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Tarik Cyril Amar
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Alexey Kupriyanov
What happened when Latin America’s most free economy elected a socialist?
Chile was the most capitalist country in Latin America and had prospered as a result. But since the election of socialist Gabriel Boric in 2021, all that has changed, says Rainer Zitelmann
My trip around the world took me to Chile twice, in May 2022 and November 2023. After you’ve been to countries like Colombia, Argentina, or Paraguay, you feel like you’re on a different continent in Chile. The difference between the dirty and outdated airports in Argentina and the state-of-the-art airport in Santiago de Chile couldn’t be greater. I feel like I’m back in Europe.
Chile was long regarded as Latin America’s model capitalist country. In the 2022 Human Development Index, Chile ranked first among all Latin American countries. And in the Heritage Foundation’s 2022 Index of Economic Freedom, Chile occupied 20th place globally, ahead of the United States and the UK (it fell slightly to 21st place in the 2024 index). Thus, Chile is the most economically free country in Latin America. Despite these successes, there were massive demonstrations and outbreaks of violence in October 2019, which led to the election of socialist President Gabriel Boric in 2021. Boric, who has promised to bury “neoliberalism,” currently governs the country in a coalition with the Communist Party.
In order to understand why Chileans voted for the socialist Boric, the answer is not to be found in objective economic data, because these data confirm the success of capitalism in Chile. The answer lies in a shift in public opinion. Ultimately, Chile is a striking example of a phenomenon we see in so many countries today: As time........
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