Chile Election Week, Part VI: Wrecking the Constitution?

December 21, 2021 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Now that a socialist has been elected (with open support from the Communist Party), what comes next for Chile?

Lots of bad policy, for sure, but Axel Kaiser warns that the left also wants to replace the country’s pro-liberty constitution.

Axel, who is President of Fundación para El Progreso and also a Senior Fellow for the Atlas Center for Latin America, just scratches the surface in this short video. He told me that there are many other desirable provisions, including school choice.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that the left in Chile is so determined to replace it with a document that empowers politicians.

I wrote about this issue last year, citing experts (including folks on the left) who all agreed that giving politicians new powers over the economy was the clear purpose of a new constitution.

 

This is basically a fight about whether to replace rights with entitlements (or, in the language of philosophers, whether to replace “negative rights” with “positive rights”).

By the way, there’s research showing that a society based on liberties is the best way of generating the prosperity needed for higher living standards (i.e., the access to goods and service that proponents of positive rights claim to support).

And, earlier this year, I showed how that works conceptually.

But you don’t need empirical research or theoretical analysis. Just open your eyes and look around the world. The nations based on socialism and so-called positive rights have produced economic misery and deprivation.

By contrast, there’s a much better track record – especially for ordinary people – in countries where government plays a smaller role.

It’s tragic that Chilean voters chose the redistribution approach in Sunday’s election. If they opt for a new constitution next year, the nation will be doomed.

P.S. By the way, here are some excerpts from today’s Wall Street Journal‘s editorial about the election.

Latin America, or much of it, is moving to the populist left, and Chile became the latest example by electing socialist Gabriel Boric… He’s the most leftist politician to win in Chile since Salvador Allende in the 1970s. His major theme was reducing economic inequality, which he proposes to do through state power. Mr. Boric wants to raise taxes, eliminate the country’s highly successful private pension system and increase government spending and regulation.

He supports the constituent assembly now rewriting the constitution, and his goal is to give government more control over just about everything. …Foreign investors and Chileans with money and property are nervous. From the end of 2019—when the left launched riots demanding a new social contract—until August 2021, Chile’s central bank says some $50 billion (15% of Chilean GDP) fled the country. About half was investment capital and half from businesses and households. …on Monday the Chilean peso fell 2% against the U.S. dollar while the broader stock market plunged 10%. …The world is watching closely to see if the new president will…take Chile in the direction of such failing Latin states as Argentina or Peru, or worse.

Amen.

The best case scenario is that Chile is copying Argentina. The worst case is that it is copying Venezuela.

P.P.S. There was a president in the United States who wanted to remake society on the basis of “positive rights.” Fortunately, he did not succeed.