Original article: «Por sus obras los conoceréis»: Neoliberalismo económico, silencio social y mano dura, la ruta del gobierno de Kast
By Leopoldo Lavín Mujica
In the tumultuous public debate in Chile—filled with short-term noise from issues like pardons, media controversies, and tensions among government branches—the ruling far-right seeks to establish its own evaluation criteria based on seemingly virtuous themes such as: public order, immigration control, fiscal balance, and market confidence.
These are their natural banners, the axes that allow them to compete for common sense. However, there is an uncomfortable truth for any administration, whether on the right or left, which is precisely the blind spot in discourse that Claudio Alvarado—the ‘Panzer’ of Kast’s government, according to Paul Walder’s analysis in El Clarín de Chile (March 15, 2026)—has emphasized by presenting ‘character’ and firmness as supreme political virtues.
This truth is simple, stubborn, and democratically unavoidable: any government will always be evaluated based on the population’s standard of living. Not by newspaper headlines or statements of intent, but by people’s daily experiences.
Actual access to quality education, the adequacy of pensions to live with dignity, the ability to receive public healthcare without years of waiting, the dream of home ownership, and fundamentally, the existence of fair wages that allow living without financial constraint, are what truly matters; they are the key criteria that define whether, in public perception, a government is good or bad.
What the Right Avoids
The Chilean right, in its various forms—from the pure neoliberalism of Juan Andrés Fontaine to the electoral pragmatism of Juan Pablo Lavín, through to the doctrinaire far-right republicanism of José Antonio Kast—has systematically attempted to shift the axis of governmental evaluation to other realms.
For Fontaine, in an interview with Jaime Troncoso R. on March 11, success is measured in terms of «fiscal credibility» and «market confidence.» For Lavín, as noted by Alfonso Peró in his analysis, the key is managing expectations and avoiding «cultural battles» that could exhaust the government. According to Alvarado, as highlighted in the interview analyzed by Walder, ‘character’ and the ability to ‘not ask for permission’ become virtues in themselves.
Gerardo Varela, former Piñera minister, mentioned in the podcast of El Líbero (March 10, 2026) that «there will be a very fragmented opposition, and it is an opportunity to form a majority and advance an ambitious agenda.»
However, none of these measuring sticks withstand the scrutiny of recent history. The Social Uprising of October 2019 was not a ‘explosion’ without cause: it was the historic expression of decades in which promises of wellbeing—the ‘growth’ that would eventually deliver social development, the ‘modernization’ that one day would benefit all—revealed themselves to be what they were: unfulfilled promises.
Citizens did not take to the streets because the fiscal rule was violated or because ‘character’ was lacking in La Moneda. They came out because despite working, they could not make ends meet; because their pensions condemned them to poverty; because waiting for an operation could mean death; because being young in Chile meant assuming unpayable debts to study; because a country is not ‘Nation’ without a feeling of sharing common public goods and development according to the general interest.
The Neoliberal Stigma: Fiscal Adjustment as Dogma, Rights as Expenses
The Kast government has not only inherited the economic diagnosis of neoliberal orthodoxy, but has also made it the structuring axis of its governance.
Juan Andrés Fontaine expressed this unambiguously in his interview with Jaime Troncoso: «Reducing the tax burden on businesses is a necessary measure, because high corporate taxes are an obstacle to saving and investing.» In this logic, the well-being of the majority is subordinated to ‘market confidence,’ and social rights become ‘expenses’ that must be trimmed.
The economic team, led by Jorge Quiroz—»the economic czar» according to J.P. Salaberry’s analysis—has already set concrete goals: grow by 4%, a $6 billion adjustment in 18 months, and unblock stalled investment projects.
The OPE (*) memo sent to future ministers reinforces this message: «We are not going to change the rules in the middle of the game. We are not going to use regulation to stifle entrepreneurs.»
The problem is that, in this view, ‘not stifling entrepreneurs’ seems to mean ‘postponing the demands of workers.’ The ‘fiscal realism’ espoused by Claudio Alvarado thus becomes a perfect pretext for not addressing the transformations that citizens demand: better pensions, timely healthcare, decent housing, and fair wages.
Social Justice as the Best Antidote to Insecurity
Now, historical experience and the most elementary evidence show that lasting security can only be built upon social justice.
A country where pensions allow for a dignified life, where health is not measured in years of waiting, where home ownership is no longer an unreachable dream, where wages allow for a life without hardship, and where education opens doors instead of drowning people in debt, is a country where violence and crime find barren ground.
Because inequality not only angers: it creates the material conditions for crime to grow, for youth to lose hope, for social fabric to tear, and for drug trafficking and corruption to thrive.
The Kast government, with its emphasis on ‘firmness’ and ‘character,’ rightly diagnoses the unease stemming from insecurity created by the power of mediocracy over consciousness, but errs when proposing a treatment that ignores the root causes. Firmness without justice is merely repression; order without dignity is a fragile order.
As right-wing expert Juan Pablo Lavín warned, the ‘borrowed majority’ that brought Kast to power did not vote solely for security: they voted for a better life. And as demonstrated by the Social Uprising of 2019, when promises are unfulfilled and justice is postponed, social peace inevitably breaks down.
Real security is not built with more jails or fortified borders: it is built with guaranteed rights, with distributed well-being, with the certainty that the state is there to protect, yes, but also to ensure a dignified life.
What the Left Must Insist Upon and Fight For
In this context, the left’s task cannot be reduced to situational denunciation or testimonial resistance. It must clearly raise the criteria that truly matters and which, moreover, constitutes the heart of civic discontent and the source of legitimacy for any government.
First, insist that living standards are not a secondary or postponable issue. In the face of the discourse of ‘emergency’ and ‘decisionism’ by decree that the Kast government is installing—emergency in security, fiscal emergency, migration emergency—the left must remember that there are deeper and more silent emergencies: the emergency of those who cannot pay rent, the emergency of those who retire with starvation pensions, the emergency of those who die waiting on waiting lists.
These emergencies do not appear in the OPE memos or in ‘firm hand’ speeches, but define the real life of the majority.
Second, fight for the state to assume the guarantee of social rights as its primary function. The ‘fiscal realism’ put forward by Claudio Alvarado—and which Juan Andrés Fontaine reinforces with his obsession with austerity—cannot become a catch-all excuse for postponing the urgent. The left must instill the idea that fiscal policy is not an end in itself, but a tool for well-being.
If there are restrictions, they must be explained transparently, but it must also be made clear that these restrictions are the result of political choices: decades of tax privileges for large companies, evasion and elusion, and a state that shrank to let the market occupy all spaces.
Third, gather forces around concrete and measurable demands. The left has often erred in abstraction: «Change the model,» «structural transformations,» «new Constitution.» These are necessary banners but insufficient if they do not translate into tangible improvements in everyday life.
Here, the agenda must include:
- Living Wage: No worker working full-time should earn less than what is necessary to cover basic needs. This includes not only increases in the minimum wage but active policies to strengthen collective bargaining and reduce job precariousness.
- Dignified Pensions: End AFPs and advocate unconditionally for a solidarity distribution system that guarantees pensions above the poverty line. The individual capitalization system has failed, and any reform that ‘consolidates’ it—as promised by Kast’s government—is a betrayal of those who have contributed all their lives.
- Timely Healthcare: An end to waiting lists as state policy, with real investment in infrastructure and personnel, and with a conception of health as a right, not as a business.
- Decent Housing: Housing policies that do not rely solely on subsidies that burden families with debt but guarantee access to housing as a right, with adequate standards of quality and location.
- Education as a Right: From early childhood to university, with real free access and guaranteed quality, understanding that education is not a consumer good but the foundation of equality of opportunity.
Unity as a Condition of Possibility
The Chilean left faces a complex scenario in a challenging global environment marked by aggressive imperialism. The Kast government seeks to demonstrate a capacity for discipline and coordination that the center-left lacked.
Its ‘Second Floor’—led by Alejandro Irarrázaval, according to J.P. Salaberry’s analysis—operates efficiently, centralizing communication and clarifying priorities. Against this, dispersion and fragmentation are the worst enemies. Crucially, they boast a battery of compliant media owned by oligarchs.
Therefore, the call must be broad yet firm: it is about grouping forces not around titles or personal leaderships but around this social justice agenda.
Left-wing parties, social movements, trade union organizations, and territorial assemblies must find common ground on these demands which are simultaneously minimal and maximal: minimal because they represent the threshold of dignity; maximal because their realization implies profound transformations.
Warnings from Right-Wing Analysts Themselves
It is revealing that even analysts close to the government have warned about the risks of ignoring these dimensions.
Juan Pablo Lavín clearly expressed in his analysis with Alfonso Peró that the 58% that brought Kast to power is not a «coherent ideological block» but a «borrowed, pragmatic majority with a short patience.»
This majority did not vote for a doctrine; they voted for solutions to concrete problems. If the government gets entangled in symbolic or cultural battles—such as pardons for those convicted of human rights violations, or tensions with Bachelet—and neglects material demands, this borrowed majority will evaporate.
A glance to the north offers insight: Trump and the MAGA movement are finding it tough to win the midterm elections in November due to rising living costs and unfulfilled promises. A Republican defeat for Trump will have repercussions in Latin America, weakening the far-right movements.
Pepe Auth went further in the podcast of El Líbero (March 10, 2026), together with Gerardo Varela: Boric’s government failed because it promised transformations and couldn’t deliver them. But the implied warning for Kast is that failure can also stem from the opposite side: from not promising anything or from indefinitely postponing the transformations citizens expect. The ‘fiscal reality’ cannot be an eternal argument.
Juan Andrés Fontaine, from his neoliberal orthodoxy, believes that fiscal adjustment and market confidence are sufficient. However, recent history shows that markets can be calm while the streets burn. Stability is not built solely on macroeconomic balances; it is built on distributed well-being.
Conclusion: The Battle for Common Sense
The ruling far-right will attempt to install its own evaluation criteria. It will want us to talk about ‘character,’ ‘order,’ ‘market confidence,’ and ‘immigration control.’ The left must be clear enough not to fall into that trap and to insist, time and time again, on what truly matters: Does the standard of living for the majority improve or not?
This insistence is not a rhetorical exercise. It is a battle for common sense, for defining what we mean when we talk about good governance.
And above all, it is a battle for hope: the hope that it is possible to live without hardship, that aging can be dignified, that health is not a privilege, and that children can study without the burden of mortgaging the future.
But it is also a battle to demonstrate that security and social justice are not opposites, but two sides of the same coin: the coin of dignity. Because a truly secure country is one where people not only walk without fear on the streets, but also can envision their lives without anxiety, knowing that work dignifies, that pensions are sufficient, that health supports, and that education opens paths.
Therefore, on this front, the left must insist. This is what it must fight for. And for this, it must gather forces. Because, as the Social Uprising of 2019 taught us, when promises are systematically unfulfilled, when the standard of living deteriorates or stagnates, patience runs thin.
And then, as Paul Walder noted when analyzing Claudio Alvarado’s style in El Clarín de Chile (March 15, 2026), the government may have ‘character,’ but if it does not deliver results in daily life, that character will be merely a pose, and the order it attempts to impose will, at best, be fragile. At worst, it will be the prelude to a new rebellion.
Leopoldo Lavín Mujica
NOTES
(*) OPE is the Office of the Elected President. It is the transitional structure that operates between the election and the assumption of power, responsible for coordinating the transfer of powers, designing government teams, and preparing the initial measures of the new administration. In Kast’s case, the OPE played a central role in defining the cabinet, crafting the communication memo cited, and designing the ‘Second Floor’ led by Alejandro Irarrázaval.
Cited Sources:
- Juan Andrés Fontaine: Interview with Jaime Troncoso R., March 11, 2026.
- Juan Pablo Lavín: Analysis by Alfonso Peró, March 2026.
- Pepe Auth and Gerardo Varela: Podcast «Politics for Adults» on El Líbero, March 10, 2026.
- Paul Walder: Analysis in El Clarín de Chile (elclarin.cl), March 15, 2026.
- J.P. Sallaberry: Analysis on Kast’s Second Floor, March 2026.
- OPE Memo: Document leaked to Ex-Ante, March 2026.
