El Ciudadano
Original article: Ex-Ante y el carnaval ideológico de la ultraderecha: David Friedman en Chile
By Leopoldo Lavín Mujica
The recent visit of David Friedman to Chile, organized by the Centro de Estudios Libertarios (CEL) of Fernando Sagredo, is not merely an academic exchange. It is a link in the ideological assembly line that global far-right factions, backed by substantial networks like the Atlas Network, are constructing in the region.
That the son of Milton Friedman lands in Santiago to meet with Minister Mas and likely President Kast, and that his views resonate in a platform like Ex-Ante—founded by Cristián Bofill and aligned with the most conservative sectors of the Chilean political spectrum—highlights the porous boundaries between political power, far-right think tanks, and the media outlets that amplify their voices.
In an interview with journalist Ignacia Munita C. for Ex-Ante, the dual purpose is evident: for Friedman, a platform to disseminate his anarcho-capitalism; for the outlet, a reinforcement of its editorial line. Yet, what remains obscured is the nature of the host. Fernando Sagredo, the «discreet benefactor» of CEL, is an agricultural businessman who publicly admires Peter Thiel and finances a burgeoning political party. His think tank is not a serene oasis of disinterested reflection; it is the intellectual arm of a political project aimed at undermining the foundations of the state.
In the interview, Friedman presents himself as a technocrat offering dispassionate economic prescriptions. He praises Chile, commends Milei, and predicts that Argentina could surpass Chile in a decade. However, his discourse, which denies governments the capacity to set economic priorities and reduces development to the free choices of investors, is anything but neutral. It represents the tip of the iceberg of a doctrine that, as documented by economic historian Quinn Slobodian, advocates for the total privatization of the state and the replacement of democracy with private contracts.
Slobodian, a professor at Boston University, captures David Friedman as a key figure in anarcho-capitalism in his work Crack-Up Capitalism (2023), portraying a movement that does not settle for merely reducing the state but aspires to abolish it entirely.
Friedman is the author of The Machinery of Freedom, a book arguing that police, courts, and laws could be provided by private enterprises. He is not a reformist; he is a radical who, in his most fanciful moments, invokes medieval Iceland as a real example of functioning anarcho-capitalism.
The fact that such a figure is received with official honors in Chile is not anecdotal. It confirms that the Chilean economic «miracle»—built on the blood and fire of Milton’s school and the Chicago Boys—has found a new prophet in his rebellious son.
The deregulation and reduction of state agenda promoted by Kast’s government finds in Friedman a weighty intellectual endorsement, even if his prescriptions aim to dismantle the very foundations of the institutional order that Kast claims to want to modernize.
Slobodian insists that market radicals like Friedman Jr. seek to escape the limits of democracy by dismantling nation-states, promoting the creation of special economic zones, tax havens, and micro-jurisdictions where capital can operate without democratic oversight.
Ex-Ante’s interview, by failing to adequately contextualize Friedman’s figure or investigate the networks that bring him to Chile, operates as a form of whitewashing. It omits that CEL is part of a global web of think tanks financially supported by fortunes like those of the Koch brothers or Peter Thiel, which have pushed for austerity and deregulation policies worldwide.
It also does not mention that Sagredo himself is a financier of the Chilean Libertarian Party, a group that admires Javier Milei.
However, the critique of Friedman should not be limited to his connections. It must interrogate the substance of his ideas. When Friedman claims that governments should not set economic priorities because «they are not some sort of benevolent deity,» he is denying the essential role of the state as a guarantor of the common good and a reducer of inequalities.
His vision of a society where citizens choose between providers of legal systems as one chooses a phone company is, as Slobodian points out, a literary fantasy, not a serious proposal for social organization.
Ultimately, David Friedman’s visit and his interview in Ex-Ante serve as a symptom of the global far-right’s advance in Chile. This is not an academic debate on public policies, but rather the infiltration of an ideology that, in its most extreme version, proposes the dissolution of democracy and its replacement with corporate feudalism.
That this ideology finds resonance in the government, media (also in El Libero), and think tanks is no coincidence: it is the result of a well-oiled network operating outside the democratic debate and, as this episode demonstrates, has found a fertile ground in Chile for its sowing.
Leopoldo Lavín Mujica
La entrada David Friedman and the Ideological Carnival of the Far Right: Unpacking His Visit to Chile se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.
🔥 Ver noticia completa en ElCiudadano.cl 🔥
