Chile and the Neoliberal Trap
The Post-Pinochet Era

This book analyzes Chile's political economy and its attempt to build a market society in a highly inegalitarian country.

Andrés Solimano (Author)

9781107415515, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 June 2014

182 pages, 11 b/w illus. 22 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm, 0.31 kg

'This book provides a broad perspective involving the multiple dimensions of the imposition and deepening of a kind of dehumanizing and depredatory variety of capitalism such as the neoliberal model applied in Chile. The book will be an indispensable tool to understand the roots of the current social protest movements in Chile. No doubt [it] will contribute to undermining the hegemony of neoliberal economics in my country.' Camila Vallejo, named The Guardian's 2011 'Person of the Year'

This book analyzes Chile's political economy over the last 30 years and the country's attempt to build a market society in a highly inegalitarian society, now as a member country of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The investigation provides a historical background of Chilean economy and society and discusses the cultural underpinnings of the imposition of free markets, the macroeconomic and growth performance of the 1990s and 2000s and the social record of privatization of education, health and social security. The treatment documents the growing concentration of economic power among small groups of elites in Chile and discusses the limits of the democratic system built after the departure of the Pinochet regime.

1. From its past and present, Chile is poised to provide a better future for its people
2. A brief history: the role of authoritarian conditions and crises in shaping political and economic orders in Chile
3. Cementing Neoliberalism: a cultural revolution for the free market
4. Economic-growth and macroeconomic performance in the 1990s and 2000s under four concertación governments
5. The social record of the post-Pinochet administrations: poverty declines but high inequality persists
6. The social policies of the 1990s and 2000s: Neoliberalism tempered with social protection?
7. Concentration of economic power: the new elites of the super-rich, oligopolistic markets and dual productive structures
8. Limits to Chilean democracy and the governance for capital
9. Summary and issues for the future.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], International economics [KCL], Hispanic & Latino studies [JFSL4], Social & political philosophy [HPS]