Javier Milei, the "anarcho-capitalist" presidential candidate who took the lead in the August primaries with his "Liberty Advances" political coalition, owes much of his electoral success to his promise to dollarise the Argentine economy. Disoriented by hyperinflation and rising poverty, many Argentinians see the adoption of the US dollar as the country’s official currency as the long-awaited solution to an economic crisis that they’ve been struggling to escape from since 2018.
With inflation reaching new heights – 124 percent per year – and yet another devaluation of the peso – by almost 20 percent – in August, Argentina increasingly looks like it will never wake up from its economic nightmare. In this context, the emergence of Javier Milei, an anti-system candidate who preaches economic shock measures, came as little surprise to many observers.
