Commentary
Act I—Back From the Future
I’m from Argentina, and when I hear New York’s new mayor speak about “democratic socialism” as a path to “social justice,” I feel like someone who has already watched the entire movie: the prequel, the sequel, the reboot, and even the director’s cut. Different actors, different scripts, different settings—but always the same finale.In Argentina, that film ran for more than a century under constantly changing, always appealing titles—“Inclusion,” “Equality,” “Solidarity,” “Rights”—and always with the same results. Rising inflation, expanding welfare dependence, collapsing incentives to work, and entire families living off government aid for generations, because earning a wage was no better than, and often no different from, receiving a welfare check. A once-prosperous nation slowly drained itself of productivity, individual agency, and opportunity—all while the narrative insisted it was heading toward a “happy ending.”