Argentina’s recent announcement of GDP growth has attracted global attention, not only for its economic significance but also because it unfolds amid one of the most radical economic experiments of modern times. Javier Milei, the libertarian firebrand who now leads the nation, has promised to dismantle decades of economic orthodoxy. His agenda which is rooted in dollarisation, sweeping privatisations, and aggressive reductions in government spending, has drawn praise from admirers and alarm from critics. For Milei, the free market is not merely a tool for economic growth; it is a moral imperative, a means of emancipating individuals from what he views as the tyranny of an overreaching state.

Yet as Milei’s Argentina becomes a global talking point, a peculiar narrative has taken root, especially in the United States. Many commentators have cast Milei as part of a broader conservative resurgence, likening him to populist-nationalist leaders such as Donald Trump or Viktor Orbán. It is an enticing comparison: another iconoclastic outsider pledging to restore national pride and undo years of political and economic mismanagement. But this framing is profoundly misleading, exposing the persistent failure to grasp the distinctions within global conservatism.

Milei is not a social conservative in the vein of his American counterparts. His campaign is not for 'family values' or a return to cultural tradition; it is a war on the state itself. Unlike the U.S. culture warriors, who blend economic protectionism with a defense of traditional social norms, Milei is an unapologetic globalist. His proposal for dollarisation, a radical forfeiture of monetary sovereignty in exchange for stability and market confidence, is emblematic of his worldview. For Milei, the unencumbered flow of capital and goods is not a threat to national identity but the foundation of prosperity.

The divergence between Milei and his supposed counterparts reveals a deeper tension that has long plagued conservative politics. For decades, the right has sought to reconcile two often conflicting impulses: the embrace of free-market capitalism and the preservation of traditional social structures. This uneasy marriage has defined much of modern conservatism, yet figures like Milei highlight the contradictions inherent in such an alliance.

This conceptual confusion is exacerbated by a global political discourse increasingly defined by reductive binaries; populist versus establishment or left versus right. Media outlets and commentators (myself included, have you not read that title?) eager for simple narratives often conflate economic libertarians with cultural reactionaries, erasing the complexities that underpin their ideologies. The global obsession with simplistic dichotomies has far-reaching consequences. By shoehorning disparate political figures into neat ideological categories, we risk ignoring the diversity and, at times, the contradictions within modern conservative politics.