Transnational Capitalist Classes and the State in Chile

ABSTRACT

Chile is one of the first countries to adopt, what later became known as neoliberal policies, and is therefore one of the most cited examples in critical IPE literature. The adoption of these reforms in Chile tended to be explained largely as an outcome of interplay between transnational ideas/culture embodied in Chicago-trained economists and domestic coercion (armed forces). Far less attention was paid to the transformation of domestic material interests and the complex domestic legitimation process which involved material concessions. The article pays attention to the emergence and strengthening of transnationally oriented fractions of capital within Chile during the dictatorship and their articulation within the state apparatus. It shows that internationalisation of Chile was a highly contested process, which although occurred in the context of the emergence of powerful global transformations and forces, essentially depended on the outcome of struggles within the domestic setting.

KEYWORDS:

• Globalisation and domestic politics
• Chile
• dictatorship
• transnational capitalist classes
• state theory

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Peter Bratsis for discussions and comments on the subject of this article and to Stuart Shields for introducing me to the subject of transnational capitalist classes. All errors and shortcomings are the responsibility of the author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Anna Kowalczyk teaches Political Economy in the Institute of Public Affairs, Universidad de Chile. She has published in Latin American Perspectives, Historical Materialism and Demarcaciones.

Notes

1 Initial business opposition to neoliberal policies in Chile is discussed in Silva (1996) and Campero (1984).

2 I use the concept ‘power bloc’ following the definition by Nicos Poulantzas as a specific alliance of dominant classes and fractions on the terrain of political domination, which generally functions under the leadership of one of the dominant classes or fractions, the hegemonic class or fraction (1975, p. 93).

3 This stance reflected lack of agreement among the main stakeholders of the Fund. In the end the question of capital account liberalisation was dealt with individually on ad hoc basis depending on the domestic support for this reform (Joyce 2013, pp. 35–51). See also Chwieroth (2010).

4 These policies were characteristic of capital account liberalisation in many other less developed countries (Pepinsky 2013).

5 These classifications have some similarities to that used by Eduardo Silva (1996) who wrote about ‘internationally competitive producers for the domestic market’ or ‘producers for international market in fixed and liquid asset sectors’ with the difference that Silva defines these classes only in relation to the international market (and not also to popular classes).

6 This rigidity of the state during an authoritarian regime in its response to crises, conflicts and contradictions was analysed by Nicos Poulantzas (1976) in his study of dictatorships in Greece, Spain and Portugal. Poulantzas concluded that this makes authoritarian regimes relatively inflexible and inadequate to the task of political rule in capitalist societies (see also Jessop 1990, 64–6). This is in line with Poulantzas’ theorisation of the state as a ‘social relation’ (Poulantzas 2000), which contrasts with the dominant theorisations of the state in Marxist and neo-Weberian theories which abstract the state from the realm of social relations. On the discussion of the tendency to reify the state see Bratsis (2006).

7 Despite some important insights this view also lends itself to functionalism – capitalist state is seen as existing in the function of the interests of capitalists. Nonetheless Poulantzas’ conceptual framework is extremely helpful to the understanding of the relationship between global processes and domestic politics. See especially Jessop (2002), Kalyvas (2002), Thomas (2002).

8 Economic groups, which tended to operate both within finance and exports, were divided on the question of devaluation depending on the predominance of firms from one sector over another under their control (Edwards and Cox Edwards 1992, 57–9).

9 One may wonder whether the inter-bourgeois conflicts opened a breach for the organisation of the popular classes or was it rather that these very organisations created tensions within the dominant classes. The process certainly consisted of elements from both above and below. See also Przeworski (1991, 56–7).