Omen for Massachusetts?

As reported by the Financial Times, Sebastian Pinera, the brother of Cato's Jose Pinera, was elected President of Chile this weekend. The press is viewing Pinera's election through the right-left lens of Latin American politics, but this is a bit misleading since Chile has remained a very pro-market nation during nearly two decades of supposedly left-wing rule. According to Economic Freedom of the World (see page 10), Chile was the world's fifth-most free-market nation as of 2007, ranking above the United States, Australia, and Estonia. The new president hopefully will push Chile even farther in the right direction, but the real lesson from Chile is that free markets boost prosperity regardless of which political party is in charge. That being said, hopefully this is a harbinger of good election results elsewhere in the world:

Sebastián Piñera, a billionaire businessman, has defeated Chile’s ruling leftist coalition to return the right to power for the first time since the return of democracy after General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in 1990. With 99.2 per cent of the vote counted, giving Mr Piñera a lead of 51.61 per cent to Mr Frei’s 48.38 per cent, the former president conceded defeat. It was the right’s first victory at the ballot box in Chile since 1958 and bucks a South American trend with the left in power in many countries from Venezuela to Brazil to Argentina.