Chile and the Neoliberal Trap

Book excerpt: 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.