Patricio Navia: When «Freedom» Masks the Neoliberal Assault on Citizens’ Rights

Original article: Patricio Navia, propagandista de Kast: Cuando la «libertad» encubre la estrategia neoliberal de ataque contra derechos ciudadanos

By Leopoldo Lavín Mujica

On March 20, Patricio Navia published a column titled «The Virtue of Repealing Laws» in El Líbero. In this piece, the political analyst attempts to portray the repeal of laws, withdrawal of projects, and the implementation of decrees by Kast’s government as a liberal advancement.

While the UDP academic may genuinely identify as a liberal, his writing suffers from a fundamental error: he confuses «liberalism» with neoliberalism and fails to recognize that the latter does not reduce state power but redirects it to serve corporate interests.

Far from being a neutral analysis, his lack of conceptual rigor transforms his article into a propagandistic narrative that obscures the nature of governments that present themselves as «liberal.» In practice, Kast’s administration is neoliberal economically and conservative (or neoreactionary) socially.

As historian Quinn Slobodian pointed out in Globalists (2018), «instead of dismissing the regulatory state, neoliberals sought to harness it for their grand project of protecting capitalism on a global scale.»

This is not about expanding personal freedoms but about securing the economic freedom of capital. To achieve this, they utilize the state—like in Kast’s government—with two simultaneous goals: attacking the collective rights of workers, minorities, and women, while deregulating in favor of businesses. This is compounded by a conservative agenda that aims to impose a traditional moral perspective on bodies, families, and social organization.

Political scientist Navia elevates to «virtue» the repeal of laws, withdrawal of projects, and enactment of decrees as if they are expansions of individual freedoms. This supposed virtue is, in fact, the method through which neoliberalism dismantles social protection frameworks without engaging in democratic debate.

Repealing laws is not an act of civic liberation when it removes the regulations that allow workers to organize against corporate power, women to make decisions about their own bodies, and minorities to demand equality. Withdrawing legislative proposals is not a gesture of efficiency when the goal is to prevent parliament from discussing rights won through social struggles.

Enacting decrees from the Executive—an action theoretically legitimized by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, who claimed that in periods of «emergency» or «state of exception,» the sovereign may dispense justice outside the law—transforms into an authoritarian tool when used to impose changes without dialogue or checks and balances.

The UDP academic is not unaware that Kast’s government has just retracted the branch-level negotiation law. This regulation was a critical tool for workers to negotiate collectively with large employers. Rather than expanding freedoms, this measure restricts union freedom and bolsters the power of «free enterprise»—in other words, concentrated capital. The «virtue» of repealing laws thus reveals its pernicious side: endangering work protections in the name of «flexibility.»

However, the neoliberal and conservative offensive extends beyond the workplace. The government has launched a set of economic measures that clarify the direction of its agenda: it lowers the corporate tax rate from 27% to 23%, eliminates the tax on capital gains, and establishes a capital repatriation regime. All this while limiting free university education to those under 30 and stalling its expansion to new income brackets.

Simultaneously, it pushes reforms to the Environmental Impact Assessment System (SEIA), shortens timelines for sectoral permits, and accelerates maritime concessions, under the banner of combating «permisology.» What the political scientist praises as a reduction of the state is, in reality, a transfer of resources from the majority to large capital.

This strategy aligns with what Naomi Klein describes as «disaster capitalism» in The Shock Doctrine (2007): exploiting crises, some of which are media-constructed, to implement reforms that would face social resistance under normal conditions. What Navia lauds as «state reduction» is, in fact, leveraging a crisis to shift resources from the majority to large capital.

The attack does not halt at economic measures. Under the same rhetoric of «freedom,» Kast’s government curtails women’s rights—over their own bodies—and minority rights. It obstructs the abortion law under three circumstances, dismantles diversity and inclusion programs, and promotes an agenda that criminalizes social organizations and communities defending their territories.

This neoreactionary component—aimed at restoring traditional hierarchies of gender, family, and authority—completes the project: while neoliberalism deregulates markets, conservatism authoritatively regulates bodies and dissent. What the UDP academic praises as the «repeal of senseless laws» is, in reality, a systematic assault on hard-won social achievements.

The false dichotomy between «state» and «freedom» that the analyst constructs conceals the true function of the neoliberal-conservative state. This state does not withdraw but strengthens its repressive functions, ensuring big private property and dismantling collective action.

As philosopher Barbara Stiegler states in Il faut s’adapter (2019), «neoliberalism appeals to state artifices (manipulating law, education, and social protection) to transform the human species and artificially construct the market.»

In other words, there is no «natural» market that the state should leave free; the market is produced by the state, and neoliberalism uses it to shape society in favor of capital. The establishment of ministries such as Security does not undermine that project but complements it: more social control to discipline those who resist deregulation policies and those who demand respect for their fundamental rights.

Ultimately, Navia acts as a propagandist by presenting as «virtue» what is central to the Chilean neoliberal and conservative agenda: using state power to benefit large capital—through tax cuts, environmental deregulation, and labor flexibility—while disempowering workers, women, and minorities, all under the ideological guise of individual freedom.

It is not simply about «freedom»; it is about economic freedom for capital combined with authoritarian restrictions for the majority.

The true virtue lies not in repealing laws that protect hard-fought collective rights but in opposing this offensive and rebuilding a state that guarantees rights, rather than sacrificing them at the altar of the market.

Leopoldo Lavín Mujica