And Chile is always a special case, the combination of natural resources, small population and good public systems does wonder for the country. Despite the extreme differences, I tend to compare Chile to the Nordic countries more than with LatAm.
Not sure if that's scalable to larger countries, which is always the big question.
You are flat out wrong with this comparison. Chile has one of the lowest tax burdens in the world. It can be accurately compared to either Hong Kong or Singapore.
Average tax burden by country: https://files.taxfoundation.org/legacy/docs/OECD_Tax_Wedge_C...
Scandinavian countries have 4x higher taxes than Chile. They are polar opposites.
Do you really think that I am comparing tax burdens?
Sorry, but you're flat wrong with your understanding of what I'm comparing, which I listed in case it wasn't obvious enough.
But apparently writing down what I was comparing wasn't obvious enough for you.
If Chile can have government programs with comparable return or results to the Scandinavian countries at a fraction of the cost then they're a hell of a lot more interesting from a policy perspectives.
Comparing governments based on taxes they levy is like comparing modes of transportation based on the amount of fuel they consume.
I don't think this is a very good analogy. We compare modes of transportation based on the amount of fuel they consume all the time. Unless I'm missing your point? And not everyone likes the Scandinavian countries. They are blessed by very homogeneous populations, in a region unscathed by war the past 70 years, with abundant natural resources, and stable governments. I wouldn't exactly consider them a good model for the rest of the world and I'm not sure what there is to like about them beyond these natural advantages and the fact that most of their people are very nice... Lucky would be more like it.
For example, Norway, the richest per capita of them derives "Export revenues from oil and gas have risen to almost 50% of total exports and constitute more than 20% of the GDP."[0] not exactly something the rest of the world can model.
Also, don't confuse low population density with high natural resources. The US for example get's for more wealth from oil than Norway. Norway just has a tiny population (5.2M).
Further, the US has a much wider range of natural resources including vast coal deposits, gold, diamonds, etc.