Axel Kaiser


Axel Kaiser Barents-Von Hohenhagen is a Chilean writer, lawyer and political scientist.
A Mont Pelerin Society member, he has collaborated as a columnist for El Mercurio and Diario Financiero. 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". Some critics argued about the latter that Kaiser was overstating the impact of Michelle Bachelet's reforms.
In 2012, he led the creation of the think tank Fundación Para El Progreso, which is sponsored by Chilean entrepreneur Nicolás Ibáñez. 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 newspaper in 2017, ranked Kaiser in seventh place among the most admired public intellectuals nationwide. El Mercurio newspaper has described him as Chilean liberalism' main exponent. He is also the first Latin American to obtain first place in Mont Pelerin Society's Hayek Essay Contest.
He has written works such as: The Fatal Ignorance: The right-wing's Cultural Anorexia Against the Ideological Advance of Progressive Ideas, 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.

Biography

Kaiser was born into a first-generation German-Chilean family. He is the son of Hans Christian Kaiser Wagner and Rosmarie Barents Haensgen, and brother of Vanessa Kaiser, an academic at the Universidad Autónoma de Chile and director of the libertarian think tank Centro de Estudios Libertarios.
While living in the Chilean capital, he completed a law degree at Universidad Diego Portales. He then traveled to Germany to pursue two master's degrees and a PhD in American Studies in Heidelberg University, with the thesis The American Philosophical Foundations of the Chilean Free Market Revolution. 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.

Books