In the Name of Reason: Technocrats and Politics in Chile

2. Pablo Ramírez and the ‘‘Administrative State’’

2 Pablo Ramı́rez and the ‘‘Administrative State’’ After a long period of germination the intellectual and political legacy of Lastarria and Letelier found concrete expression in the turbulent 1920s when middle-class sectors came into power and launched profound reforms of the country’s political and administrative structures. This chapter focuses on the generation of a technocratic project during the government led by Colonel Carlos Ibáñez. This particular case provides crucial insights into the role public opinion and society at large play in facilitating the emergence of technocratic regimes. This important aspect of the country’s political mood has been generally neglected in current discussions on technocracy. As this chapter reveals, technocratic regimes can arise in situations of extreme political instability in which the prestige of politicians and political parties rapidly evaporates and the people’s demands for radical changes become generalized. Right or wrong, many see young technocrats in the government as an assurance of generational renovation and a sign that state affairs are being properly administered. In this context, the people’s support for replacing the traditional political class by technocrats can be seen as a form of public punishment of the former. The Ibáñez years also illustrate the readiness shown by middle-class sectors to abandon their commitment to democratic formulas and to support authoritarian alternatives when motivated by fears of chaos and anarchism ‘‘from below.’’ After decades of having struggled against the oligarchic order and in pablo ramı́rez and the ‘‘administrative state’’ 55 favor of the expansion of democratic rights, middle-class sectors and their representatives (particularly the Radical Party) embraced Ibáñez’s authoritarianism out of fear of social upheaval. As we will see later in this book, mutatis mutandis, a comparable scenario emerged in the country in the early 1970s, with similar outcomes. Leadership seems to be of crucial importance in formulating a technocratic project and in attracting and recruiting the required personnel to deploy it. A single person became fundamental for shaping Ibáñez’s technocratic project. The charismatic Pablo Ramı́rez succeeded in assembling a formidable group of young technocrats with himself at the head who enthusiastically implemented a series of reforms that in a few years totally transformed the Chilean state. Later in the twentieth century we find figures such as Sergio de Castro and Alejandro Foxley fulfilling similar pivotal roles in providing inspiration and leadership to a group of technocrats in charge of the economic policies. This chapter aims also to stress the importance of the existence of a common professional identity in the technocratic groups in charge of state policies . Most of Ramı́rez’s technocrats were ingenieros with a strong generational bond and professional identity. In possession of an admirable ‘‘esprit de corps’’ they experienced the possibility of running several state institutions as a noble ‘‘mission’’ and as a historical chance to modernize the nation in a profound way. As will be shown later in the book, a similar professional cohesion and mystique can be found in the group of Chicago economists who administrated the reforms during the Pinochet regime and among the cieplan economists who have been playing a decisive role under the current Concertación administrations. Finally, this chapter illustrates how the state is envisioned by the middle class as the main instrument to satisfy their aspirations for more and better education, as the provider of order, and above all as the generator of employment for a fast-growing group of young professionals. The rise of public technocracy in Chile in the late 1920s took place under very specific historical and political circumstances that proved decisive in facilitating its consolidation. The crisis and the final breakdown of the oligarchic state in the early 1920s had produced a deep feeling of discontent among Chileans about the parliamentary system, the politicians, and the so-called aristocratic frond (Alberto Edwards [1924] 1952). The general dissatisfaction with the existing order was reflected in the publication of several critical essays 56 in the name of reason denouncing the social, political, and moral decline of the nation. A vivid expression of this particular state of mind is Francisco Encina’s Nuestra inferioridad económica, published in 1911, in which he strongly criticizes the weak and inefficient parliamentary regime and calls for a stronger executive and modernization of government institutions. It cannot be denied that during those years the...