After a campaign visit through the narrow streets of Buenos Aires’s Villa 31 slum back in 2021, Javier Milei told journalists: “There is much more liberalism in the air here than certain parts of society imagine. What has led to the annihilation of poverty in the world was liberalism.”

For this self-described anarcho-capitalist candidate for the Argentinian presidency, “liberalism” means something rather specific: cutting the state to the bare minimum, to create free markets. His theories are heavily inspired by Murray Rothbard, an economist who described markets as the best possible human institution. States’ economic interventionism is said to turn them into “criminal organizations.”

When he visited the slum district two years ago, Milei was a mere media phenomenon, running for Congress. Yet today, he is now one of Argentina’s front-running presidential candidates, widely expected to make the second-round ballot. In Buenos Aires’s slums, known as villas, he was the most voted candidate in August’s national primaries, defeating the Peronist and right-wing candidates. Milei gathered more than 30 percent support there — almost twice as much as in the rest of the city.