What does it actually look like when a government takes a chainsaw to the state? In Buenos Aires,
Institute of Public Affairs’ Chief Economist, Adam Creighton, sits down with Federico Sturzenegger, Argentina’s Minister for Deregulation and State Reform, to unpack Javier Milei’s radical plan to slash government, kill bad regulation, and restore economic freedom.
They discuss:
- Why Milei created a Ministry of Deregulation in the first place
- The “chainsaw” strategy: cutting spending 5% of GDP and cutting taxes to match
- How a team literally read all of Argentina’s laws and built two piles: “scrap” and “fix”
- Absurd regulations – from banned satellite internet to how you’re allowed to pack watermelons
- The “gnocchi employees” who only turned up once a month to get paid
- Cutting 60,000 federal jobs and dismantling parallel ministries
- New ideas like competition between regulators and unregulated segments
- The coming wave of labour reform and sectoral deregulation in 2026
If you are interested in deregulation, fiscal sanity, and what a real small-government agenda looks like in practice, this conversation is essential viewing.
You can view all other relevant interviews and articles here: https://ipa.org.au/ipa-argentina
This discussion is a production of the Institute of Public Affairs.
Subscribe to keep up to date with the Institute of Public Affairs’ latest research: https://ipa.org.au/#signup.
If you would like to support more content like this, please consider making a tax-deductible donation at https://members.ipa.org.au/donate/.
To find out more about the IPA’s research or to become a member visit https://ipa.org.au
