Prominent in the mythology of the Left is a belief that a “people’s democracy,” purged of antique constitutional scruples, can clear the way to some Radiant Future. The idea is that a modern, progressive constitutional charter, codifying goodthink and wish fulfilment in the form of enumerated rights, is the key to equity and social justice.
Countries around the world have embraced this idea—it must be said with indifferent success. The post-1997 constitution of the Republic of South Africa is a good example. In addition to traditional civil rights, its Bill of Rights purports to guarantee to South Africans the right to “adequate housing,” the right to “healthcare services,” the right to “sufficient food and water,” the right to “social security,” etc. Both “equality” and “equity” receive explicit mention In the South African Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Alas, though, the gap between these constitutional guarantees and reality on the ground is substantial. No doubt the lives of the black majority population have improved since the demise of apartheid, but millions still live in poverty and South Africa is beset by multiple economic problems, exacerbated by widespread corruption.
Where the resources necessary to make them effectual are insufficient or lacking, such constitutional rights are not worth the paper they’re printed on. At best they’re government entitlements, the details of which are subject to change without notice. For instance, in that most inconvenient of all worlds, reality, the right to healthcare is defined not by the needs of patients but by the amount of healthcare—doctors, nurses, lab technicians, clinics, hospitals, drugs, etc.—available at any given moment. No government on the planet can make bricks without straw. And straw is a finite resource.
The postmodern progressive Left, however, places its faith in a triumph of the will: If economic, social, and cultural rights of the most expansive and sweeping character can be formalized in constitutions or laws, somehow the straw will appear.
This explains why American progressives are so disdainful of the Constitution of the United States: It’s the opposite of the modern, socially and economically enlightened constitutional regime they believe the country needs. And as far as it goes, this criticism is just. The Constitution was deliberately contrived to foster stability and national unity by making it difficult for an activist government to impose “fundamental change” on the whim of the moment.
By regulating the pace of change, our Constitution fosters an orderly process of reform within the framework of a settled political system. And of course, the Constitution itself can and has been amended many times. With the singular and telling exception of the Civil War, this system has served America well. Compare American history since 1787 to French history since 1789. In all that time, the Constitution adopted in 1787 has ordered American politics. But France went from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, then to an increasingly radical republic, then to a military dictatorship, then to a despotic imperium, then back to a constitutional monarchy, a republic, a populist imperium, and three variations on the republican theme—a saga accompanied by chronic, often violent political instability.
But on the progressive Left, the record of the past embodies no salutary lessons. On the contrary, it’s dismissed as a crushing weight, a ball and chain—the dead, clutching hand of reaction, dragging humanity down into the dark.
In that spirit, the newly elected leftist president of Chile entered office in March 2022 determined to junk the country’s current constitution, adopted in 1980, and replace it with a new, progressive national charter. President Gabriel Boric, a former student activist, heads a left-wing coalition that includes the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Chile. His election was marketed as a mandate for “fundamental change” by means of a constitutional revision.
The 1980 constitution has always been reviled by the Chilean Left. It was promulgated during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet and embodies classical liberal principles that are anathema to Boric & Co. Yet despite its questionable parentage the current constitution, which has been amended several times over the years, has served Chile well. Today it is the most prosperous country in South America, with a record of stable democratic governance since Pinochet left power in 1990. But like the Constitution of the United States, Chile’s current constitution bars the way to the Radiant Future of the leftist imagination.
Demands for constitutional revision go back to 2011, spearheaded by radical student activists, and they erupted again in 2019-20. Popular discontent over economic inequality was seized upon by the Left, which claimed that Chile’s antiquated, politically tainted constitution was to blame. In a national referendum, a three-quarters majority of Chileans voted to replace the 1980 constitution, and in 2021 they elected delegates to a constitutional convention. This was the background to Boric’s election as president earlier this year.
For the Left, it was a moment of triumph and opportunity. Boric was widely praised as the belated successor of Salvador Allende, the radical leftist who was deposed in the 1973 coup led by Pinochet. The constitutional convention was dominated by the parties of the Left; it seemed that “fundamental change” was at hand.
But it was not to be.
The Left, broadly conceived, has always been characterized by a certain detachment from reality, facts on the ground yielding place to ideological elan. If equality—political, social, economic—is desirable, then it must be possible. And the definition of equality knows no limits. From the start, the work of Chile’s constitutional convention was corrupted by this revolutionary hubris.
Then came nemesis. The new constitution that was submitted to the Chilean people in last week’s national referendum came in at 138 pages, 388 articles and 54,000 words. It embodied some one hundred rights, the usual progressive laundry list: job security, universal free healthcare, housing rights, pension rights, and legalized abortion, “gender parity,” etc. How all this would be paid for was not made clear, but there were ominous hints. Chile was to be transformed into a people’s democracy. The proposed constitution would have abolished the upper house of the legislature, the Senate, replacing it with a largely powerless “Chamber of Regions”; permitted property and asset seizures by legislative decree; ended school choice; and, via the extensive list of “social rights” and environmental mandates, vastly expanded the power of the state.
The vaulting ambitions embodied in the proposed constitution sent leftists around the world into a swoon. But in Chile, it was obvious by the eve of the referendum that voters would turn their thumbs down. Aside from specific complaints, there were widespread suspicions that the rights listed in the constitution would be impossible to implement in practice without a level of government intervention in the economy that would be economically ruinous. For many the whole business smacked of a left-wing power grab, so when Chileans went to the polls, they voted rechazo (rejection) by a resounding 62-38% margin.
It takes a leftist intellectual to believe that a 138-page constitution stuffed with platitudes and goodies can serve as a basis for stable government and a prosperous country. But making promises that no government could possibly keep is the besetting sin of the Left—also the source of political unrest and violence in South America and elsewhere. Indeed, the progressive mania for constitution-writing is a cancer on politics wherever it appears. It can be taken as a general principle that the more constitutions a country has had, the more troubled its history has been.
In Chile, President Boric has pledged that the campaign for constitutional revision will go on. After the near miss Chileans experienced this time, one can only hope that something much more modest and realistic than the filthy constitutional stew he and his comrades cooked up will emerge from the process. And in the meantime, could American progressives please just shut up about the deficiencies of the Constitution of the United States? As the example of Chile reveals, their hunger for “fundamental change” is a decidedly minority preference.