Previous research suggests that attitudes toward economic interventionism are the central driver of left-right competition. Still, others suggest that the individual acceptance or tolerance of inequality in society is a better context-independent explanation. In this paper, we test these competing theories using elite-level survey data from nearly 3,000 legislators in 17 Latin American parliaments between 2009 and 2022. The main results suggest that acceptance of inequality is a key predictor of left-right competition, although the specific inequality that motivates left-right choice varies across countries. We measure tolerance for inequality by differentiating between tolerance towards economic inequality, tolerance towards inequality between men and women, and tolerance towards sexual orientation diversity. While attitudes of tolerance to economic and gender inequalities are key predictors of left-right positions in South America or the Andean countries, intolerance of homosexuality is the most important predictor for Central America. Our results further indicate that attitude toward government involvement in the economy is a more stable factor than acceptance of inequality across countries and sub-regions