Approximate reading time: 41 seconds
In his participation in Public Debate, the political scientist Juan Carlos Gómez Leyton spoke about corruption in Chilean society from 1975 to the present, highlighting that this is not an exception, but a constitutive part of neoliberal society.
Gómez Leyton proposed the need to build containment dams to prevent its expansion, pointing out as an urgent path to put an end to the neoliberal rationality that governs Chilean society. He also argued that this rationality has promoted profit maximization as a fundamental principle, generating a culture of ruthless competition without ethical limits.
The prominent academic emphasized that Chilean society has become a public space open to competition, where the frenetic search for benefits has transformed citizens into competitors willing to do anything to achieve their goals.
Furthermore, he pointed out that corruption is key to the functioning of the neoliberal economy, with money being the dominant principle of elites and business groups. In summary, Gómez Leyton stated that when corruption becomes the central nerve of the functioning of society, all its members are part of it, either directly or indirectly.