Extraction Disguised as Freedom |
CounterPunch Exclusives
CounterPunch Exclusives
Extraction Disguised as Freedom
Photograph Source: Vox España – CC0
Javier Milei’s government took office in December 2023 with a strong rhetoric about the need to expand freedom. However, rather than expanding it, his economic policy reduces it. Neoliberal policy advocates a model of free enterprise, free trade, and free movement of capital that favors the extraction of national surplus toward core countries, limiting the possibilities for local development and reinforcing the conditions of societal impoverishment.
Tricontinental’s Political Economy Substack, The Financial Leash, analyzes the mechanism by which the capitalist system deepens the dependence of peripheral countries through the global financial system, describing the channels through which a country’s surplus is applied (productive investment) and through which it flows out of the country. The latest balance of payments report from the BCRA (March 2026) shows how this dynamic has intensified in Argentina under the current government.
Record Outflow of Profits and Dividends
One of the channels for surplus extraction is financial rent sent abroad: interest on external debt plus profits and dividends repatriated from foreign direct investment. In Argentina, this channel was partially closed for years due to exchange controls.
BCRA Communication A 8226, published in April 2025 as part of Phase 3 of the economic program, blew it wide open: it authorized access to the free exchange market for the payment of dividends to non-resident shareholders.
Data from the balance of payments clearly shows the effect. Between December 2023 and December 2024, outflows for profits and dividends averaged just USD 24 million per month: a reflection of the fact that access........