Chile’s riots: the dance of the dispossessed
By Fabio Díaz Pabón & María Gabriela Palacio
A version of this article appeared in Mail & Guardian, 30 Oct 2019
Suggested soundtrack: El baile de los que sobran
The recent protests in Chile have brought much attention to violent clashes that engulfed Santiago, the capital of this Latin American country. Whereas Chile is usually described as one of the most (industrially) advanced economies in the region, mass mobilizations that saw riotous violence illustrate the social cost of a development model that has brought wealth to the country, yet not prosperity to all its citizens.
Chile, in fact, illustrates the paradox of redistribution in the twenty-first century: though there have been major improvements in life expectancy, access to health and education, and significant poverty reduction, such gains are highly uneven. There are significant pockets of poverty even in middle- and high-income countries. We have witnessed a deepening of inequality between and within countries, as many people struggle to access secure jobs and afford the bright future that linear narratives of development promise. These trends run alongside increased wealth, technological innovation, and ever more integrated global production.
Part of the challenge in understanding this paradox lies in the fact that debates around development tend to focus on single macroeconomic indicators, such as the income of the “average citizen”. However, as inequality increases, while the national economy can grow, and the “average citizen” may have a higher income, the majority of the population within a country can still become or remain impoverished.
Growing inequality is not only a Chilean feature, although having a billionaire-president in power epitomizes it. The redistribution paradox speaks of the failure of governments to protect populations from the pervasive workings of unmoored capitalism. As politics have weakened under the fear of disapproval from corporate power, politics becomes subservient to capital and not to citizens. Governments increasingly adopt measures that make international donors and creditors happy while making their own populations surplus to the needs of capital. This approach not only alienates citizens towards democracy, but it also pushes electorates to appoint and support populist politicians and wildcards across the political spectrum.
Chile‘s average GDP per capita is 40 per cent higher than the Latin American average. Having the 44th highest human development index in the world would place the Chilean economy closer to the standards of living found in high-income economies such as those of Europe and North America. Not only does the average income of Chileans seem to be higher than that of several Latin American countries, but their wealth seems to surpass countries like Mexico, Brazil or Argentina. So, why are these protests happening? Why are Chileans outraged? Protesters in Chile might not be regarded as destitute by global standards, but seem to be those who fear falling back to a past of dispossession, being left out of the bright future that open and unregulated economic growth promises.
Whereas income levels seem to be good in comparison to other countries, one must also consider the costs of services and goods as the “average” Chilean struggles to afford electricity, transportation and the like. The salaries of a significant share of the population are not enough to cover their expenses; this means that 6 out of ten households in Chile go into debt to pay for food, transport, health and education. For decades Chile has been one of the most unequal countries in Latin America, which is, in turn, the most inequitable region in the world. It has the highest inequality in the OECD, after Costa Rica.
Thus, while the increase in costs of transportation and electricity might have been reported as the reason of the protests, protests link to deeper structural factors that make social mobility and the prospects of a better life limited in Chile. Chile’s “economic miracle” has not been for everyone. The emergence of protests last week can be explained by the recurrence and deepening of unheard grievances in Chile. Protests are not new: between 2011 and 2017, around 11.000 protests took place. What is new is the emergence of violence. The rationale behind the use of violence has been voiced by some protestors succinctly: “If we don’t fuck shit up, we don’t exist to them”.
Violence was also exerted by the armed forces. The initial declaration of “war” by the president illustrates that for some sectors of the elite and of the establishment, citizens in Chile are seen as voiceless tools. Chile remains a country in which lines of race and class intersect and create an unofficial system of social segregation similar to a caste system which restrains social mobility and conditions people’s prospects of making a living. Consequently, when citizens revolt to expose the inequality of the status quo, their voice is not seen as a social thermometer that puts the system under scrutiny but is read like a subversive reaction that should be disciplined and restrained, a response that speaks of the lack of a real democracy.
The loss of legitimacy of the state and trust in institutions explains the emergence of riots. This mistrust has been exacerbated by the corruption scandals that affected the police force, high levels of tax evasion by elites, including the current president, as well as manipulation of the judicial system. While wealth ends in the hands of the few, and elites make decisions that protect and grow their privileges, the legitimacy of the political systems will weaken.
In the age of social media, it is harder for politicians and billionaires to hide their opulence. The evidence of the extent of inequality, next to the unattainable promise of self-improvement and shared prosperity, informs the rage behind protestors in Chile, and of those protesting in Argentina, Ecuador, Lebanon and Hong Kong. As the world economy seems to come closer to another recession, deepening inequalities and precarity, and while climate breakdown looms, discontent is increasingly driven by the perception of politics as a rigged game.
