2. Read the contrasting quote below, and identify the crucial difference between Chile’s experience and that of Brazil and Peru. (To “privatize” infrastructure means that the government sells to private investors companies that had previously been owned and operated by the government.)
“According to the World Bank, 58 million Latin Americans lack access to potable water and 137 million lack sewerage. In Brazil and Peru, less than a quarter of the main highways are classified as good. In surveys by the bank, 55 percent of businessmen consulted in Latin America cite infrastructure as a serious problem compared with just 18 percent in East Asia. The bank says the region will have to double or triple its current spending to bring its infrastructure up to the level of that in East Asia’s fast-growing economies. The exception, as so often, is Chile. Its military dictatorship began to privatize infrastructure in 1985, starting with telecoms and electricity. Democratic governments have since gone further. Now the roads that whisk the traveler into Santiago, the capital, from the airport are privately run, as are most other motorways and the airport itself. Nearly all Chile’s water is supplied by private companies. In Santiago treatment of sewage has increased from 3 percent in 1999 to 70 percent today, says Alfredo Noman, chairman of Aguas Andinas, the capital’s Spanish-controlled water company. Only the most remote households in Chile lack running water or electricity.”
