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Economic Liberalism and Rural Space in Chile since 1973.

The article discusses the agricultural counter-reform which has been taking place in Chile since 1973 and which aims to develop a capitalist agriculture orientated towards export. The introduction of liberal economic ideas into the domain of agriculture has substantially transformed its characteristics, as it has put an end to the method of development induced by the two previous agricultural reforms. The measures that have been taken are the selling of public land and infrastructure to private owners, and the concentration of capital in the hands of a new rural bourgeoisie able to perform a vertical and horizontal agricultural/industrial integration. Beside this new bourgeoisie, a peasant population still exists but is being pauperised or turned into a proletariat. The author shows the rationality of economic liberalism and his conclusion is that solving the agricultural problem in Chile does not depend on the transformation of the agricultural structure, but on a total questioning of society.