Hope for Chile

For a few decades, Chile was very interesting for fans of free markets. The country became famous for its system of personal retirement accounts, but there were many other reforms that liberalized the economy. Everything from free trade to privatization. Unsurprisingly, Chile quickly became the richest nation in Latin America, surpassing countries such as Argentina […]

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Will Chileans Vote for a Statist Constitution?

When I went to Chile last December to write about that nation’s election (see here, here, here, here, and here), I concluded my coverage with a column about the risks of changing that nation’s constitution. This video from Reason is a fresh look at that topic. The people of Chile make their choice today. What’s […]

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Chile Election Week, Part VI: Wrecking the Constitution?

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 […]

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Chile Election Week, Part V: Another “Leftist Savior”

I warned a few days ago that Gabirel Boric would be bad news if he won Chile’s presidential election. Well, he won, and now we’re going to find out whether he will repeal the policies that made the country successful. He definitely seems to be another “leftist savior,” as described in this video. At best, […]

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Chile Election Week, Part IV: What’s at Stake in Today’s Vote?

Greetings from Santiago. Chileans vote today for a new president and there’s a risk that a Venezuelan-style leftist, Gabriel Boric, will prevail. And that puts at risk the economic progress described in this video. The video has a good discussion of Chile’s very successful system of private pensions (which will be in danger if Boric […]

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Chile Election Week, Part III: Death Knell for the Private Pension System?

One reason I’m interested in Chile’s election is that the leftist candidate, Gabriel Boric, wants to eviscerate the nation’s successful private pension system. Bettina Horst of Libertad Y Desarrollo gave me her analysis. As an economist and Executive Director of the nation’s pro-market think tank, Ms. Horst understands that Chile’s system has helped workers by […]

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Chile Election Week, Part II: The Threat of Boricnomics

I explained a few days ago that Sunday’s presidential runoff in Chile should be viewed as the most important election of 2021. This is because the left’s candidate, Gabriel Boric, wants to turn Chile into Venezuela, as I mention in this radio interview with Ross Kaminsky. For some reason, you only hear my voice during […]

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Free Markets and the Chilean Miracle

There are certain topics that seem to be slam-dunk wins for those who favor free markets and limited government, and one reason I make this assertion is that folks on the left don’t even bother to make counter-arguments. Here are just a few examples: Nobody on the left ever tries to produce an alternative explanation […]

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New Economic Freedom Rankings: Treading Water in the U.S., Falling in Canada, and Worrisome News for Chile

The Fraser Institute in Canada has released its latest edition of Economic Freedom of the World, an index that measure and ranks nations based on whether they follow pro-growth policy. Based on the latest available data on key indicators such as taxes, spending, regulation, trade policy, rule of law, and monetary policy, here are the […]

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Improving Bad Government: The Case of Chile and Milton Friedman

I’ve written many times about the spectacularly positive impact of pro-market reforms in Chile. The shift toward free markets, which began in the mid-1970s, was especially beneficial for the less fortunate (see here, here, and here). But it’s quite common for critics to assert that Chile is a bad example because many of the reforms […]

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The Wrong Kind of Constitutional Reform in Chile

The good thing about being a libertarian is that real-world events repeatedly demonstrate that your skepticism of big government is fully justified. Nations that adopt dirigiste policies don’t do well. States that adopt dirigiste policies don’t do well. Localities that adopt dirigiste policies don’t do well. The bad thing about being a libertarian is that […]

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Chile’s Pro-Market Reforms Have Been Especially Beneficial for Low-Income Citizens

Last month, I criticized the New York Times for a very inaccurate attack against Chile’s successful pro-market reforms. The paper’s editorial asserted that only the rich have gained, a view that is utterly nonsensical and inaccurate. Indeed, I visited Chile about a year ago and finished a three-part series (here, here, and here) showing how […]

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The New York Times vs. Chilean Prosperity

By every possible measure, Chile is the most successful country in Latin America. Income has soared and poverty has plummeted thanks to market-based reforms. It’s not perfect, of course. The nation’s economic freedom score – 7.89 on a 0-10 scale – is good enough for a #13 ranking, but there’s still room for improvement. But […]

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The Chilean Economic Miracle: Big Benefits for the Poor, Part III

Today is my last day in Chile, so today’s column will build upon what I wrote last week. I have three charts that illustrate how Chile’s pro-market reforms have been great news – especially for poor people (or, to be more accurate, for Chileans who used to be poor). We’ll start with this chart from […]

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Chile’s Pro-Market Reforms Generate Big Benefits for the Less Fortunate, Part II

I’m currently in Chile, enjoying the warm sun and doing research on the nation’s impressive economic performance. I met yesterday with Jose Pinera, the former minister who created Chile’s incredibly successful system of personal retirement accounts (he’s also one of the people Gary Johnson should have mentioned when he was asked to identify an admirable […]

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Can Brazil’s New President Copy the Chilean Miracle?

Brazil appears to be a tragic example of what happens when societal capital erodes (or never gets established in the first place) and too many people in the country see government as a vehicle for redistribution. That environment leads to statist policies. Which presumably helps to explain why Brazil is ranked #144 in Economic Freedom […]

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World Bank Compares Chile and Venezuela

I’m in China this week, giving various lectures at Northeastern University in Shenyang. My topic today was “Real-World Examples,” which gave me an opportunity to share many of the charts I’ve developed showing how market-oriented nations enjoy much more long-run success. One of the charts shows how Chile has enjoyed strong growth since it shifted […]

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The Overwhelming Case for Chile’s Private Social Security System

The United States and other western nations became rich during the 1800s thanks to a combination of rule of law and very small government. Sadly, very few nations – most notably East Asian tiger economies – have become rich in the modern era. Yes, some other countries have grown, but they are not on a […]

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If Chile’s “Neoliberal” Experiment Is a Failure, Why Is the Nation More Prosperous than the Rest of Latin America?

One of the interesting things I’ve noticed in my world travels is that supporters of free markets and small government generally are known as “liberals” everywhere other than North America. I think the rest of the world has the right idea. After all, folks like Adam Smith are considered “classical liberals,” so it’s bizarre that […]

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Improbable Success: How Free Markets Created the Chilean Miracle

I shared yesterday a remarkable TV show about Estonia’s entrepreneurial miracle. Today, let’s look at the Chilean version in the series. It shows how the South American nation, which now is ranked very high for economic freedom, is a shining example of how small government and free markets are a recipe for good results. I […]

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Chile, Venezuela, and the Left’s Support of State over Prosperity

Venezuela is falling apart. Decades of bad policy have produced economic stagnation and misery. On the other side of South America, Chile has enjoyed comparatively strong growth since reforms began in the 1980s. Can we learn lessons by comparing these two nations? Yes. More than five years ago, I compared three decades of data to […]

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Chile’s Private Social Security System Should Be Globally Emulated, not Locally Emasculated

Chile is one of the world’s economic success stories. Reforms in the 1980s and 1990s liberalized the nation’s economy and resulted in rapid increases in economic growth and big reductions in poverty. Unfortunately, the current government is pushing policy in the wrong direction. This drift toward statism has been unfortunate, featuring higher tax burdens, more […]

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Will Chile’s Politicians Ruin the Latin Tiger?

There aren’t any nations with pure libertarian economic policy, but there are a handful of jurisdictions that deserve praise, either because they have comparatively low levels of statism or because they have made big strides in the right direction. Hong Kong and Singapore are examples of the former, and Switzerland deserves honorable mention. And if […]

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The Chilean Miracle Shows that Economic Liberty is the Best Way of Helping Ordinary People

I’m in Vienna, Austria, for the annual European Resource Bank meeting. I had the pleasure last night of listening to Jose Pinera speak about economic reform in Chile, particularly the system of personal retirement accounts. He shared a chart that conclusively shows why good economic policy makes a difference. Wow. Look at how much faster […]

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Chile’s Amazing School Choice Revolution

I wrote back in July about the remarkable transformation of Chile into a prosperous market economy. In that post, I noted that Chile was a pioneer in the shift from unsustainable tax-and-transfer entitlement schemes to savings-based personal retirement accounts. And with good reason. That system, which has been in place for more than three decades, […]

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Thanks to Pro-Free Market Reforms, Chile Is the Latin Tiger

One of the reasons why this blog is called International Liberty is that the world is a laboratory, with some nations (such as France) showing why statism is a mistake, other jurisdictions (such as Hong Kong) showing that freedom is a key to prosperity, and other countries (such as Sweden) having good and bad features. […]

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Chile’s Private Social Security System a Big Success

Unlike the United States and most European nations, Chile does not face a long-term Social Security crisis. This is because lawmakers shifted to a system of personal accounts almost 30 years ago. As a result, Chile’s economy is much stronger, the financial system is healthy, workers are better off, and taxpayers are protected. It also […]

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Defending “Neoliberalism”

Whenever I’m part of a debate about the merits of free markets, I ask my leftist opponent to respond to my never-answered question. Cite an example, I beg them, of big government producing prosperity. Inevitably, that person either dodges the question or gives an inaccurate answer. Based on his new column in the Washington Post, […]

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Social Security: Debunking the Debunking

When the Social Security Administration released its annual Trustees’ Report last week, I crunched the numbers to show that the fiscal burden of the program is projected to dramatically increase. Payroll taxes are going to climb rapidly, but spending will grow even faster. As a result, the program’s long-run shortfall is now $61.7 trillion. That’s […]

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Social Security’s $61.7 Trillion Problem

The Social Security Administration has released the yearly forecast of the program’s long-run finances. Jut like I did in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, etc, it’s time to see what to expect in the future. Based on the annual fiscal data in Table VI.G9 (which is adjusted for inflation), we can see that the fiscal burden […]

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