Feminism, Debt and Organizing Against Argentina’s Far Right

That’s the context in which we approach the inherent antagonism of the term ​“financial caste.” We use the term in a very precise sense, which must be contrasted with how Milei and his libertarian political force have popularized the use of the word ​“caste.” They use this (and other terms) to present themselves as ​“outsiders,” signaling the political class as the cause of the problems that working people in Argentina face, which excludes the directors of major corporations and financial elites and institutions (banks, the IMF, investment fund managers, businessmen tied to digital finance) that benefit from crises in the Argentine economy.

We refuse to let Milei hide his close ties with financial powers and corporations, which he obfuscates by redefining the language of his capitalist conservatism. We are forced to underscore the true meaning of ​“caste” for him and mark a concrete antagonism between the feminist struggle and those who try to profit from financial speculation at the expense of our bodies and spaces. 

We have outlined some of the lessons we have learned through our processes of resistance to the neoliberal shock policies applied by the extreme right — and we hope they can fuel others in their fights against far-right leaders devoted to corporations and the suppression of women and the working class.

1. For Milei, to govern is to destroy, create chaos and exercise cruelty 

The two novel characteristics of the neoliberal shockwave we are living through are its speed and violence. Milei derives his power from his links with hedge funds (like BlackRock) and powerful, extractivist corporations and the ultrawealthy (hence his frequent visits with Elon Musk). These deep ties are appearing as Argentine society is being reconfigured by new extremes of capitalism toward an extractive, warlike model.

This system of governance is sustained through three vectors: the capacity for destruction (mass firings, elimination of entire state organs, destruction of social ties fostered by community groups); the creation of chaos (neoliberal shock politics and the imposition of new policies and norms, some of them unconstitutional); and the deployment of cruelty (withholding food from the poorest — and taking pride in it). None of it is about excesses or inadequacies but is a form of politics necessary to foster crisis and war.

2. We need to center decolonization 

There’s not much use arguing whether Milei is a symptom of the local impact of a global phenomenon, or an extreme national idiosyncrasy. So to better understand what is actually happening, we must consider what is new about Milei and to what degree his entrenchment in Argentine politics and society is not particular to national specificities and personal eccentricities.

The impact of Milei’s far-right government, for example, exceeds former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s — because the crisis of the genocide in Gaza and the alignment of the United States and Israel have permitted Milei to approach the genocide on his own terms. But Milei too can be differentiated from the exponents of the far right of the Global North, like former U.S. President Donald Trump, because Milei does not operate with nationalism as the engine driving his regime.

Instead, Milei’s project is neocolonial, from which he draws his power and effectiveness.

As we have previously argued, neoliberalism in our region is inherently violent from its origins. The military dictatorship of 1976 — the moment at which the neoliberal model was applied — cannot be understood separate from the massive repression of popular uprisings. This authoritarianism is not an a posteriori deviation, and in that same way, the violence stemming from neoliberalism in Argentina is tied to processes of recolonization.

We are now witnessing a new phase of that recolonization, which can be called ​“financial colonization” (including IMF austerity programs in various countries and the increasing presence of hedge funds targeting natural resources) and ​“military colonization” (as in the case of many Latin American countries, like Ecuador and Haiti, where the possibility of an internal war makes way for colonial domination).

There is talk in Argentina of a form of national dissolution that would segment the country into sacrifice zones (with entire provinces linked to the activity of extractivist corporations), so centralizing the need for decolonization (by opposing vocabulary, terminology and practices) becomes a critical tactic.

3. Building power and redefining violence

Feminists often think about the intersections of war to identify the emerging coordinates of violence.

The war against the conditions of social reproduction (withholding food, liberalization of the prices of fundamental goods and services, freezing salaries) — as well as the war against the conditions for the reproduction of struggle (the economic crisis and debt that makes organizing and demonstrating nearly impossible) — is articulated with war as the global stage, meaning the far right can appeal to residents by polarizing localities that protest.

Militarization is the highest stage of financial warfare, which is appearing in Ecuador, Haiti and Argentina (among others) in conditions somewhat similar to circumstances in Africa in the 1980s. Federici, using this perspective, highlights the necessity of generating a feminist antiwar movement to resist this militarization and financial warfare

As militant activists and organizers ourselves, we have been obligated to rethink how we categorize and define violence. We have long been saying that violence fueled by toxic masculinity is incomprehensible without being embedded within a system of ​“economic violence,” which has transformed and intensified into ​“financial violence,” which (to invoke Étienne Balibar’s formulation) conforms to capitalism’s aim to become ​“absolute.”

4. Argentina is a laboratory for the rest of the world

Milei’s far right is trying to channel a neoliberalism in crisis into relaunching a neo-extractivist project and agenda in the global market, particularly surrounding energy and lithium. One new development is that Milei’s government is not willing to make concessions in the face of increased social conflict.

To affirm that Milei’s regime has fascist elements is not to say the majority of his voters are fascists. In fact, a great deal of his support can be explained through everyday economics. It’s a terrain that seems to be disregarded time and again in its inexorable materiality and, as such, in its political rationality.

In the feminist movement, we have situated this link between fascism and everyday economics as a fundamental perspective to comprehend the economic violence endured by those who sustain the domestic economy, who go into debt just to survive while hearing from Milei that ​“there is no money” or ​“we’ll need to make sacrifices.”

It presents our greatest challenge as anti-debt militants: How do we do politics when the language of austerity becomes the popular language?

5. The streets are a vital space

The feminist marches that saw participation from hundreds of thousands of women in cities across Latin America on March 8 (International Women’s Day), including tens of thousands in Buenos Aires, were remarkable for several reasons. We used them against a far-right government that has publicly declared us to be the enemy, has defunded the right to abortion and has campaigned publicly with racist and misogynistic discourse. We organized in spite of the repressive protocol that criminalizes protest, which made self-care essential. And it was all in the midst of Milei’s government waging an economic war against the Argentine population, which makes organizing and mobilizing a huge undertaking.

The greatest beneficiary of these neoliberal shock policies is the financial caste. The policies are enacted with the idea that feminized bodies, in ever more precarious conditions, will take on more work to sustain life.

We will fight back through feminism of the people.