Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

The explicable non-death of neoliberalism in Chile

Irina Domurath 14th September 2022

The rejection of the new constitution in a referendum has deep historical traces.

On September 4th, Chileans voted against a draft constitution elaborated by elected members of the public, after social unrest in 2019 had forced the then centre-right government to start a constitutional process. While more than 80 per cent had voted in favour of the process in October 2020, two years later the emerging proposal was rejected by almost a two-thirds majority.

Trying to make sense of this puzzling outcome, many analyses have invoked the ‘radicality’ of the text with regard to the right to abortion or indigenous rights, its ‘leftist’ character and the hope for a subsequent ‘do-over’. While all these analyses explain parts of the puzzle, we should focus on the profiles of those who voted for rejection to see the bigger picture.

Logically, the no vote consisted of right-wing voters who did not change opinion from 2020 to 2022, voters who changed their votes in the interim and first-time voters. The first group is analytically not very interesting. The two other types of votes can be explained, respectively, by the roots of the constitutional draft in social movements and the ultimate success of neoliberal ideology in Chile.

Social movements

The constitutional process was heavily carried by social movements. This had crucial implications.

First, it probably deformed the 2020 vote of approval. That vote was not obligatory, so many who voted in favour of the constituent process in 2020 were individuals who had been mobilised in the unrest of the previous year.

Secondly, many of the members of the Constitutional Assembly were representative of those social movements: feminists, indigenous activists, environmentalists, animal-rights supporters and so on. Their respective agendas found their way into the constitutional draft.

This gave the proposal a maximalist content, especially with regard to fundamental rights, while neglecting technicalities of political organisation. It included more than 100 rights—many fuzzy and conceptually unclear—ranging from abortion to autonomy for indigenous people and for ‘neuro-different persons’. With many of those rights hotly debated in Chilean society, the proposal provided a raft of pick-and-choose arguments in favour of rejection.

Thirdly, the maximalism of the text alienated the centre left. This political sector, which led Chile out of the dictatorship, had been frustrated with the process from the beginning and could not get its candidates into the constitutional assembly. Ricardo Lagos, a former president and still an important centre-left figure, called the draft ‘extremely partisan’.

At the same time, a new, centre-left social movement called the ‘yellows’ discussed the possibility of rejection while continuing the fight for a new constitution. This effectively gave many who had voted for a constitutional process in 2020 but were unhappy with the draft an unwritten third option in 2022—the ‘do-over’.

Neoliberal subjection

This leaves us to explain the rejection of the draft among first-time voters. Those who only voted now because the referendum was obligatory tend to be ‘apolitical’. Their disenchantment would not be with the left or the right, but the state. A common anecdotal narrative was: ‘I come from a poor background. The state has never done anything for me or my family; everything we have, we have because we work very hard. I don’t want the state to take my house away; I don’t want my family to pay taxes on our second home—which we constructed all by ourselves without the help of anyone. And I don’t want to pay for the lazy ones, who don’t do anything and just want social benefits.’

Such statements are the epitome of subjection to neoliberal doctrine. But then Chile is the country, arguably, in which neoliberalism—the ideology that advocates market fundamentalism and hostility to government for the public good—was born. Already in the 1970s, when ‘Thatcherism’ and later Tony Blair’s ‘third way’ were yet to emerge in Britain, the Latin American country went through a profound change which would determine its fate for decades.

When Salvador Allende’s socialist government was overthrown in a military coup backed by the United States in September 1973, Augusto Pinochet, the head of the military junta which then governed Chile until 1990, implemented a neoliberal experiment, supported and advanced by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

This political project was long in the making: in the late 1950s, a select group of young economists had gone to the University of Chicago to be trained in orthodox economic policies. These they were to implement—in line with a book called El Ladrillo (‘the brick’), completed weeks before the coup—upon their return.

The project made the Pinochet regime a forerunner of marketisation and privatisation in Latin America—in healthcare, education, pensions, housing and so on. A deep connection was politically constructed between the establishment of a deregulated market and the authoritarian regime. Paradoxically, this required that a huge bureaucratic apparatus be set up, while the state left welfare to markets. The return to democracy (under the centre left) continued the ‘Chilean way’ and led Chile to became a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2010.

Broken social contract

What happened nearly half a century on is the almost logical continuation of the neoliberal laboratory. When a state has abrogated responsibility for the wellbeing of its citizens and those citizens have internalised the rationale that everyone is the architect of their own future, the social contract breaks down.

There is no (legitimate) state any more—only an administrative organ. There are no longer citizens. What remain are individuals, wolves among wolves, distrustful of each other, void of feelings of solidarity, void of hope for change.

Neoliberalism has bequeathed what Emile Durkheim called anomie. In such a society devoid of bonds, any attempt at a new social contract—such as this constitutional process—must almost necessarily fail.

Irina Domurath
Irina Domurath

Irina Domurath is associate professor of law at the Central University of Chile in Santiago. She works on the connection between political economy and the law.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u42198346761805ea24 2 Trump’s ‘Golden Era’ Fades as European Allies Face Harsh New RealityFerenc Németh and Peter Kreko
u4219834664e04a 8a1e 4ee0 a6f9 bbc30a79d0b1 2 Closing the Chasm: Central and Eastern Europe’s Continued Minimum Wage ClimbCarlos Vacas-Soriano and Christine Aumayr-Pintar
u421983467f bb39 37d5862ca0d5 0 Ending Britain’s “Brief Encounter” with BrexitStefan Stern
u421983485 2 The Future of American Soft PowerJoseph S. Nye
u4219834676d582029 038f 486a 8c2b fe32db91c9b0 2 Trump Can’t Kill the Boom: Why the US Economy Will Roar Despite HimNouriel Roubini

Most Popular Articles

startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer
u421983467 2a24 4c75 9482 03c99ea44770 3 Trump’s Trade War Tears North America Apart – Could Canada and Mexico Turn to Europe?Malcolm Fairbrother
u4219834676e2a479 85e9 435a bf3f 59c90bfe6225 3 Why Good Business Leaders Tune Out the Trump Noise and Stay FocusedStefan Stern
u42198346 4ba7 b898 27a9d72779f7 1 Confronting the Pandemic’s Toxic Political LegacyJan-Werner Müller
u4219834676574c9 df78 4d38 939b 929d7aea0c20 2 The End of Progess? The Dire Consequences of Trump’s ReturnJoseph Stiglitz

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
How are minimum wage levels changing in Europe?

In a new Eurofound Talks podcast episode, host Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound expert Carlos Vacas Soriano about recent changes to minimum wages in Europe and their implications.

Listeners can delve into the intricacies of Europe's minimum wage dynamics and the driving factors behind these shifts. The conversation also highlights the broader effects of minimum wage changes on income inequality and gender equality.

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!


Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss European defence strategies, assess how the US president's recent announcements will impact international trade and explore the risks  and opportunities that algorithms pose for workers.


READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

KU Leuven advertisement

The Politics of Unpaid Work

This new book published by Oxford University Press presents the findings of the multiannual ERC research project “Researching Precariousness Across the Paid/Unpaid Work Continuum”,
led by Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), which are very important for the prospects of a more equal Europe.

Unpaid labour is no longer limited to the home or volunteer work. It infiltrates paid jobs, eroding rights and deepening inequality. From freelancers’ extra hours to care workers’ unpaid duties, it sustains precarity and fuels inequity. This book exposes the hidden forces behind unpaid labour and calls for systemic change to confront this pressing issue.

DOWNLOAD HERE FOR FREE

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

What kind of impact is artificial intelligence (AI) having, or likely to have, on the way we work and the conditions we work under? Discover the latest issue of HesaMag, the ETUI’s health and safety magazine, which considers this question from many angles.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641