It is a long-standing view of the Left, for which there is a depressingly large amount of evidence, that the tide of History heads in only one direction — towards an authoritarian socialism that might as well be Communism. Less than three years ago I believed that in Latin America at least, authoritarian socialism had gone so far that it could well entrench itself with a kind of Comecon trading autarky. However, the triumph in Argentina and last week’s Bolivian Presidential election, in which the candidate of the ruling Socialists won only 3% of the vote, have made me reconsider: Is it possible, can it be the case, that in Latin America at least, History’s inexorable tide might begin to flow backwards?

In country after country in Latin America, there is no question that government worked better in the late 19th Century. In Argentina, from 1862 to 1930, the country was ruled by a free market oligarchy, whose economic policies bore favorable comparison with those anywhere in the world – and so did the results, with Argentina the world’s sixth richest country in 1928. You can choose among a wide range of capable Presidents of that period: Domingo Sarmiento (President, 1868-74) appeals to classical liberals, while Julio Argentino Roca (President, 1880-86, 1898-1904) appeals more to those who like the smack of firm conservative government. Even at the end of the period the liberal Marcelo de Alvear (President, 1922-28) was known as the Argentine Coolidge, which he deserved for his policies’ thoroughly benign results and the Argentine prosperity that followed.

In Mexico, similarly Porfirio Diaz (President, 1876-1911) was startlingly successful in pursuing free-market policies that attracted foreign investment and made ordinary Mexicans much richer. His disadvantage compared with the Argentine governments was that, although regularly re-elected, he never managed to establish a party system with alternation of power. Consequently, when he grew old he was ousted, with baleful results both for Mexico’s quality of government and Mexicans’ living standards over more than a century since he left. Even more than in Argentina, where the last less successful period of oligarchic rule, the 1930s, is known as the “Infamous Decade,” Diaz has been demonized by his statist successors and the Marxists that infest Mexican education, so unwilling are they to admit that in removing him and his government, the Mexican people made a catastrophic error that has wrecked their lives apparently forever.

Other Latin American countries had high-quality governments around the same period, although they did not stand out against their successors to quite the same extent. In Brazil the last 20 years of Emperor Pedro II (1870-89) brought peace, free markets and rapid economic growth, while the moral blight of slavery was abolished in stages. In Colombia, the fastest free-market economic growth came in 1905-15, with the takeoff of its coffee industry. Venezuela, always notably miserably governed, probably did best during the quasi-dictatorship (albeit with democratic trimmings) of Juan Vicente Gomez (President de facto, 1908-35) – it was during his rule that Venezuela’s bountiful reserves of oil were discovered and first exploited. Chile’s best period before the era of Augusto Pinochet (President 1973-90) came early, with liberal rule and rapid agricultural and nitrate growth in 1830-73, with the Crash of 1873 causing a prolonged downturn and political instability.

Argentina’s experience has shown that any economic change must be drastic to bring long-term revival; half measures will not work. Mauricio Macri, President of Argentina from 2015 to 2019, promised a change from the previous hard-left socialist regime, but he omitted to cut public spending and poured a gigantic IMF loan into the rat-hole of Argentina’s bloated public sector deficit. Consequently, the populace felt no measurable increase in growth or decline in inflation, so re-elected the socialists when they had a chance to do so. Javier Milei, who took office in December 2023, has been far more robust in cutting public spending, closing program after program; he has also made the Argentine peso freely convertible. By following the policies of Argentina’s 19th century oligarchy in this way – Sarmiento, but with enough Roca to show them who’s boss – Milei has reduced inflation and restored economic growth. The Argentine electorate would be showing truly Biblical levels of ingratitude should they not re-elect him when his term is up in late 2027.

Beyond Argentina, there are as yet only modest positive signs. Nayib Bukele has done a stellar job in El Salvador since 2019, though his recent abolition of term limits raises concerns – better to be the rotating Argentine oligarchy than a lonely, doomed Diaz. In Ecuador, Daniel Noboa to most observers’ surprise, replaced 17 years of socialism in a special election in October 2023, being re-elected to a full term in April 2025. The Bolivian Presidential election has temporarily ousted socialism, but if a moderate wins the runoff, it is likely that as with Macri the Socialists will be back in a few years.

There are three more elections in the next year that offer further hope, especially as the Trump administration is available to ensure the scales are not tilted against the right, as they were in Brazil in 2022, for example. In November this year, Chile will hold a Presidential election to replace the socialist Gabriel Boric, who was to some extent stymied when his referendum to replace the Chilean constitution failed in September 2022. Alas, the Communist party candidate is currently leading in the opinion polls, for what that’s worth.

In Peru there will be a Presidential election in April 2026, to follow four years of chaos, during which the leftist President was removed from office and replaced by his Vice President Dina Boluarte, who has been forced to govern with a rightist Congressional majority. Here there is a candidate to back: Keiko Fujimori, daughter of Peru’s successful 1990s President who spent the last decade of his life in jail. Ms. Fujimori has run for the Presidency three times, losing narrowly each time. (Fraud is only too possible, of course, especially as the elections were in 2011, 2016 and 2021, when pro-fraud forces were dominant in the U.S. State Department.) If Ms. Fujimori wins, she is likely to provide the firm government Peru needs; one must hope that the various “moderates” do not impede her.

In Colombia, Gustavo Petro, elected in 2022, was the first formally left-wing President since Colombian independence in 1810. Petro is very unpopular and ineligible to succeed himself. Regrettably, there currently appear to be a plethora of leftists to succeed him, while the long-standing leader of rightist forces, former President Alvaro Uribe (President 2002-2010) has been convicted by the corrupt Colombian court system.

Beyond these three possibilities, none of which seem secure for the firm “economically liberal” rightist that is needed, other countries currently have gloomy prospects. In Brazil, where the leftist government of Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva won a 2022 election that was almost certainly stolen with the help of the Biden administration, the main rightist, Jair Bolsonaro, has now been jailed by the country’s corrupt courts. Consequently, it is likely that the next election due in November 2026 will again be stolen by the left, unless the Trump administration intervenes directly, which is unlikely. Mexico last year elected a new leftist, Claudia Sheinbaum, who is not up for re-election until 2030. Finally, Venezuela is currently a Communist dictatorship and will remain so unless Trump intervenes, as the foolish George W. Bush should have done in 2002, when he was invited to do so, instead of messing about in the Middle East.

After the last century of deteriorating governance in Latin America and severe economic underperformance for the region’s citizens as they fail to share in the benefits that technology has brought to the rest of the world, a structural solution must be found whereby the general quality and performance of Latin American governments can be improved. Fortunately, such a solution exists. The old Argentine oligarchy had free elections from 1862 on a property-based franchise, using an Electoral College to determine the winner. That system was used until the Lei Sáenz Peña of 1912, which provided for universal suffrage with compulsory voting (women got the vote in 1947). The quality of Argentine government lurched sharply downwards thereafter, with only Alvear of subsequent Presidents being economically capable.

Argentina’s Electoral College was copied from the United States and is probably superfluous, but a property franchise certainly seems appropriate for Latin American countries, with the minimum property holding to vote set at a suitably low level. Under such a franchise, the blue-collar established citizens would have the vote, even poor ones, but random transients and the leftist detritus of the university system, unemployed sociology majors and such, would be disfranchised. A property franchise was used in Britain until 1918 and underlay the most successful period of Japan’s Meiji Restoration (it was introduced by Prince Hirobumi Ito’s Constitution in 1885, but replaced with universal suffrage in 1925, after which the quality of Japan’s governments notoriously declined).

A property franchise has the inestimable advantage that those who pay taxes will have the vote, while those drawing welfare and mooching off the system will generally not have it. It thus automatically provides for better government than universal suffrage. In Latin America, both positive experience in Argentina and negative experiences elsewhere have demonstrated its necessity and benefits. I would recommend it as a reform to Milei while his mandate lasts, and any solidly pro-capitalist leader elected in coming years in Latin America should have a property franchise proposal ready to roll as soon as he takes office.

The probability of History’s tide being rolled back in Latin America is still low. But it is no longer zero.

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(The Bear’s Lair is a weekly column that is intended to appear each Monday, an appropriately gloomy day of the week. Its rationale is that the proportion of “sell” recommendations put out by Wall Street houses remains far below that of “buy” recommendations. Accordingly, investors have an excess of positive information and very little negative information. The column thus takes the ursine view of life and the market, in the hope that it may be usefully different from what investors see elsewhere.)