The Interior Design Trap
By Oscar Grau
The Unz Review
January 16, 2026
In the introduction to the book The Irrepressible Rothbard, which is a collection of essays by Murray Rothbard for The Rothbard-Rockwell Report (1990-1995), Lew Rockwell emphasized that attempting to divide Rothbard's intellectual life into periods was "highly misleading":
... Murray went through no real "periods," but rather altered his strategies, emphases, and associations based on what the times and circumstances required. His goal remained always and everywhere a principled promotion of liberty. For Murray, a change of strategy never meant a change in principle, but only in method. No matter what political and intellectual strategy Murray was pursuing, his core views were always the same: he was a radical, anti-state libertarian, in the purest sense. Concretely, on economics, he was a private-property, free-market anarchist of the Austrian School; on politics, a radical decentralist; on philosophy, a natural-rights Thomist; on culture, a man of the Old Republic and the Old World.
Therefore, Rothbard's so-called paleo-libertarianism was no more than his libertarianism applied to the 1990s. There was no new libertarian creed.
When Javier Milei appeared on the international political scene, many people tried to describe the new kid on the block. An expert opinion came to light in September 2023, when the Mises Institute published an article by Philipp Bagus, a Fellow at the Institute, promoting Milei's supposed Austro-libertarianism. Bagus summed up the then-presidential candidate of Argentina as follows:
... Milei is one of us. And he can win the election... An Austrian. An anarcho-capitalist. With an openly radical libertarian election program.
Left-Wing Distractionism
The first thing that stands out is Bagus's insistence on fighting the "left-wing zeitgeist," while never mentioning the right-wing statists, which is where Milei actually comes from. Bagus highlighted Milei's ability to denounce leftists, and that Milei did not allow himself to be "intimidated or belittled by left-wing opinion-makers."
The fact that Rothbard's political activism focused on achieving right-wing majorities in the 1990s does not mean that there were no enemies on the right. Quite the contrary, in his 1992 essay "A Strategy for the Right," Rothbard clearly identified the neocons as the enemies of libertarianism that dominate the right-wing side of the political spectrum:
And so the neocons have managed to establish themselves as the only right-wing alternative to the left. The neocons now constitute the right-wing end of the ideological spectrum. Of the respectable, responsible right wing, that is. For the neocons have managed to establish the notion that anyone who might be to the right of them is, by definition, a representative of the forces of darkness, of chaos, old night, racism, and anti-Semitism.
Right-Wing Populism
Rothbard's contribution to the topic anticipated Milei's electoral success to a certain extent. As Rothbard pointed out, "the establishment doesn't want excitement in politics, it wants the masses to continue to be lulled to sleep." And so, the proper strategy for a right-wing populism meant:
... exciting, dynamic, tough, and confrontational, rousing, and inspiring not only the exploited masses, but the often shellshocked right-wing intellectual cadre as well.
But was Milei's election program "very much in line" with Rothbard's right-wing populism and paleo-libertarianism, as Bagus claimed?
Although Rothbard discussed political strategy on multiple occasions, Bagus concentrated on the 1992 essay "Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement." There, Rothbard presented eight points for a right-wing populist program. Yet, apart from a few points, Milei's campaign had practically nothing to do with that program:
"1. Slash taxes." Milei promised to lower taxes and even cut off his own arm before raising or creating any new taxes.
"2. Slash welfare." Bagus said Milei wanted to radically reduce the welfare state and that those who refused to work would not receive government support anymore if he was elected. But this was false, given that Milei assured that he would maintain welfare programs. In fact, Milei described welfare recipients as "victims of injustice," arguing that their perpetrators were the corrupt middlemen of welfare. Milei wanted to address the problem through economic growth, which would supposedly encourage people to leave welfare. However, beneficiaries are not obliged to be so, and it is precisely the expected and continued assistance that encourages people not to abandon welfare. Nor does the example of much richer countries support Milei's strategy.
Milei also proposed changing public health care and public education to demand-based financing, advocating for education vouchers. But if they are so good, Rothbard wondered why not have taxpayer-funded vouchers for housing, food, clothing, etc. Rothbard opposed this route because diverting libertarian energies toward the consecration and sanctification of the welfare state would be "especially pernicious."
"3. Abolish racial or group privileges." Bagus wrote that Milei wanted to abolish privileges for minorities, and that he clashed with feminists over privileges for women. Like any right-winger, Milei opposed LGBT madness and feminism. But when it came to Jews, Milei had sued several people for "trivializing" the Holocaust by calling him a Nazi, demanding compensation and thus promoting group privileges for Jews.
"4. Take Back the Streets: Crush Criminals." According to Bagus, the freedom to bear arms was part of Milei's election program. But Milei himself had clarified before the election that it was not part of his program. Actually, Milei's proposal was more of a typical political promise to fight crime. Nothing radical.
"5. Take Back the Streets: Get Rid of the Bums." Though this is related to Milei's weakness in points 2 and 4, he did commit to addressing the problem of street protests that often caused traffic jams.
"6. Abolish the Fed. Attack the Banksters." The most famous promise of Milei's campaign was the abolition of Argentina's central bank (BCRA), which was sided by a proposal for dollarization. Although it was not ideal, it was an improvement over the hyperinflationary Argentine peso. But the plan had serious flaws, such as the supposed need to replace pesos in circulation with the help of foreign debt. Indeed, one of Milei's ideas that runs counter to Austrian economics is his view of those pesos as liabilities of the BCRA.
Furthermore, while alluding to his talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Milei promised to "honor" the public debt, rejecting any default and guaranteeing that "contracts and property rights" would be respected. This was contrary to the true justice in contracts and property rights that Rothbard taught when defending the repudiation of public debt. To top it off, Milei expressed his intention to rescue the debt securities issued by the BCRA that were held by commercial banks, labeling this measure a "market rescue" that respected property rights.
Milei lined up with the interests of public creditors and the continuity of the government securities market, which in Argentina also exists in dollars, requiring a continuous accumulation of dollar reserves via taxes, peso printing, or other forms of expropriation. Ultimately, Milei barely attacked the banksters, and the promise to shut down the BCRA was questionable.
"7. America First." Bagus referred to this point as "anti-globalist and isolationist":
Milei also puts his own country first... Right-wing populism opposes the globalist agenda. It cuts development aid, climate programs and military adventures. Milei likes to point out that Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world... In 35 years, Milei promises, Argentina can be a superpower again. The prerequisite for this to happen is a return to libertarianism.
Nonetheless, an anti-globalist and non-interventionist program cannot be based on interventionist views such as those of Milei and on fervent support for American-Zionist imperialism, nor on maintaining good relations with organizations like the IMF. While Rothbard was clearly and strictly anti-war, Milei's foreign policy was unequivocally announced in favor of the pro-war interests of the United States, NATO, and Israel. Milei was already a Zionist in 2022, when he justified with theological reasoning his pledge to move the Argentine embassy to Jerusalem.
On the other hand, what kind of "radical libertarian" election program should involve turning a country into a superpower, especially when it aligns itself with warmongering states that enrich the military-industrial complex ? And why should Argentina return to libertarianism for that to happen in a period of 35 years if true radical libertarianism aims to end all states and, therefore, any superpower ? Should Milei also rule for 35 years ? All this is as absurd as the long-term plan Milei proposed during his campaign to recover the Falkland Islands.
Equally unacceptable to a true libertarian is the fact that Milei was already a Trumpist before becoming president. In 2021, for example, Milei wasted his opportunity to denounce Donald Trump's NAFTA 2.0, setting aside the truth about it to defend the idea that Trump, a clear protectionist, was curiously a champion of free trade.
"8. Defend Family Values." Bagus assured that Milei defended traditional family values and opposed the state's takeover of family responsibilities. However, this is incompatible with the fact that Milei promised to maintain welfare programs and never considered marriage to be a fundamental institution.
Unmarried and without children, but with four four-legged " kids," Milei has criticized marriage for years-calling it " horrific " in 2017 and " aberrant " in 2021. While showing sympathy for competition in open couples, Milei views marriage as outdated. Meanwhile, Rothbard wrote:
Monogamy may be demonstrable as absolutely the best form of marriage for developing the emotional characteristics of the human personality and also for child rearing.
Democracy and Political Decentralization
Something that Bagus or Milei never mentioned was the importance that Rothbard gave to political decentralization. Indeed, in the same article that Bagus used to promote Milei, Rothbard said:
... every one of these right-wing populist programs is totally consistent with a hard-core libertarian position. But all real-world politics is coalition politics, and there are other areas where libertarians might well compromise with their paleo or traditionalist or other partners in a populist coalition. For example, on family values, take such vexed problems as pornography, prostitution, or abortion. Here, pro-legalization and pro-choice libertarians should be willing to compromise on a decentralist stance; that is, to end the tyranny of the federal courts, and to leave these problems up to states and better yet, localities and neighborhoods, that is, to "community standards."
Rothbard was against the common error of thinking that the enforcement of rights should be centralized in the name of protecting rights. To illustrate this point, take Rothbard's strategy on abortion in his 1993 essay "The Religious Right: Toward A Coalition." Rothbard, who was pro-choice, believed in a coalition between pro-choice libertarians and the pro-life religious right. He was willing to collaborate to reduce the central power of the federal government. In contrast, Milei, who is pro-life, received substantial support from Argentina's religious right and proposed a referendum to resolve the controversy at the national level. This only further proves that Milei was not very close to Rothbard's paleo-libertarianism, but rather was an enemy of it.
Additionally, Rothbard was aware of the limited contribution that democracy can make to the libertarian cause, as evidenced by his 1994 article "Nations by Consent" for the Journal of Libertarian Studies:
... democracy or voting is only important either to join in or ratify the use of the government to control others, or to use it as a way of preventing one's self or one's group from being controlled. Voting, however, is at best, an inefficient instrument for self-defense, and it is far better to replace it by breaking up central government power altogether.
... if we proceed with the decomposition and decentralization of the modern centralizing and coercive nation-state, deconstructing that state into constituent nationalities and neighborhoods, we shall at one and the same time reduce the scope of government power, the scope and importance of voting and the extent of social conflict.
In Argentina, most public services are financed at the provincial level. But part of the funds collected by the national government are allocated to the provinces according to a predefined formula, and another part at the national executive's will. This system is exploited by the latter and by the provinces to influence each other and promote their own interests.
If the provinces increased their independence and responsibility in decision-making and revenue generation, pressure could also be put on the national government to collect fewer taxes and assume fewer responsibilities. But only by pushing for secession and radical decentralization, and by confronting the myth of national defense head-on, could enough pressure be put on the national government to increasingly reduce its central power and one day become insignificant, or even disappear. Nevertheless, Milei never showed any interest in secession or in fighting that myth in Argentina.
Bagus was right about the window of public and permissible opinions shifting in the direction of freedom, as was also largely the case with Ronald Reagan, who is greatly admired by Milei. This is not something unusual in democracy's pendulum. But it was unreasonable to say that Milei's campaign had sparked "a young and powerful libertarian movement," since most of his young supporters were and remain mere copies of Milei and are therefore not libertarians. In fact, his victory can mainly be explained by Argentinians' weariness with the alternatives offered by the political scene. Given that both the left and the right had caused similar disasters, a new and fresh political figure had long been needed. Milei burst through the barriers of conventional political discourse, and special interests (partly Jewish) used him and the name of libertarianism and Austrian economics to promote yet another statist project favoring special interest groups. This proved that even a neocon disguised as an anarcho-capitalist can win a democratic election. And yet, despite marketing efforts, Milei's election program was not really radical libertarian.