State, Politics and the Idea of Social Justice
in Chile
Patricio Silva
ABSTRACT
This article explores the ways in which the idea of social justice has been
utilized during this century as an idke-force in Chilean politics. It stresses the
Catholic background of the concept and shows how it has been adapted to the
political objectives of several doctrinal streams. The idea of social justice has
been a powerful ideological instrument for governments in their attempts to
deal with the social expectations of the electorate and to create a broad consensus between different political and social sectors. This idea has also been
historically related to an active state role in the search for equity through
income distribution and the adoption of progressive social legislation. While
the recent military governmenz (1973-90) radically reformulated both the
social function of the state and the official definition of social justice, the current democratic authorities seem to have readopted the idea of social justice
as a key element in their ideological discourse.
Since the early 19209, the achievement of social justice (justicia
social) has been presented by almost all Chilean governments as one
of their main objectives. Despite their different politico-ideological
orientations, the governments of Eduardo Frei (1964-70), Salvador
Allende (1970-7), August0 Pinochet (1973-90) and Patricio Aylwin
(1990 to date) have all publicly expressed their aim to build a more
equitable society on the basis of social justice.
Undoubtedly, the idea of social justice carries tremendous
political appeal, making it an essential ingredient in the elaboration
of practically any political discourse. It is also relatively easy to
employ as people do not call for explicit definitions; they have a
general notion or feeling about its meaning. This is particularly true
of a predominantly Catholic nation like Chile where people relate
the idea of social justice almost unconsciously to the Christian faith
Development and Change (SAGE,London, Newbury Park and New Delhi), Vol. 24
(19!23), 465-486.
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Patricio Silva
and the Catholic Church, giving it considerable legitimacy. This
partly explains the lack of unambiguous definitions of social justice
on the part of the country’s main political forces.
The idea of social justice is endowed with an immense rhetorical
value. Because of this, any attempt to assess its role in Chilean
politics by focusing exclusively on the official discourse of the main
political forces would be pointless. My contention here is that in
order to explore the ways in which Chilean political forces have dealt
with the idea of social justice, any analysis must concentrate instead
on what those forces see as the causes of social injustice in the country. This allows for the identification both of the main interests,
social groups and institutions which are blamed for the social inequalities existing in Chilean society, and of the specific policies
employed by the groups in power to deal with the problem. This
demands an assessment of the specific composition of social forces
and political actors supporting the power bloc, in order to understand the political rationale behind the policies.
SOCIAL JUSTlCE AND MESOCRATlC RULE
Social justice evolved as an idPe-force in Chilean politics at the
beginning of the twentieth century, as the so-called ‘social question’
became Chile’s most pressing national problem (Morris, 1966;
Angell, 1972).’ Since the 1880s the bonanza of the nitrate economy
had produced a profound change in the country’s social structure.
It stimulated the processes of industrialization and urbanization,
but it also generated new social and political challenges for the
dominant landed oligarchy. The nitrate-based economy produced a
relatively large and militant working class in the urban areas and in
the northern nitrate enclaves, who demanded improvements in their
poor working and living conditions (Ramirez Necochea, 195 1). At
the same time, a self-conscious middle class claimed a larger degree
of political participation according to their enhanced socio-political
position. The oligarchic regime, however, remained impervious to
the emergence of these new social actors and ignored their demands
for change. Within this scenario, an almost natural alliance emerged
between the middle classes and the labour movement in an attempt
to force profound social and political changes in the country.
The anti-oligarchic struggle was centred around the ‘social question’, which interpreted the political and social aspirations of both
Social Justice in Chile
467
the middle classes and the popular sectors. The solution of housing,
health and sanitation problems, and the introduction of labour
reforms (such as the right to strike and to establish labour unions)
were among the main demands of the working class (Arellano, 1988),
while the middle classes demanded action by the state to deal with
these problems and blamed the aristocracy for the deterioration of
the social condition of the poor.’ At the ideological level, the oligarchic regime used the dominant liberal philosophical and economic
doctrines to legitimize its intransigent position. These doctrines supposed the existence of a free labour market in which there was no
place either for collective bargaining and industrial action, or for the
state to intervene in the economic process in pursuit of social equity
(Jorrin and Martz, 1970). Neither did the Church read the signs of
the times which demanded comprehensive social reforms in the country. The social doctrine of the Church, as expounded by Pope Leo
XI11 in 1891 in his encyclical letter Rerum Novarum, received a cool
reception among the local Catholic leaders who feared its farreaching social implications. Only in 1910, when the ‘social question’
had reached almost explosive proportions, did the Archbishop of
Santiago decide to organize a Catholic Social Congress to study the
‘administration of justice’ to the
During the presidential elections of 1920, Arturo Alessandri successfully used the idea of social justice as a mobilizing and unifying
tool for his heterogeneous anti-oligarchic coalition. He won the
election representing an alliance of incipient industrial interests, the
middle classes and the urban popular sectors, marking the end of
the oligarchic order in Chile and the beginning of a democratic
political regime controlled by society’s middle sectors. By utilizing
the idea of social justice, Alessandri managed not only to voice the
hopes and expectations of the urban masses, but also to deactivate
their revolutionary potential. Despite his verbal attacks on the
oligarchy, whom he blamed for the problems of the country, he
actually attempted to become the arbiter of the social conflict. His
government represented a non-revolutionary alternative to the
socialist movement which, during those turbulent years, had
become a serious threat to the status quo. He realized that unless
comprehensive social legislation was introduced, the prospects for
socialism in Chile would still persist:
...
. . . there is an absolute need
to meet the demands of the proletariat on the
basis of the principles of justice and equity . . . The prompt adoption of a series
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.
of laws which consider the . . workers’ interests, which have to function as an
antidote against the subversive spirits who desire and pursue the dissolution of
the social order, is indispensable. We have to establish a social equilibrium
through these laws. After this, the anarchistic and subversive elements will smash
impotently against social justice, which means peace, tranquility, order, equilibrium and harmony. (Echaiz, 1974: 28-9, 31; my translation)
A package of social and labour regulations was approved in 1924,
although not until the army had put the conservative Congress
under considerable pres~ure.~
The political rationale behind this
new social policy was not merely the need to deradicalizethe popular
sectors: the new legislation also protected large segments of the middle classes (particularly public employees) and went a long way
toward meeting their expectations for expanded job opportunities.
Indeed, it led to the creation of many new state institutions and to
a huge increase in the levels both of personnel and of expenditure
in social programmes (Arellano, 1988: 21-42).
It could be said that from the mid-1920s the meaning of social
justice became officially reduced to the existence of social and
labour laws introduced ‘from above’, and to the self-assigned
responsibility of the state for the welfare of the working population.
This marked the beginning of the Chilean welfare state which would
last until the military coup of 1973.
SOCIAL JUSTICE AND CORPORATISM
The Great Depression further strengthened the role of the state as
the main agent of social and economic development. The state was
now expected not only to provide for the social welfare of the poorer
sections of society, but also to plan and lead the overall economic
development of the nation. The Chilean state began to adopt an unequivocal corporatist shape, especially after the victory of the
Popular Front in 1938, which carried a broad centre-left coalition
into power. Leading organizations of landowners, industrialists and
businessmen were tied directly into the decision-making process
through formal representation in several governmental boards and
agencies, while white- and blue-collar unions were co-opted by the
use of welfare measures (Kaufman, 1977: 112). From this point on,
subsequent governments would apply the concept of social justice
only to those social forces which had obtained the state’s recognition
for participation (in a subordinate position) in the political process:
Social Justice in Chile
469
it was not seen as a value of universal application. This phenomenon
is a typical manifestation of populism which dominated the South
American political scene for many decades:
Social justice became a general aspiration . . . that in practice was taken to mean
the incorporation of people in the central state’s vast concentric system of
patronage and clientelistic relations that promised protection from economic
uncertainty as well as from the vagaries of political change. Far from representing
a revolutionary posture, these demands for social justice reflected the conservative anxieties of a predominantly urban population that, having been badly
shaken by the Great Depression, wanted above all guaranteed employment and
generous social security arrangements within the existing system. (Vdiz, 1980:
287)
It was for the state to define what was meant by social justice and
to decide how to achieve this goal. With the collapse of the oligarchic order so many years behind them, it was not easy for these
governments to find internal actors to blame for the social injustice
in the country. The causes of social injustice were now sought in
underdevelopment and the lack of a national industrial basis which
could foster social and economic development in the country. It
represented, in fact, a developmentalist approach avant-la-lettre
which, from the late 1940s onwards, would be conceptualized in the
writings of Ra61 Prebisch and other Latin American economists
(Kay, 1989: 25-57). The idea of the centrality of the state (estatisrno)
in the achievement of social justice became a commonplace for
almost all the Chilean political forces across the ideological spectrum. The communist and socialist parties, who participated in the
Popular Front, firmly supported the idea of a strong state in order
to foster industrialization and the improvement of living conditions
for the popular sector - a position primarily determined by pragmatic considerations.’
However, the state applied a restricted notion of the right to social
justice; the peasantry, for example, was explicitly excluded from the
corporatist formula. When Chilean governments of the period
1938-64 talked of the need to improve the social conditions of the
poor, they were in fact referring to the urban sectors and not the
rural population. This systematic denial of the peasantry, even by
the left-wing parties, was primarily the result of the specific balance
of power which existed within the country: centre-left governments
had to take into account the political power still held by the landed
interesk6 As result of this, the demands of the peasantry, such as
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Patricio Silva
the right to establish rural unions and the call for a land reform,
were left off the political agenda until the mid-1960s (Loveman,
1976; Carrikre, 1977).
SOCIAL JUSTICE AND CATHOLIC TRADITIONALISM
At the level of ideology and doctrine, it has been the conservative
forces who have most clearly elaborated and integrated the idea of
social justice into their political thought. Within the left-wing movement, the idea of social justice has been taken up mostly in pamphlets and speeches directed at the masses but beyond their own
party boundaries, making use of the concept’s proven political
appeal. In their party doctrines and other writings, however, there
are almost no explicit references to social justice.’ Here social
justice is implicitly equated with socialism, while the causes of social
injustice are attributed virtually exclusively to the traditional trinity
of imperialism, national bourgeoisie and landed oligarchy.’
In contrast, the idea of social justice has been fundamental in the
development of Catholic conservative thought in the present century. During the 1930s and 1940s, a group of intellectuals connected
with the journal Estudios expounded a corporatist vision directed
against liberalism and political democracy’, heavily influenced by
the corporatist experiences of Francisco Franco in Spain and
Oliveira Salazar in Portugal (Grugel, 1985). According to this conservative stream, social justice and the common good must be the
guiding principles inspiring the actions of the state. In 1937 Jaime
Eyzaguirre, the most articulate representative of this group, defined
social justice in the following terms:
Social justice is the virtue which forces men to carry out every act which they
could not evade without violating the right of society to the co-operation of its
members. . . . Social justice seeks the general interest without destroying the
individual interest of each of its associates. Its goal is hence the common good,
i.e. the set of goods of both material and moral origin to which people living in
a society have the right. (quoted in Ruiz, 1992: 74; my translation)
Using anti-capitalist rhetoric, the Catholic traditionalists set up
social justice as the moral antidote to the principle of economic profit inspiring the liberal capitalist societies, which was considered
inhuman and even demonic. They stressed insistently the authority
of the state in securing and protecting social justice. However, their
Social Justice in Chile
47 1
vision was considerably less ‘statist’ than the corporatist formula
which was finally established in Chile in the late 1930s, a formula
which they energetically criticized. The Catholic traditionalists
stressed the principle of state subsidiarity by which the state must
respect private economic activity, except in cases where the latter
proved incompatible with the principles of common good and social
justice.” They believed that the state should confer a higher degree
of autonomy on those so-called ‘natural communities’, such as the
family, the municipality and the corporation (or gremio), which
occupy intermediary positions between the state and the individual.
The gremios were seen as the most dynamic representatives of the
‘living forces’ of society, which must play a key role in the search for
the common good and social justice (Cristi and Ruiz, 1992).
Although the Catholic traditionalist stream did not become a real
political alternative in the period 1936-60, it was to emerge in the
late 1960s (under the banner of gremialismo) as one of the most
important forces in the Chilean right, and particularly strong in the
university students’ movement (Brunner, 1985). In the Allende
years, the gremialista movement became the leading force in the
organization and mobilization of mass opposition to the Unidud
Popular government, which eventually led to its violent overthrow
in 1973 (Valenzuela, 1978). In the early years of the military government, the gremialistas exercised a very strong ideological influence
within the authoritarian regime, its leader Jaime Guzman being
among the junta’s main ideologues. The clearest evidence of this
influence is the Declaracidn de Principios of March 1974, the first
important document of doctrine issued by the military government,
which displays a Catholic traditionalist view of society. In the end,
however, the gremialistas proved unable to prevent the rise of their
main ideological opponents, the neo-liberals, who became the
indisputable hegemonic force in the Pinochet government from
1975 onwards (Moulian and Torres, 1989).
SOCIAL JUSTICE A N D SOCIAL CRISTIANISMO
‘Social Christianism’ (social cristianismo) evolved after the Great
Depression among a group of young intellectuals committed to the
social doctrine of the Church. In 1935 they became members of the
Conservative party, not so much because of any ideological conviction but because of the lack of alternatives - this was the only
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Catholic party in Chile during those years. However, this group was
able to keep its institutional autonomy within the party by founding
the National Movement of Conservative Youth (known as the
National Falanje). The papal encyclicals Rerum Novarum (1891)
and Quadragessimo Anno (193 1) were among their main doctrinal
sources, while the young falangistas were also influenced by the
work of the French philosopher Jacques Maritain and his ideas on
integral humanism.
Unlike the Catholic traditionalists, thefalangistas defended the
principles of democratic pluralism, and accepted the phenomenon
of secularization as a social reality. They also gave a progressive
interpretation to the Church’s social doctrine by publicly declaring
their Christian commitment to the poor and the needy. This position
led to an open conflict with the leaders of the Conservative party
and in 1938 resulted in a split, the National Falanje becoming an
independent political movement (Scully, 1992: 1 13-17). Their
‘24-Point Programme’, adopted in 1939,included proposals for a
‘just wage’, profit sharing between entrepreneurs and workers and
the adoption of measures which would permit access to property for
the middle and lower classes: ‘Production must grow as fast as possible, but the resulting wealth should be distributed in the spirit of
social justice’ (Lehmann, 1990: 107). The idea of redistribution of
wealth as an important mechanism to accomplish social justice was
explicitly promoted in the influential writings of Eduardo Frei, one
of the FalanjeS main leaders.
At the beginning of the 1950s, the hierarchy of the Catholic
Church also began to adopt a more active position on the problems
of poverty and social inequality in Chile. Church leaders stressed the
need for agrarian reform, fair income distribution and recognition
of the social and political rights of the poor (Landsberger and
Canitrot, 1967). In those years social cristianismo and the falangistas acquired increasing support among the population, leading to
the creation in 1957 of the Partido Democrata Cristiano (PDC)
which became a popular party with a clear developmentalist and
reformist programme.
The Church’s criticism of the extreme social inequalities existing
in Chile rapidly gained the support of scholars and intellectuals who
used technical studies to stress the need for income redistribution as
a way of dealing with poverty in the country. Agrarian reform was
suggested as a mechanism for levelling the large income inequalities
between the urban and the rural population (Ahumada, 1958;
Social Justice in Chile
473
Pinto, 1959). The socio-economic gap between urban and rural areas
had become even larger as a result of the process of industrialization. In 1950, for example, the average income in the agrarian sector
was less than half of the average national income, making it the
worst paid sector within the Chilean economy (CIDA, 1965: 33).
After the victory of its candidate Eduardo Frei in the 1964
presidential elections, the development strategy of the PDC became
the basis of state policy to reduce social inequalities in the country.
Frei promised a ‘revolution in freedom’, which would correct the
extreme inequalities of Chilean society without causing direct social
confrontation. To this end, the Christian Democrats proposed land
and tax reforms, increased expenditure for social programmes such
as housing and education and many other measures to redistribute
income to the poorest segments of Chilean society. The Frei government also added a political dimension to the concept of social
justice, by actively supporting the incorporation of the popular sectors into the political system, particularly the peasantry and the
urban marginal sectors. After 1964, the popular sectors ceased to be
passive receivers of social benefits from the state, but became a
major source of pressure for the further deepening and widening of
these benefits. These newly-organized groups began to adopt
increasingly radical positions as many of their demands failed to be
met by the Christian Democratic government. Their discontent was
harnessed by the left-wing parties who heavily criticized the
authorities for the allegedly slow pace of the reforms. Within the
PDC, too, a growing split manifested itself between the right wing
(led by Frei) and the progressive sector which accused the government of not going far enough with its socio-economic reforms. In
1969 disillusioned members of the party split off to form the Movement for United Popular Action (MAPU), which later joined the
Unidad Popular government of Salvador Allende.
In comparison with other countries in the region, Chilean social
policies at this point were far advanced. At the end of the 1960s,
Chile was in a vanguard position in Latin America in terms of a
range of social indicators: it was among the top four countries in the
region in coverage of basic education and in low child mortality
rates; among the top six countries in terms of availability of drinking
water; and practically in first place in the reach of its social security
system (Foxley, 1982a: 193). Nevertheless, during the Frei government pressures from the popular sectors on the state to expand its
social programmes became intense. Thus it was not the relative
Patricio Silva
474
degree of poverty of the population, but the state’s own active incorporation of the lower classes and their subsequent political
mobilization, which generated an explosion of social demands
(Lehmann, 1971).
SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIALISM
During the 1970 presidential elections, the left-wing Unidad Popular
coalition (UP) repeatedly employed the idea of social justice in an
attempt to obtain the support both of the middle classes and of sections of the Christian Democrats which were disenchanted with the
Frei government. In contrast to the Christian Democrats, who
presented the problem of poverty as being mainly the result of
underdevelopment and lack of social progress, the UP coalition
explained it as the direct consequence of class exploitation of the
people by the rich:
Chile’s problems can be solved . . . Chile is dominated by sectors of the
bourgeoisie who are structurally linked with foreign capital. These dependent
bourgeoisie are unable to solve the fundamental problems of the country, problems which arise precisely from their class privileges that they will never give up
voluntarily. (‘Programme of the Unidad Popular’ in Feinberg, 1972: 259-73)
Following left-wing tradition, the UP government laid the blame
for social injustice in Chile firmly at the door of imperialism, the
bourgeoisie and landed oligarchy. From this zero-sum perspective,
social justice could only be achieved by the radical elimination of the
dominant sectors’ class privileges. Consequently, once in power,
the Allende government tried to strengthen state control over all the
strategic sectors of the economy. In 1971 the Gran Mineria (the
group of copper mines owned by US companies) was nationalized;
this was followed by the expropriation of hundreds of medium and
large industries and almost all the private banks, and the elimination
of large estates in the countryside. The main objectives of the UP
government’s social policies were income redistribution on a grand
scale, and the expansion of social programmes and services (de
Vylder, 1976).
As a result of the steadily worsening economic situation and the
increase in class conflict after 1971, the idea of social justice soon
lost its relevance for both government and opposition. In contrast
Social Justice in Chile
475
to the previous governments who had used the idea of social justice
as a instrument to diffuse the existing social contradictions, the UP
government adopted a clear class identification in favour of the
working class and against the dominant groups. In other words, the
idea of social justice in its earlier sense was not useful to the UP
government’s objective of stressing the existence of class antagonism
in Chilean society.
In a climate of extreme polarization and ‘ideological inflation’
(Hirschman, 1979) the government presented the political position
of Chile as a dilemma between socialism or fascism; the opposition
argued that the choice was between communism or democracy. In
the end both were proved wrong: the overthrow of the UP government showed that the real dilemma for Chile had, in fact, been
military dictatorship or political democracy.
SOCIAL JUSTICE AND NEO-LIBERALISM
The coup #&fat of September 1973 not only meant the fall of the
Allende government, but also marked the end of the democratic
political system established in the mid-1920s. The initial ideological
influence of gremiulismo on the military junta was to last until 1975,
when neo-liberalism began to acquire a predominant position within
the regime. A group of young neo-liberal technocrats, the so-called
Chicago Boys, became the main designers and executors of the
economic, political and ideological strategies of the Pinochet
government (Silva, 1991). They decided to make a radical break
with the existing model of state-led industrialization in order to
introduce an orthodox version of the free market economy. Key
elements of the neo-liberal project were the liberalization of
markets, the strengthening of private initiatives, the opening of the
economy to external markets, the reduction of the size of the state
by cutting down the bureaucracy and by selling public enterprises,
and an emphasis on the subsidiarity of the state in economic
decision-making (Delano and Traslaviiia, 1989: 23-7).
State subsidiarity was presented as an essential precondition for
the achievement of a just society. Following Milton Friedman,
under the neo-liberals the state’s role was to be limited to such matters as the defence of private property, the definition of the rules of
the game in economic activities, and the protection of free market
competition (see Friedman, 1975). In the social field, the state had
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Patricio Silva
only to guarantee ‘equality of opportunities’ and to attempt to
eradicate the extreme poverty in the country, which was presented
as the product of forty years of state interventionism (DIPRE,
1978).
Previous state actions to achieve social justice came under severe
attack. According to the Chicago Boys, state policies in the past
were aimed exclusively at benefiting the parties’ small political
clienteles, to the detriment of the majority of the population. They
claimed that state attempts at redistribution had in fact accentuated
social inequalities in the country (Vergara, 1985: 95). The ‘discretionary’ power of the state had to be replaced by the ‘impersonal’
nature of the market. The supposed neutrality and objectivity of the
market would ensure equal conditions for all the participants, with
no discrimination. Equality is defined here in negative terms, i.e. in
opposition to state power and discretion: it is the right of each
individual to be free from any discrimination and to compete under
identical rules, so that the results achieved depend entirely on the
capacity, effort and labour of the individual (Moulian and Vergara,
1980).
By introducing the principle of the market as the optimum
mechanism for resource distribution, the military government completely reformulated the notion of equity and social justice as
understood during the democratic period. By accepting the definition of equality as the absence of discrimination (seen as synonymous with state intervention), then the achievement of social
equality in the sense of a progressive movement toward the equality
of results (through tax and income reforms, state subsidies to the
poor, etc.) is no longer considered to be society’s goal. The traditional conception of equality and social justice which had been prominent in Chile since the late 1930s was renounced by the neo-liberal
technocrats as the product of ‘mediocre socialistic egalitarianism’.
Instead, if market mechanisms should lead to an increasing gap
between rich and poor, these inequalities and the new structures of
social stratification generated by them must be accepted; they have
been produced by a ‘neutral’ mechanism (the market) and are
therefore just and fair. The position of each individual in society
should be determined by his or her talent and personal efforts, and
not by the capacity to exert pressure on the state or to negotiate with
other groups or classes (Vergara, 1985: 95). In this way, social
justice is not a goal to be achieved collectively as a nation, but on
an individual basis.
Social Justice in Chile
477
The application of the neo-liberal economic model led to a
marked concentration of income among the richest social groups
(Dahse, 1979). As Munizaga points out, the military regime
defended the idea that the existence of a very wealthy group within
the country was an essential condition for the elimination of
poverty.
The achievement of social justice is conceived as the overflow [derrume]of wealth
from the richest sectors to the poorest. Because of this, social inequality should
not be combated but rather be accepted as good. Only with the existence of really
rich people, will the Chilean poor become less poor. The functioning of the
market, by permitting the ‘natural’ concentration of property and wealth, in fact
saves the poor from their poverty. (Munizaga, 1988: 91; my translation)
With its twin objectives of bringing down the huge fiscal deficit
and reducing the role of the state in its traditional social activities,
the military government reduced the level of public social expenditure from 25.8 per cent of GNP in 1971 to 14.3 per cent in 1981
(Arellano, 1988: 45-6). Free market policies also produced a huge
increase in the rate of unemployment and a marked drop in wage
levels. Before the military take-over the rate of unemployment in
Chile was less than 5 per cent; for the greater part of the Pinochet
regime, it remained above 20 per cent. Salary levels experienced a
dramatic fall in real terms, 1975 salaries representing only 40 per
cent of 1970 levels (Foxley, 1982b: 69). Both these factors had a
significant regressive impact on income distribution, which in turn
affected levels of consumption in the different social sectors in
Chile. An official study carried out in 1978 by the National Institute
of Statistics (INE) in Santiago, showed that the consumption of
food products by the poorest 20 per cent of the population was 20.7
per cent lower than in 1969 (CortBzar, 1980: 10-12).
It is important to stress here that the increasing socio-economic
inequality in the country during the Pinochet government was not
merely a question of statistics; it was a social reality which became
visible in every corner of the country, creating serious difficulties for
the ideologues of the regime in their attempt to legitimize the new
social order. The concept of ‘two Chiles’ (the Chile of the poor and
the Chile of the rich) reflected a reality which was recognized even
by those whose social conditions improved under the authoritarian
regime.” On several occasions the Catholic Church expressed its
concern over the growing social gap among Chileans, openly identifying the neo-liberal policies as its major cause (see Smith, 1986).
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Patricio Silva
Eventually, this increased degree of social inequality became an
important political issue, threatening the legitimacy of the regime.
The theme of social justice became central once again in the
opposition campaign leading up to the presidential and parliamentary elections of December 1989. The opposition forces repeatedly
emphasized that Chile not only had a huge foreign debt (of about
US$18 billion), but also a ‘social debt’ with around 50 per cent of
its population living in extreme poverty (Drake and JaksiC, 1991).
Socialist leader Jorge Arrate used this to great effect during the election campaign:
The majority of the Chileans want an economy that will grow and distribute the
fruits of this growth with some very clear criteria of social justice and equity.
Most people want an end to the tragic situation of the many who live under
conditions of extreme poverty. . . . The new government will inherit many social
problems. Most of the Chilean people do not expect that any government could
solve them in a day. But thegovernment has to show, and the people have to feel,
that there are clear signs of correction in the direction of reestablishing the criteria
and principles of social justice and equity in conducting the economic and social
affairs of the country. (Arrate, 1991: 49, 50)
The victory of the opposition coalition Concertacion de Partidos
por la Democracia, led by Patricio Aylwin, brought an end to the
military regime and launched a process of democratic transition in
the country.
SOCIAL JUSTICE, DEMOCRACY AND MODERNIZATION
In its electoral programme, the Concertacion dedicated an extensive
chapter entitled ‘La Justicia Social’ to the country’s severe social
problems, detailing a series of measures that the democratic coalition intended to adopt in order to combat extreme poverty in the
country. The document highlighted poverty as Chile’s main problem, but stressed the need for a collective consensus on this issue
among all social forces in Chile in order to deal succesfuily with it.
This consensus must indicate the willingness of all sectors of society
to make available sufficient financial resources for the satisfaction
of the basic needs of the poor, and to permit access to public health,
social housing, education and social security systems.
In fact, the idea of social justice has never been so fundamental
to the political discourse of a Chilean government as now under the
Social Justice in Chile
419
administration of Patricio Aylwin. There are several factors contributing to the centrality of social justice in current Chilean politics.
In the first place, there is a widespread conviction among the
population that social injustice reached intolerable proportions
under the military government, with the number of people living in
extreme poverty almost doubling during that period. Social justice
became a general popular demand to combat the extreme social
inequalities in the country. In this context, the idea of social justice
also acquires a reconciliatory connotation as the government
implicitly appeals to all Chileans to show their solidarity with the
needy.
Another important factor has been the leading role of the PDC
within the Concertucidn government; its influence has allowed the
principles of social cristiunismo to be expressed through the official
discourse. However, the main disseminator of the idea of social
justice has not been the PDC, but rather President Aylwin himself.
As a founding member of the National Fulunje in the 1930s, Aylwin
always maintained the importance of social justice as one of the
main ethical pillars of this movement: since his inauguration as
president, he has stressed the idea of social justice in almost every
speech and public presentation. He has had the authority to put a
personal emphasis on this principle, with the various political forces
of the Concertucidn allowing him an unprecedented freedom of
action in leading the country during this difficult transition period.
The idea of social justice has also functioned successfully as a
bridge between the PDC and the Socialist party, the second most
important force within the Concertucidn. For both parties, the idea
of social justice symbolizes their common objective to build a social
order based on the principles of justice and equity. The adoption of
this principle by the Chilean Socialists was not unproblematic,
however, as it coincided with their abandonment of the concept of
class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat. This was the
result of a painful process of ideological redefinitions, the so-called
proceso de renovucidn, which several Chilean left-wing political
parties have undergone since the late 1970s, and which has led to a
definitive break with Leninism and a re-evaluation of political
democracy (Arrate, 1983, 1985).
In contemporary Chile the idea of social justice has been
secularized. It is no longer the exclusive heritage of Christianoriented political forces, but constitutes an important component of
the more general idea of modernization. This is coming to represent
480
Patricio Silva
not only the programme of the Concertacidn but also a project for
the development of the entire nation for the coming years. The
ideology of modernization has been adopted by the most important
social and political forces (entrepreneurs, unions, Concertacion parties and even by important right-wing parties such as Renovacion
Nacionol). In this new conception of modernity, the principle of
social justice has been integrated with the goals of economic efficiency and political stability. According to Carlos Ominami, the
former minister of economic affairs and member of the Socialist
party:
The transition to democracy in Chile puts an end not only to an authoritarian
regime, but also to several decades of political and social experiments whose
result was the polarization of society and the predominance of rigid approaches
in government management. The restoration of the past and the mere maintenance of existing policies are no longer valid options for guaranteeing a stable
growth in our country. The conditions exist for conducting a major transition to
democracy, capable of combining political stability with economic efficiency and
social justice. (Ominami, 1991: 27)
In contrast with the period 1964-73, social inequalities are no
longer approached in moralistic and ideological terms, but from the
perspective of modernization. A country like Chile, which is
experiencing a rapid process of modernization and reaching satisfactory standards of development simply cannot afford to have
large segments of its population living in extreme poverty. This is
not only ethically deplorable, but also technically unacceptable in a
potentially modern developed nation. In rather technocratic terms,
social justice is presented as the efficient elimination of poverty in
Chile. The Aylwin government has intentionally refrained from
repoliticizing the social question in the country: extreme poverty is
presented as a national problem which has to be solved by all
Chileans, without attaching blame to any particular social actors.
Most political sectors in Chile today accept the idea that the
achievement of economic growth and the maintenance of financial
equilibrium constitute a precondition for improving the living standards of the poorer segments of the population. This implicit
recognition of the importance of the economy underpins one of the
major concerns of the Aylwin administration - the maintenance of
financial and economic stability in the country. There is also a considerable degree of consensus between the government and the
opposition over the idea that the state’s efforts to achieve social
Social Justice in Chile
48 1
justice should not endanger the political stability already achieved
and the high level of growth which characterizes the Chilean
economy at the present. Social justice expressed in terms of a
substantial improvement in the living conditions of the poorest
segments of the population must be sustainable in time, and must
therefore be based on real financial resources.
Since March 1990, the government has dramatically increased
public expenditure directed towards the poor, although these
measures were adopted only after a general agreement was reached
between the government and the opposition about the country’s
main priorities and, especially, about how to finance them. A tax
reform was introduced to enable the government to collect the extra
resources needed for its social programmes. At the same time, the
minimum income has been substantially increased to improve
the social conditions of the poorest sectors of Chilean society. The
adoption of these and other measures has been made possible by the
positive performance of the Chilean economy, which has allowed
the authorities to increase levels of social expenditure without
negatively affecting the overall development of the economy.
The idea of social justice could become the main moral element
of the modernization project in Chile, based on economic growth
and social equity, particularly now that the traditional ideologies are
in crisis. As the chief of the presidential staff, Edgardo Boeninger,
has said:
A democratic Chile with an open economy, combining sustained growth with
perceptible steps in the direction of social justice, might become a case of great
interest to the world at large because there are not many developing countries that
have succeeded in combining these elements, certainly not in Latin America.
(Boeninger, 1 9 9 1 : 60)
However, it still remains to be seen whether the idea of social justice
in its present form is going to become a permanent feature of
Chilean politics or whether it represents a temporary phenomenon
connected with the period of democratic transition. It is possible
that when the consolidation of the new democratic system is
achieved, the ideological differences among the main political forces
will again become more acute, making the idea of social justice less
relevant in Chile’s political discourse.
Patricio Silva
482
NOTES
1 would like to thank two anonymous referees of the journal for their very helpful
comments to an earlier version of this article.
I . The idea of social justice can actually be traced back in Chilean republican
history to the so-called ‘Generation of 1842’, an intellectual movement of the 1840s
which opposed the leadership and the policies of the country’s autocratic regime. It
was to be found especially in the radical writings of Francisco Bilbao (see Hale,
1989).
2. Attacks against oligarchic rule also took place in the cultural field, where ‘a
select group of Chilean intellectuals joined the battle with short histories, novels, and
plays depicting the misery of Chile’s masses in contrast to the decadence and pedantry
of the nation’s political elite and the splendor of the manor house on the hacienda
or the urban mansion of the northern mining magnates’ (Loveman, 1979: 212).
3. During that period, discussion on the social doctrine of the Church was in fact
restricted to some academic circles, particularly concentrated around the chair of
social economy at the Catholic University of Santiago. The Church began actively
spreading its social doctrine to broader segments of the population only after the
Great Depression (Huerta and Pacheco, 1988: 170-88).
4. For an analysis of the decisive role played by the armed forces in pushing
through the social reforms of the 192Os, see Nunn (1970).
5. Talking about the socialists within the Popular Front, Drake claimed that ‘they
were soon engrossed in pragmatic, day-to-day government administration . .
[becoming] more enamored of technocratic projects and problem solving than of
ideological conquests. In somewhat populist fashion, they concentrated on immediate solutions rather than long-run strides toward socialism’ (Drake, 1978: 20; see
also Furci, 1984).
6. As a result of the political control asserted over the peasantry by the landowners, and the over-representation of the rural provinces in the Parliament, the
political forces which represented the landed interests (the Conservative and the
Liberal parties) held an important position in Congress: they possessed enough
parliamentary seats to slow down or even to block the executive’s policies.
7. I refer here mainly to party documents, mostly written for party congresses and
conventions. One of the most peculiar features of the Chilean left before the 1960s
has been, with few exceptions, the marked absence of real doctrinal thinkers and
writers of philosophical books and essays on the socialist project (Donoso, 1946;
Arrate, 1985).
8. In the post-war period the use of the concept of social justice among Chilean
left-wing groups became somewhat embarrassing as the influential Argentinian
leader Juan Domingo Peron adopted it as a ground principle for his populist doctrine
(the s o - c a l l e d j o ) . Things became even more problematic when in Chile the
populist government of Carlos lbhiiez (1952-8) also began to use the concept in a
similar fashion (Grugel. 1992).
9. For an analysis of the ideological impact of Estudios among Chilean right-wing
corporatist groups, see CatalL (1985).
10. This principle of subsidiarity was later adopted by the military government
(1973-90) as one of the main elements of its doctrine, although its definition became
increasingly ‘neo-liberalized’ (Moulian and Vergara. 1980).
.
Social Justice in Chile
483
1 1. In a major public opinion poll carried out by SERC in 1986,many people who
admitted to having made socio-economic gains themselves during the military
government, nevertheless recognized that the situation of the poor was much worse
than before 1973.They considered this to be one of the most negative features of the
Pinochet regime (Huneeus, 1987).
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486
Patricio Silva is Lecturer in Political Sociology
at the Institute of Social and Cultural Studies,
University of Leiden, PO Box 9555, 2300 RB
Leiden. He is author of Estado, neoliberalismo y
politica agraria en Chile (CEDLA, 1987) and
co-editor of Democratization and the State in
the Southern Cone: Essays in South American
Politics (CEDLA, 1990) and Development and
Social Change in the Chilean Countryside
(CEDLA, 1992).
Patricio Silva