South America's most prosperous nation:

There are now two South Americas,” says Chilean economist Rolf Lüders, a former prime minister under Augusto Pinochet. The old South America, which remains mired in populism and Marxist rhetoric, includes Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The new South America is democratic and free-market-oriented, and includes Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. Chile is undoubtedly the most prosperous and stable country in the group, with an annual real growth rate averaging 5.5 percent over the last 15 years and a per-capita annual income of $12,000, the highest in Latin America. The country owes its unqualified success to an oft-vilified group of U.S.-educated free-market economists known as the “Chicago boys,” of whom Lüders, a former student of Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago, is one.

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Tags: Chile Milton+Friedman