Abstract

RIVEROS, Claudio  and  PELFINI, Alejandro. Chilean Business Elites over Tax Reform Attempts (2014-2020). Estud. sociol [online]. 2023, vol.41, n.121, pp.159-188.  Epub June 09, 2023. ISSN 2448-6442.  https://doi.org/10.24201/es.2023v41n121.2217.

A key issue in the relationship between business elites and the state is taxation. Particularly in Chile, recurrent attempts to reform and “modernize” the tax system have been made in recent years. However, business elites have used their unquestionable structural and instrumental power to resist and influence these initiatives, although the outcome should be classified as a pyrrhic victory. This article seeks to demonstrate that this was due to the unsuccessful use of a non-transformational logic of communication that fails to take the demands and unprecedented complexity of the context seriously and persists in using mechanisms that may have worked in the past yet are inappropriate nowadays.

Keywords : business elites; non-transformative reactions; counterattack; tax reform; inequality.