Chilean corporatist thinkers like Guzmán converged with neoliberalism on antistatism and subsidiarity

Evidence

Apart from overlapping membership, the ideology of leading gremialistas can neither be simply juxtaposed to neoliberal worldviews nor be understood in a categorical manner. The leading figure of the movement, Jaime Guzmán, defended the capitalist economy in his writings, which was rather atypical for adherents to corporatism. His explicit defense of capitalism was coupled with a strong antistatism rooted in a traditional Catholicism: in the social doctrine formulated by Pope John XXIII, Guzmán perceived private property rights and private enterprise as timeless and permanent values. He strongly invoked the principle of subsidiarity that is held to protect society against the state. Guzmán’s corporativist capitalism perspective thus shared the antistatism and references to self-organization with neoliberal perspectives. Furthermore, Guzmán’s intellectual development from the 1960s to the 1980s reveals a diminished reference to encyclical and corporatist principles (Vergara 1985; Cristi 2000). This shift may be due to Guzmán’s intensified cooperation with the economic change team. He first encountered neoliberal thinking during the Alessandri election campaign in 1970 when he mediated between the neoliberal economists and Alessandri’s corporatist-minded supporters. In 1971 he joined the Monday Club and the CESEC think tank (Fontaine 1991, 252). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1567

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the intellectual-history literature on how Chilean gremialismo (Guzmán, Gremialismo movement) fused with Chicago School economics under Pinochet. — connects to: Corporate Catholicism and neoliberalism reconciled in Chile around depoliticizing civil society. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 357; Corporatist gremialismo served as the intellectual-recruitment base for Chile’s coup — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1555; A radical corporatist ‘gremialista’ movement emerged at Chile’s Catholic University — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1554
• DEFINE: Explains subsidiarity as the principle that protects society against the state, a key concept bridging Catholic social doctrine and neoliberal antistatism.