Chile’s Hard Right Isn’t as Trumpy as It Wants to Seem: How to keep a consensus while pretending to break it. (Quico Toro, Apr 03, 2026, Persuasion)
Foreigners make a lot of lazy assumptions about Chile, but the stereotype of a country set on a hard right-wing path by a brutal dictator who brought prosperity along with repression is a partial truth at best. The truth is much more interesting. Per capita GDP grew only about 40 percent during Pinochet’s entire 17-year rule, and that includes two devastating recessions in 1975 and 1982. Chile’s real push into middle-income status came with democracy: GDP per capita (in constant 2010 dollars) more than doubled from around $6,400 in 1990 to over $14,000 by 2018, and poverty plummeted from 45 percent in 1987 to just 20 percent by 2000.
Chile’s development success story is the story of deepening consensus around institutions built on fundamentally sound liberal principles.
As important as saving Chile from Communism and institution capitalism were, Pinochet’s crowning act was returning to democracy once the threats were gone.