The Uses of Chile: How politics trumped truth in the neo-liberal revision of chile’s development a ‘public citizen’ discussion paper september 2006

While defenders of neo-liberalism flaunt Chile’s economic success as the result of its adherence to neo-liberal economic policies, this paper finds that Chile’s recent decades of steady growth in fact showcase the successful use of non-neo-liberal policies. This high growth scenario also hides the fact that many of the neo-liberal policies adopted in Chile have caused economic harm or have not helped needy sectors of society and the environment in terms of generating a high income inequality, unsustainable export led growth dependent heavily on exploitation of a few natural resources and a significant contraction of the manufacturing sector.

chile_alternatives (Download the full text in PDF format)