Entrepreneurs in the long 1960s: Union Reorganization and the Search for an Economic and Social Model for Chile

Abstract

During the 1960s, Chilean business unions faced a new and greater challenge: the arrival of a highly reformist government headed by Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964-1970). In the context of the Cold War and the programmatic radicalization to solve economic and social problems, business leaders had to make decisions within a narrow menu of alternatives. These options can be described from two complementary perspectives: first, to undertake enormous efforts to revitalize their grassroots organizations. Second, to promote the convergence of interests with right-wing academics and politicians with the goal of developing an economic project that privileged the private initiative and the market as the primary allocator of resources. This article describes this “moment” in which—not without contradictions—these actors came together to structure the political and ideological foundations that paved the way for the radical restructuring of Chile’s economy in the 1970s.