would

1:03:28

that be okay? I guess if

1:03:31

it was voluntarily funded. But even

1:03:34

then, there are cases where

1:03:38

in the UK, for example, in World War

1:03:40

One, they lied about the war bonds, that

1:03:42

as you may have spoken with Lynn

1:03:44

in from her book in broken money, she makes that point

1:03:47

that they actually lied about the subscription

1:03:49

rates on the war bonds to make it seem like

1:03:51

there was public support for this thing. So

1:03:53

that's one example. Another example would just

1:03:56

be that the state is not effective

1:03:59

in these things. Another example would be this

1:04:01

idea of not having entangling alliances. Just

1:04:04

trade with everybody and just don't have any entangling

1:04:06

alliances. Just focus on your

1:04:08

own patch and make life

1:04:10

better for your own citizens as opposed to trying

1:04:12

to go out there and be the world

1:04:15

police as America

1:04:17

has tried and failed at sadly. That's

1:04:21

the generous interpretation, right? That

1:04:23

they were trying to do a good thing. And the not

1:04:25

so good interpretation is that there's this

1:04:28

military industrial complex that's out there going out

1:04:30

and starting wars around the world because

1:04:32

it sort of benefits them or

1:04:34

it benefits this class of lobbyists

1:04:36

and military industrial complex and Boeing

1:04:39

and Raytheon and the like that they

1:04:41

benefit from it at the expense

1:04:43

of human lives, people

1:04:46

who get injured and the cost

1:04:48

and the foregone prosperity that could have

1:04:50

been had if they were just trading and being

1:04:54

bonafide libertarian capitalists. Okay.

1:04:57

All right. So, just

1:05:01

a couple more things. It's

1:05:03

a four year term. You can only serve two terms.

1:05:08

What does success look like to you in four

1:05:10

years time and not your

1:05:12

ultimate perfect view? But what

1:05:14

do you want to see in a realistic kind of world?

1:05:17

Right. What would realistic success look like? Probably

1:05:20

a period

1:05:22

where maybe there's going to be some initial pain

1:05:24

and struggle, right? Short term pain for long term

1:05:26

gain that if he can lower the taxes, maybe

1:05:28

he can attract international investment.

1:05:31

Maybe people can start

1:05:34

to save. People can start

1:05:36

to increase their productivity

1:05:38

and prosperity. I think

1:05:41

that maybe there'll

1:05:43

be an initial year of pain and then maybe

1:05:45

things can slowly start to climb up

1:05:48

and out of that for Argentina.

1:05:52

And hopefully by then

1:05:54

more and more people are

1:05:56

bought into the idea of, oh, wow, actually libertarianism

1:05:59

has sort of made. things better for the country

1:06:01

and then maybe it can become a sustainable thing

1:06:05

that even as you said if it's a two-term limit

1:06:07

maybe another person from

1:06:09

the libertarian party there can get voted in in

1:06:11

the future and things like that that

1:06:14

allow things to continue. But

1:06:16

I think the important thing I would the

1:06:18

important point I would make is that capitalism

1:06:23

as the term suggests is about the accumulation

1:06:25

of capital and that takes time. So

1:06:29

to have nice things

1:06:31

it requires machinery and productivity

1:06:34

and it takes time to slowly build those up

1:06:36

right so it's like slow to build things very

1:06:38

quick to destroy them and so when you're trying

1:06:40

to build things up it can look

1:06:43

like you're just paying this price unnecessarily

1:06:46

compared to the other guy who's just kind of using the fiat

1:06:48

printer and cheap debt to

1:06:51

sort of out

1:06:53

compete you but if you take that

1:06:56

slow and steady saving approach

1:06:58

and productive approach you can

1:07:01

end up being far more productive in the

1:07:03

long term because you haven't had all those big

1:07:05

booms and bust cycles as the

1:07:08

fiat printer style of growth will

1:07:11

give you. Which is never real

1:07:13

growth anyway and so I guess what you're

1:07:15

really saying that it's more like a trajectory you're

1:07:17

looking at a trajectory of better

1:07:19

policy as you say government

1:07:22

getting out of the way of people and

1:07:25

I guess it's going to be more

1:07:28

kind of like subjective judgment

1:07:30

with probably some objective data in there. Right

1:07:34

so hopefully their

1:07:36

productivity has gone up over time. Hopefully

1:07:39

life expectancy is going up. Hopefully

1:07:41

poverty rates have come down. Inflation

1:07:45

hopefully is at least a

1:07:48

lot reduced. So I

1:07:50

think those are some of the metrics that you could try

1:07:52

to look at to kind of get a rough idea. What's

1:07:55

the quality of life like for the

1:07:57

man in the street right. Is his life better?

1:08:00

Is he actually able to look after his family,

1:08:02

feed his family better than he could, you know,

1:08:04

under the Peronist regimes? And

1:08:07

I guess polling data in four years time will be super interesting.

1:08:10

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay.

1:08:13

And what would failure look like to you? So

1:08:16

maybe he gets locked down in gridlock. Maybe

1:08:19

he is not able to really pass many

1:08:22

actual free market laws because the

1:08:25

currently people

1:08:28

currently in Senate and the House sort

1:08:30

of force all these, what's

1:08:33

the word when you give something up in a negotiation? Like

1:08:38

I forgot the word, but basically they force, they sort of

1:08:40

coerce or they sort of force him to put

1:08:42

in all these concessions, like concessions in the proportions.

1:08:44

You know what I mean? Like they force concessions

1:08:47

that so that he can't realistically

1:08:49

open the economy up. I

1:08:52

think, you know, yeah,

1:08:55

I think that's, I

1:08:57

mean, it's possible. I just, I don't really

1:09:00

know enough about Argentina to sort

1:09:02

of comment further than that. But

1:09:04

I would say, yeah, that's probably one of the less

1:09:07

successful pathways. If in

1:09:10

four years time, Argentina has not

1:09:12

started to come out of this crisis

1:09:14

period, then it would look

1:09:16

like a failure. Yeah. Well, it's

1:09:18

quite interesting. I guess we're all just kind of sitting and waiting

1:09:21

now, really. Like, what's the first thing he's

1:09:23

going to do? But it's funny because I've known you for

1:09:25

a long time. But there's like, through this, I would

1:09:27

you probably don't realize this whole excitement.

1:09:30

And like I see a different kind of,

1:09:32

how do I put it?

1:09:35

I definitely sound cringy. But like, there's

1:09:38

a real positivity in the way you will reply to things

1:09:40

as a real excitement. I guess this is an

1:09:42

exciting time for a libertarian. It's exciting

1:09:44

as a Bitcoiner, right? But as a libertarian, this

1:09:47

must be just particularly exciting. Yeah, exactly.

1:09:49

And so that's the funny thing as well, because some

1:09:52

Bitcoiners who are maybe a little more statist

1:09:54

or culturally lefty, maybe

1:09:56

they weren't as happy about it. I'm

1:09:59

not attacking you. I'm happy about this. There

1:10:02

were some who were, yeah,

1:10:04

whereas I think those of us who are coming

1:10:06

from a more explicitly libertarian view, most

1:10:09

of us are happy about this, except for the ones who are

1:10:11

kind of against everything or kind of people. Most

1:10:15

are saying, yeah, I think this is probably,

1:10:18

I mean, we can't guarantee, it's probably a good step

1:10:21

forward and it's probably going to encourage

1:10:23

more people to learn about liberty and

1:10:25

learn about Bitcoin. And I think that

1:10:28

is a good thing for any Bitcoiner.

1:10:30

So let's see what happens. I think

1:10:32

it will be an interesting example to be able to point

1:10:34

to and say, well, hey, they elected a libertarian

1:10:37

in Argentina and maybe things are

1:10:39

going, hopefully, in a few years time, if things are

1:10:41

going well, then it's a good example that you can point

1:10:43

to. And we'll all be making

1:10:45

our pilgrimage there like we do to El Zonte. So

1:10:48

Stephan, I appreciate your time. I've always enjoyed

1:10:50

our chats. I've learned so much from you publicly

1:10:53

and our private chats and occasional disagreement.

1:10:56

But I really do appreciate you always being available to

1:10:58

me for this because I have learned so much

1:11:00

for you. Anyone listening, definitely check out

1:11:02

Stephan's podcast, the Stephan Levera

1:11:04

podcast. It's amazing. A bit more technical

1:11:06

than mine, but touches

1:11:09

on some similar subjects. Anything

1:11:11

else you're working on you want to send people towards? Yeah,

1:11:14

so StephanLevera.com and of course,

1:11:16

I'm also head of education at swan.com. So

1:11:18

people who want to buy Bitcoin or learn about Bitcoin, go to swan.com.

1:11:22

All right, my man. Thank you, Stephan. Thank

1:11:24

you. Appreciate you. Hopefully, I'll see

1:11:26

you soon. And I'm not sure where, but I'm sure somewhere in the world. Yeah,

1:11:30

I'll see you

1:11:30

soon. All right. What

1:11:34

do you think of that? What do you think of Javier

1:11:36

Millet? I think it's a very

1:11:38

interesting idea. It's an interesting project.

1:11:41

I hope he is successful. Having been

1:11:43

to Argentina, it's a beautiful country, beautiful people

1:11:46

that just need to get government out of the way. So

1:11:49

I think it's going to be very interesting. But like Stephan says,

1:11:51

you know, we have to hold his feet to the fire.

1:11:53

We have to hold him to account, make sure he does what he said

1:11:56

he was going to do. I cannot wait to get back

1:11:58

out to Argentina. It's one of my favorite places. I've been to in the world

1:12:01

everything about it is incredible and you should

1:12:03

definitely go and visit But I want to see what's happening

1:12:05

on the ground there I wish I'd have been there the

1:12:07

night of the election. It looked like a party It looked like exciting

1:12:10

times are coming for the country So

1:12:12

I think it's a positive thing, but

1:12:15

I definitely want your feedback. Please do get in touch

1:12:17

Let me know what you think, you know my email

1:12:19

by now, but it's hello what Bitcoin did calm

1:12:22

All right. Have a great rest of your week, and I will see

1:12:24

you all on Friday You