Axel Kaiser
Kaiser in 2016
Born (1981-07-04) 4 July 1981
Santiago, Chile
CitizenshipChile
OccupationAuthor[1]
Academic background
Alma materUniversidad Diego Portales (LL.B.)
University of Heidelberg (LL.M. in Investments, Trade and Arbitration)
University of Heidelberg (M.A. in American studies)
University of Heidelberg (Ph.D. in American studies)
ThesisThe American Philosophical Foundations of the Chilean Free Market Revolution. (2014)
Doctoral advisorKatja Patzel-Mattern, Martin Thunert y Detlef Junker
Academic work
DisciplinePolitical sciences
Philosophy
School or traditionAustrian School
InstitutionsUniversidad del Desarrollo
University of the Andes
Adolfo Ibáñez University
Stanford University

Axel Phillip Kaiser Barents-Von Hohenhagen (born 4 July 1981) is a Chilean writer, lawyer and political scientist.

A Mont Pelerin Society member, he has collaborated as a columnist for El Mercurio,[2] El Líbero[3] and Diario Financiero.[4] In 2013 and 2014 he published two articles in Forbes: "Is this the end of the Chilean economic miracle?" and "Michelle Bachelet is destroying Chile's free market institutions".[5] Some critics argued about the latter that Kaiser was overstating the impact of Michelle Bachelet's reforms.

Kaiser works for Fundación Para El Progreso, a think tank founded by the businessman Nicolás Ibáñez Scott.[6][7] The think tank's mission, as stated on its website, is "to promote a cultural change which would advance groundwork for a more prosper, free, humane, inclusive and peaceful society, through the promotion of liberal idean in fields of influence and the formation of young leaders who can guide Chile and Latin America through the road to progress".

An opinion poll, conducted by La Segunda in 2017, ranked Kaiser in seventh place among the most admired public intellectuals nationwide.[8] El Mercurio has described him as Chilean liberalism' main exponent.[9] He is also the first Latin American to obtain first place in Mont Pelerin Society's Hayek Essay Contest.[10]

He has written works such as: The Fatal Ignorance: The right-wing's Cultural Anorexia Against the Ideological Advance of Progressive Ideas,[11] The Tyranny of Equality, where he attempts to dismantle what he considers the fallacies of egalitarianism, and The Populist Deception, where he, alongside Guatemalan political scientist Gloria Álvarez criticizes the left-wing populism phenomena.[12]

Biography

Kaiser was born into a third-generation German-Chilean family, who emigrated to Chile in April 1939.[13] He is the son of Hans Christian Kaiser Wagner and Rosmarie Barents Haensgen, and brother of Vanessa Kaiser, scholar at the Universidad Autónoma de Chile and director of the libertarian think tank Centro de Estudios Libertarios, and Johannes Kaiser, a right-wing YouTuber[14] and current member of the Chamber of Deputies of Chile.

He lived his childhood and adolescence in Villarrica with his brothers.[15][16]

While living in the Chilean capital, he completed a Bachelor of Laws at Universidad Diego Portales. He qualified as a lawyer on August 7, 2007.[17]

In 2009, Kaiser won a Fulbright Program scholarship[18] and travelled to Germany to pursue two master's degrees (Master of Arts in International Law, mention Investments, Trade and Arbitration and another in American Studies)[19][20][21] and a PhD in American Studies in Heidelberg University, with the thesis The American Philosophical Foundations of the Chilean Free Market Revolution.[22][20]

Back in Chile, he was a full professor at Universidad del Desarrollo and the Universidad de los Andes, where he taught a course on Latin American Politics.

Criticism

Writing in El Desconcierto in 2018 pundit Rodrigo Karmy Bolton posits that Fernando Atria is Kaiser's main "intellectual enemy".[23] Karmy Bolton criticizes Kaiser's for misportraying the left as "violent, statist and populist" and equating state intervention with violence.[23] For Karmy Bolton Kaiser's view is that "either we accept neoliberalism or [we] are stupid" and portrays Kaiser as a "worshipper of the market" (Spanish: "idólatra del mercado").[23]

According to another pundit, Rodrigo Rettig, Kaiser has violated the principal premise of the social sciences —"from the particular case you can't obtain general premises"— when referring to political violence experienced by his brother in 2018. Kaiser wrote in reference to it that in Chile "grave injuries have, in practice, no punishment" while omitting the 2,500,000 CLP fine that was given to each of the two aggressors, and then stated that "in Chile, deliquency has been normalized".[7]

Kaiser has further been questioned by actress Susana Hidalgo for copyright infringement by using one of her images of the 2019–2020 Chilean protests in the promotional posters of his talks in Mexico in February 2020.[6]

Kaiser's and Gloria Álvarez's book El engaño del populismo has been lambasted by Alfredo Joignant in a 2016 televised debate with Kaiser. Joignant called the book "confuse", "harmful" and "very bad".[24][25] More specifically, Joignant criticizes it for having use of the "category of populism" that is "out of control" and that it mischaracterizes populism as a political project in its own right.[24] Joignant concludes the book "does not withstand an undergraduate academic jury".[23][24] Kaiser answered to Joignant's criticism by asking if he had actually read the book with Joignant replying "I read it in diagonal" because "the argument is too simplistic".[24]

Books

  • El Chile que Viene (2007)
  • La Fatal Ignorancia (2009)
  • La Miseria del Intervencionismo (2012)
  • La Tiranía de la Igualdad (2015)[26]
  • El Engaño Populista junto con Gloria Álvarez (2016)
  • El Papa y el Capitalismo (2018)
  • La Neoinquisición (2020)
  • El Economista Callejero (2021)

See also

References

  1. ↑ "La madre de todas las batallas". Libertad Digital (in Spanish). 10 March 2017. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  2. ↑ Columnista Axel Kaiser – El Mercurio
  3. ↑ "Columns of Axel Kaiser". El Líbero. 6 July 2016. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
  4. ↑ Columnista Axel Kaiser – DF
  5. ↑ Benedikter, Roland; Siepmann, Katja; Zlosilo, Miguel (2015). "The Fiscal Dimension: Greater Fairness at the Price of a Slowing Economy? The Ideological Debate Behind Bachelet's Envisaged Tax Reform". In Roland Benedikter, Katja Siepmann (ed.). Chile in Transition. Prospects and Challenges for Latin America's Forerunner of Development. Springer International Publishing. p. 137. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-17951-3. ISBN 978-3-319-17951-3.
  6. 1 2 "Las críticas contra Axel Kaiser por utilizar foto ícono del estallido contraviniendo los derechos de autor". El Mostrador. 3 March 2020. Archived from the original on 4 March 2020. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  7. 1 2 Rettig, Rodrigo (28 November 2018). "De mal en peor: una respuesta a Axel Kaiser". El Mostrador. Archived from the original on 28 November 2018. Retrieved 21 March 2021.
  8. ↑ "Académico de la FAE, Alberto Mayol, fue escogido entre los intelectuales públicos más admirados". Facultad de Administración y Economía. Universidad de Santiago. 25 May 2016. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  9. ↑ Benjamin, Blanco (13 June 2017). "Axel Kaiser, principal exponente del liberalismo en Chile: "Se puede ser liberal y contrario al aborto"". El Mercurio. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  10. ↑ "Axel Kaiser gana concurso de ensayos Hakey Essay Contest". El Mercurio. 5 September 2014. p. 8. Archived from the original on 16 October 2022. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  11. ↑ Ortúzar, Pablo (15 December 2015). "La tiranía de la igualdad". El Líbero (in Spanish). Retrieved 29 December 2023.
  12. ↑ Delibes, Alicia (25 June 2016). "Las mentiras del populismo". Libertad Digital (in Spanish). Retrieved 29 December 2023.
  13. ↑ "K | Inmigrantes Alemanes al Sur de Chile". www.genealog.cl. Retrieved 23 December 2021.
  14. ↑ Claro, Hernán (17 September 2019). "Johannes Kaiser, el youtuber que pagó parte del polémico inserto en El Mercurio". El Dínamo. Archived from the original on 20 September 2019. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  15. ↑ S.A.P, El Mercurio (23 November 2021). "Quién es Johannes Kaiser, el diputado electo de Republicanos que generó polémica por video sobre voto femenino". Emol (in Spanish). Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  16. ↑ DEBATE: Axel Kaiser Vs Eugenia Mancilla en Barometro - pinguino.com (Minute 0:53), retrieved 5 July 2023
  17. ↑ "Poder Judicial - Transparencia. RUT 14.121.758-5". www.pjud.cl. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  18. ↑ "FULBRIGHT-CONICYT scholarships results. June 2009" (PDF).
  19. ↑ "Axel Kaiser". Archbridge Institute. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  20. 1 2 "Ph.D. - Graduates - Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA)". www.hca.uni-heidelberg.de. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  21. ↑ "Alumni - Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA)". www.hca.uni-heidelberg.de. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  22. ↑ Kaiser, Axel. "Doctoral Thesis" (PDF).
  23. 1 2 3 4 Karmy Bolton, Rodrigo (19 March 2018). "La tiranía de Axel Kaiser, un idólatra del mercado". El Desconcierto. Archived from the original on 12 November 2020. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  24. 1 2 3 4 El Informante, Televisión Nacional de Chile. 2016
  25. ↑ "Alfredo Joignant noqueó a Axel Kaiser en El informante: "El libro es malo Axel, es una vergüenza"". The Clinic. 1 September 2016. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  26. ↑ Carlos, Rodríguez Braun (10 March 2017). "La tiranía de la igualdad. Por qué el igualitarismo es inmoral y socava el progreso de nuestra sociedad" (in Spanish). Retrieved 7 April 2020.
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