Am selben Ort, an dem Javier Milei vor Jahresfrist eine akademisch geprägte Vorlesung zu den Grundlagen seiner Politik als argentinischer Präsident hielt, zog er dieses Mal gegen Wokeism, Klima-Aktivismus, Genderpolitik etc. vom Leder. Die anwesende Wirtschaftselite, die vor einigen Jahren frenetisch Greta Thunberg applaudierte, reagierte auf Milei eher verdattert. WEF-Direktor Schwab dürfte die Rede auch nicht gefallen haben. Zum Thema Social Justice machte er klar:
MoreFar from being the cause of our problems, free trade capitalism as an economic system is the only instrument we have to end hunger, poverty and extreme poverty across our planet. The empirical evidence is unquestionable.
Therefore since there is no doubt that free enterprise capitalism is superior in productive terms, the left-wing doxa has attacked capitalism, alleging matters of morality, saying – that’s what the detractors claim – that it’s unjust. They say that capitalism is evil because it’s individualistic and that collectivism is good because it’s altruistic. Of course, with the money of others.
So they therefore advocate for social justice. But this concept, which in the developed world became fashionable in recent times, in my country has been a constant in political discourse for over 80 years. The problem is that social justice is not just, and it doesn’t contribute to general well-being.
Quite on the contrary, it’s an intrinsically unfair idea because it’s violent. It’s unjust because the state is financed through tax and taxes are collected coercively. Or can any one of us say that we voluntarily pay taxes? This means that the state is financed through coercion and that the higher the tax burden, the higher the coercion and the lower the freedom.
Those who promote social justice start with the idea that the whole economy is a pie that can be shared differently. But that pie is not a given. It’s wealth that is generated in what Israel Kirzner, for instance, calls a market discovery process.