Chile’s Grupo Luksic, the Center-Left, and the “New Spirit” of Capital in the Periphery

• In Event: Chile and Brazil: Left Neoliberalism as the “New” Social Democracy?

Abstract

Based on an in-depth case study, this paper examines the trajectory of one of Chile’s most powerful conglomerates. Over the past three decades, Grupo Luksic has transformed its growing economic power into decisive (yet understudied) political, ideological and cultural leadership over the state, the political system, and society.
The predominance of grupos económicos or mixed activity conglomerates, which combine financial and nonfinancial corporations, reframe current debates about the the Chilean economic model as well as about the effectiveness of public policies aiming to stem precarity, social exclusion and inequality
Indeed the concentration and centralization of assets, financialization, internationalization, horizontal integration of economic activities seems to be consolidating a new form of capitalist power in the periphery: one where economic conglomerates like the Grupo Luksic self-consciously engage in the valorization of capital as well as in the production of ideas, rules, and subjectivities.
This paper underscores how Grupo Luksic rode the trends of transnationalization, financialization, and new media technologies to expand its hegemony across the entire spectrum of market, state, and civil society institutions, including political parties. It has found in Chile’s center-left a key and strategic ally, heavily financing the Nueva Mayoria candidate Michelle Bachelet, and shaping the government’s political platform and program. Key advisors of Michelle Bachelet’s 2014-2018 Campaign Committee—and key ministries -- Finance, Education, and Mining -- are currently held by former Luksic employees

Author

• Fernando I Leiva Letelier, University of California - Santa Cruz