The Chilean economic model has been widely studied both as a pioneering experiment in neoliberal policies and in regard to the growing social mobilisation against inequalities it has provoked. Insufficient attention has been paid, however, to the role of intellectuals in justifying and criticising the model. This article examines cultural battles over the economic model among the country's main columnists between 2010 and 2017, analysing debates as to the model's virtues and vices, achievements and failures. It shows how debate surrounding the model is highly reactive to current political events, yet occurs in somewhat of an elite bubble, centred on conceptual discussions and daily political events that tend to be dissociated from popular concerns.

This article examines a text written 100 years ago by Stojan Novaković, a leading Serbian scholar and president of its Academy of Science. Written in a political science fiction genre, it foresees a country of united South Slavs in 2011. Yugoslavia, in the enlightened vision of Novaković, will appear and strengthen due to scientific and economic development on one hand and common culture based on a common vernacular on the other. Elite-driven unification is the only mode for South Slavs to survive facing the challenges of modernization and the territorial threats of their neighbors. Accurate in some and grossly naive in other aspects, this text is a testimony of Yugoslav ideas preceding the actual creation of the state, as shared by the most prestigious among the Serbian intellectual elites.