Chileans Must Reject Proposed Socialist Constitution

By Daniel DiMartino

Sunday, July 24, 2022

 

Chileans are headed to the polls in September for what will be the most important election of their lifetime. They will vote on whether to adopt or reject a proposed constitution written by a socialist-controlled assembly. The document, consisting of 388 articles, would create an unequal justice system and grant more rights for those who claim indigenous ancestry. It would effectively end private health care and education, and it would allow the congress to confiscate Chileans’ pension savings. The referendum on September 4 is the last chance for citizens to stop Chile from becoming a socialist country as Venezuela did over two decades ago.

 

Chile is and has been the success story of Latin America. Plagued by extreme poverty, shortages of goods, and hyperinflation in the early 1970s, it is the richest country in Latin America today. Extreme poverty has been nearly eradicated and intergenerational socioeconomic mobility is higher than in Germany, France, and even the United States.

 

The Chilean miracle has been the result of the current constitution, ratified in a referendum in 1980, and of the reforms that ensued under the advice of Milton Friedman and his protégés. In the early 1970s, Chile was the least free economy in Latin America, Venezuela the freest. Chile overtook Venezuela by 1990, and today the roles are reversed as Venezuela embarked on the socialist project Chile left behind, resulting in nearly half a million Venezuelan immigrants choosing Chile as their new home. Free markets lead to prosperity. Socialism leads to poverty.

 

But Chile’s progress is at risk.

 

In 2019, Chile was one of many Latin American countries affected by a regional wave of left-wing protests aimed at taking down moderate and conservative governments. Thousands of Chileans took to the streets in 2019 to protest, riot, and even loot businesses, reportedly because of perceived economic inequality. Unlike many of their neighbors, the Chilean conservative establishment, led by then–president Sebastián Piñera caved to rioters. Piñera agreed to a referendum on a rewrite of the constitution, risking the rule of law and democracy to the whims of voters at the moment. The following year, amid the pandemic, Chileans voted by a large majority to rewrite the constitution, and in 2021 they elected an assembly tasked with doing just that. This assembly was controlled by far-left parties of all stripes, including socialists, woke progressives, and indigenous groups.

 

The result isn’t surprising. The proposed Chilean constitution reads like a longer, more woke, and even more socialist version of Venezuela’s constitution. Like Venezuela’s, it uses masculine and feminine pronouns in every instance, in an aim to be inclusive, even though the masculine plural is traditionally understood to be capable of referring to women as well. What differentiates the proposed Chilean constitution from ours in America is that this proposal isn’t a framework for organizing government and limiting its powers. It’s a socialist policy wish list.

 

Chile wouldn’t be a democratic republic anymore but a “plurinational and paritarian” republic. That is just the beginning of a legal construction that will divide Chileans by their sex and their ethnic heritage.

 

Article 25 prohibits all forms of discrimination based on race, religion, or sex but also on political views, “social class,” and other “beliefs.” It requires the government to give reparations for all forms of past discrimination. I have no doubt that this will be used to force Chilean Catholic schools to hire atheists or people with lifestyles contrary to  church teaching, and that it will be weaponized to censor speech.

 

Article 61 would legalize abortion until the moment of birth, in this deeply Catholic country that now bans abortion with exceptions only in cases of rape and risk to the life of the mother. Abortions in government hospitals would also be paid for with taxpayer dollars. If that wasn’t enough, Articles 40 and 64 would declare that Chileans have a right to sex education and to have their sexual identity recognized. The government is also required to implement policies to end gender stereotypes. Would this result in fines or jail for Chileans who refuse to call others by their preferred pronouns?

 

The proposed constitution would abolish the free-market protections that enabled Chile to become so prosperous. Currently, in education and health care, Chileans can choose between the private sector and the government system. Only those who pay a health-insurance tax can use government hospitals. The proposed constitution would allow everyone to use government hospitals. That would raise taxes for everyone, leading many Chileans to drop their private coverage to compensate, and ultimately increasing wait times for health care. The proposal prohibits any for-profit educational enterprise at every level, with the result that many private schools would close.

 

Chile’s famous private retirement savings system, which consists of mandatory private savings supplemented by government subsidies for the poor, would be abolished. The proposed new law of the land would authorize the government to confiscate accumulated private retirement savings and tax wages of current workers to pay for others’ pensions, as we do with our unsustainable Social Security system.

 

Perhaps the most concerning part of the proposed Chilean constitution is the erosion of the division of powers and the legal inequality it would create in the name of social justice. It would replace the senate with a nearly ceremonial “chamber of regions,” and it would allow congress to set its own election method by simple majority. Seats in every legislative body would be reserved for indigenous groups according to their share of the population. Those registered in a public electoral registry of indigenous people would be able to vote for such representatives in addition to voting for nonindigenous representatives. In other words, a segment of the population would have double representation.

 

This profoundly unjust constitution would allow self-identified indigenous Chileans to be charged and tried under a separate set of laws, regardless of whether they live in an indigenous community. A Chilean citizen could claim to be indigenous and argue that the crime he committed was a function of his traditional culture. To rephrase George Orwell, all Chileans are equal, but some Chileans are more equal than others.

 

Chileans have a choice to make in September. Will they vote no on the proposed constitution and keep Chile free and prosperous, or will they vote yes and follow the socialist path of Venezuela? The half a million Venezuelan immigrants in Chile should offer a stark reminder to voters that when they vote the wrong way, sometimes there’s no going back.