Vital Connections: Politics, Social Security, and Inequality in Chile (review)

The rather Byzantine nature of Chile's social security system has always left me a bit confounded—even dazed. I knew that it was important, since it directly affected many Chileans' retirement plans, health care, and family allowances, but until I read this book, I was unable to fathom the intricacies of it. This is one of the book's many strengths: it simultaneously delineates the historical and political dimensions of Chile's social security system and clarifies its specific laws and provisions. However, this book does more than explain Chile's social security system, although that alone is a valuable contribution. It places the social security system in the context of twentieth-century Chilean politics and state development, offering a succinct, insightful assessment of these subjects. My one criticism is that Borzutzky does not include Chileans' thoughts and voices on the social security system; that dimension would have enriched this study and emphasized the human impact of the policies she so clearly describes.

The author's focus on the state and the political parties illustrates how the social security system both reflected and furthered Chile's myth of national unity. Underpinning this myth was the widely held assumption that the Chilean state and political institutions provided stability and worked to serve the needs of the people. The social security system buttressed this myth by offering people the partial reality and the larger illusion that, sooner or later, the state would indeed meet their needs and end the rampant inequalities that plagued society. In an interesting departure from much of the literature, Silvia Borzutzky defines this relationship as clientelistic. "The state and more specifically the politicians, became the patron that had the ultimate control over the national resources, while the development of dyadic ties between political groups and those that controlled parts and parcels of the state became the leitmotif of political activity" (p. xii). She further points out that the myth is just that—a myth—since "profound divisions and inequalities," not "democracy, unity, and harmony," characterized Chilean society (p. xv).

Borzutzky discusses Chilean politics and the social security system at three critical junctures: the mid-1920 s (when it first developed), the late 1960 s and early 1970 s (when presidents Eduardo Frei attempted to reform it and Salvador Allende hoped to extend it), and the 1970 s and 1980 s (when Pinochet eviscerated it). Legislation in 1924 and the 1925 constitution, which reflected the power of conservative sectors in Chile, initiated and codified the social security system. This legislation responded both to the growing demands of the urban working and middle classes and to efforts by the conservative elite to stem fundamental changes to the system they controlled and benefited from. Since this legislation established the Chilean state as the dispenser of huge funds, it thereby heightened the power of the state and increased political parties' desire to run it. Concomitantly, it encouraged the parties to promise the electorate benefits in exchange for their votes. What it did not do was transform the basic economic relationships that obtained in Chile. That was particularly true for rural sectors, which were not included in the social security program.

The Frei government attempted to transform aspects of the political and social system, specifically by incorporating more marginal sectors into society under its tutelage, but it primarily succeeded in polarizing society. Frei's efforts to establish a communitarian state and an integrated society failed because, as Borzutzky notes, "a minimum degree of consensus on the existence of a national interest . . . did not exist in Chile" (p. 95 ). Although the Frei government introduced bills to expand the social security system, the Right either blocked their passage or introduced ones that undercut them.

This polarization and lack of consensus only intensified during the Allende years, which made impossible the passage of bills that would have radically overhauled the social security...