Argentina Gambles on Milei

When there’s no real alternative, there’s no problem, as the saying goes. And that may be the logic of Argentina voters on Sunday who rejected the catastrophe of Peronist rule in favor of impulsive and charismatic outsider Javier Milei, who promised what for Argentina is the radical change of free-market economics.

Mr. Milei, a Congressman and self-described libertarian, won the Presidency in a rout with 56% of the vote to 44%. He defeated Sergio Massa, the incumbent economic minister and architect of the policies that have produced runaway inflation, declining living standards, a government shedding foreign reserves, and the worst economic crisis in decades.

“Today we begin the reconstruction of Argentina,” Mr. Milei said Sunday night. “If we do not move quickly with the structural changes that Argentina needs, we are heading towards the worst crisis in our history.”

He’s not exaggerating. Inflation is running at 143%, the peso has lost some 90% of its value against the U.S. dollar on the black market, and the middle class is increasingly impoverished. This is the result of industrial policy, export taxes, capital controls, rigid labor markets, uncontrolled government spending and the political abuse of the central bank to monetize the spending. This policy mix fails wherever it’s tried, but Argentines keep giving it another chance until it blows up again.