wateroverfire posted:

It wasn't great. It was loving scary. The article above is total poo poo, though, and the view that everything was happily chugging along and then the dictatorship happened and the Chicago Boys wrecked everything is wrong.

StandardVC10 posted:

Turns out that a lot of people are just waiting for the chance to morally justify taking everything that they can.

Nintendo Kid posted:

Allende's system was objectively working better than the Pinochet regime ever did.

quote:

Chilean presidents were allowed a maximum term of six years, which may explain Allende's haste to restructure the economy. Not only was a major restructuring program organized (the Vuskovic plan), he had to make it a success if a Socialist successor to Allende was going to be elected. In the first year of Allende's term, the short-term economic results of Minister of the Economy Pedro Vuskovic's expansive monetary policy were highly favorable: 12% industrial growth and an 8.6% increase in GDP, accompanied by major declines in inflation (down from 34.9% to 22.1%) and unemployment (down to 3.8%). However by 1972, the Chilean escudo had an inflation rate of 140%. The average Real GDP contracted between 1971 and 1973 at an annual rate of 5.6% ("negative growth"); and the government's fiscal deficit soared while foreign reserves declined.[45] The combination of inflation and government-mandated price-fixing, together with the "disappearance" of basic commodities from supermarket shelves, led to the rise of black markets in rice, beans, sugar, and flour.[46] The Chilean economy also suffered as a result of a US campaign against the Allende government.[47] The Allende government announced it would default on debts owed to international creditors and foreign governments. Allende also froze all prices while raising salaries. His implementation of these policies was strongly opposed by landowners, employers, businessmen and transporters associations, and some civil servants and professional unions. The rightist opposition was led by the National Party, the Roman Catholic Church (which in 1973 was displeased with the direction of educational policy),[48] and eventually the Christian Democrats. There were growing tensions with foreign multinational corporations and the government of the United States.

Allende also undertook Project Cybersyn, a system of networked telex machines and computers. Cybersyn was developed by British cybernetics expert Stafford Beer. The network was supposed to transmit data from factories to the government in Santiago, allowing for economic planning in real-time.[49]

In 1971, Chile re-established diplomatic relations with Cuba, joining Mexico and Canada in rejecting a previously-established Organization of American States convention prohibiting governments in the Western Hemisphere from establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba. Shortly afterward, Cuban president Fidel Castro made a month-long visit to Chile. Originally the visit was supposed to be one week, however Castro enjoyed Chile, and one week turned to another.

In October 1972, the first of what were to be a wave of strikes was led first by truckers, and later by small businessmen, some (mostly professional) unions and some student groups. Other than the inevitable damage to the economy, the chief effect of the 24-day strike was to induce Allende to bring the head of the army, general Carlos Prats, into the government as Interior Minister.[46] Allende also instructed the government to begin requisitioning trucks in order to keep the nation from coming to a halt. Government supporters also helped to mobilize trucks and buses but violence served as a deterrent to full mobilization, even with police protection for the strike breakers. Allende's actions were eventually declared unlawful by the Chilean appeals court and the government was ordered to return trucks to their owners.[50]

Throughout this presidency racial tensions between the poor descendants of indigenous people, who supported Allende's reforms, and the white settler elite increased.[51]

Allende raised wages on a number of occasions throughout 1970 and 1971, but these wage hikes were negated by the in-tandem inflation of Chile's fiat currency. Although price rises had also been high under Frei (27% a year between 1967 and 1970), a basic basket of consumer goods rose by 120% from 190 to 421 escudos in one month alone, August 1972. In the period 1970–72, while Allende was in government, exports fell 24% and imports rose 26%, with imports of food rising an estimated 149%.[52]

Export income fell due to a hard hit copper industry: the price of copper on international markets fell by almost a third, and post-nationalization copper production fell as well. Copper is Chile's single most important export (more than half of Chile's export receipts were from this sole commodity[53]). The price of copper fell from a peak of $66 per ton in 1970 to only $48–9 in 1971 and 1972.[54] Chile was already dependent on food imports, and this decline in export earnings coincided with declines in domestic food production following Allende's agrarian reforms.[55]

Throughout his presidency, Allende remained at odds with the Chilean Congress, which was dominated by the Christian Democratic Party. The Christian Democrats (who had campaigned on a socialist platform in the 1970 elections, but drifted away from those positions during Allende's presidency, eventually forming a coalition with the National Party), continued to accuse Allende of leading Chile toward a Cuban-style dictatorship, and sought to overturn many of his more radical policies. Allende and his opponents in Congress repeatedly accused each other of undermining the Chilean Constitution and acting undemocratically.

wateroverfire posted:

No, it wasn't.

Nintendo Kid posted:

Yes it was, becuase it didn't involve murdering tons of people and the average Chilean was no better off under the murder regime.

"" posted:

Silicon Valley vanities demand a focus on the future. But the entrepreneurs and code writers attending San Francisco’s Reboot 2014 this week would be wise to note the past of the conference’s Libertarian sponsors as they and other right-wing Republicans are seeking to rebrand the GOP—in California and nationally.

“Reboot is the first conference of its kind to create a community of like-minded individuals determined to bring the cutting edge to campaigns and causes that promote liberty,” its webpage announces, followed by a video featuring ex-Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, who touts the freedom to succeed or fail, as long as government regulation doesn’t get in the way.

Bush, the 2016 presidential prospect seen as the party’s candidate of moderation, is wallpaper compared to the actual conference roster of speakers. There’s Libertarian Rand Paul, the U.S. senator from Kentucky, who is a Republican in name only. There’s Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Republican Conference, who as Pando.com’s Mark Ames noted, is a crusading Christian fundamentalist with a long history of sponsoring homophobic bills and opposing reproductive rights and equal pay for women. Also in a top slot is Nick Gillespie, longtime editor of Reason.com, the Libertarian outlet.

“At first glance it makes no sense to front a rabidly anti-gay candidate like McMorris Rodgers to sell the Kochs’ and the Paul family’s scrubland libertarianism to a Bay Area audience full of hip disruptors and ‘anarchist’ practitioners of bohemia grooming fads,” Ames writes. “But that’s because what Silicon Valley folks think of when they hear the word ‘libertarianism’ actually has very little connection to what the libertarian movement actually stands for, and has stood for since the 1970s.”
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Ames, whose lengthy article on tech-centric Pando.com fills in those white supremacist blanks, was not given a press pass to the conference, a very un-Libertarian gesture from a political cadre that claims to be for free thought, free expression and free markets. Oh well, some things just don’t change, especially when an attempt at political rebranding depends on de-emphasizing the past that Ames recounts.

“So now we have the ‘Reboot Lab’ conference taking place in the heart of San Francisco’s SOMA tech district,” he writes. “But if the purpose of the Reboot Lab conference is to merge Koch-brand libertarianism with Silicon Valley ‘libertarianism,’ then the first thing you have to ask is: Why the hell did they invite a mean homophobic hick like Cathy McMorris Rodgers to the show?”

The rest of the speaker roster answers that question. The Republican Party in California, as it does nationally, has long had two factions that can barely speak to each other. On one side are social conservatives, which is a genteel way of describing born-again Christians who want government to impose their biblical values on everyone. On the other side are free-market conservatives, who, like the conference’s underwriters, the Koch brothers, want to stifle any government regulation that might impede profits. Reboot 2014 is trying to bridge this longtime gap with speakers from both provinces, although the Libertarians dominate.

Rand Paul is there because, like every other presidential candidate, he comes to California to raise money that’s spent elsewhere. There’s a contingent from the California Republican Party, which is hoping an anti-regulatory mantra might help it lose the disastrous legacy it created under former Gov. Pete Wilson, which tried to deny social welfare benefits to undocumented immigrants in the country’s most racially diverse state. And then there’s the national GOP, which is seeking talent, including bankrolling a voter data mining operation based in San Mateo called Data Trust. (The Kochs have underwritten a competing outfit to generate its own voter files for its Tea Party affiliates.)

If you are only looking to the future—such as the 2014 federal elections and 2016 presidential race—it’s easy to ignore where a lot of the leading right-wingers at Reboot 2014 are coming from. Pando.com’s apparent big sin, spiking its press pass access, was resurrecting this legacy. Here’s what Ames says about McMorris Rodgers, who, he writes, will be “sharing the stage with LeanIn.org’s Andrea Saul, whom [Facebook chief operating officer] Sheryl Sandberg hired last year to ‘help reach women—and men—so that we can all work together toward a more equal world.”

“Rep. McMorris Rodgers was homeschooled by her father, and got her higher education degree at an unaccredited Christian fundamentalist institution, Pensacola Christian College (PCC), which bans homosexuality, open Internet (PCC until recentlybanned all Internet access), and mixed-gender stairwells (male and female students are required to use separate stairs and doors).

“Pensacola Christian College is the publisher of A Beka textbooks for K-12 pupils, which teach kids that Islam is a ‘false religion,’ Hindus are ‘incapable of writing history,’ Catholicism is ‘a monstrous distortion of Christianity,’ African religions preach ‘false religious beliefs,’ liberals and Democrats are crypto-Marxists, and the United Nations is a ‘collectivist juggernaut that would crush individual freedom and force the will of an elite few on all of humanity.’

“In the mid-late ’90s, McMorris Rodgers took office in the Washington state legislature and co-authored a bill banning same-sex marriages, then later earned notoriety for blocking a bill that had already passed unanimously in Washington state’s upper house to replace the pejorative ‘Orientals’ with ‘Asians’ in official state documents. As reported in the press at the time, legislators were dumbfounded as to why McMorris Rodgers would do something as gratuitously mean-spirited as blocking a bill undoing racism against Asians; a few, including the bill’s Korean-American author, literally broke down in tears.

“McMorris Rodgers’ excuse, as reported in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: ‘I’m very reluctant to continue to focus on setting up different definitions in statute related to the various minority groups. I’d really like to see us get beyond that.’”

This last example expresses the same worldview U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts cited when gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act—that America has evolved past the point of racial divisiveness and therefore no affirmative actions in law are needed anymore. Ames points out that the same view—which buttresses the power and influence of institutions dominated by white men—has been a longtime feature of Reason’s coverage. “Throughout the 1970s, Reason’s pages dripped with racist justifications for [South Africa’s] apartheid, on the racial economic theory that whites stood for free market libertarianism and individual liberty, while blacks were genetically predisposed toward socialism and looting.”

One might say, that was then and this is now. But, like too much classic rock-and-roll that never seems to go away, political ideas forged in the crucible of the 1960s and ’70s culture wars have a way of sticking around. Ames and other writers on AlterNet have noted that Rand Paul has surrounded himself with top political aides who have espoused the American version of apartheid’s storyline: “neo-Confederates, white supremacists, and conspiracy loons.” And, of course, his father, former Republican Congressman Ron Paul, has long been associated with racist, isolationist publications and stances.

Fast forward to Reboot 2014 and Ames persuasively argues that the conference’s Republican organizers bring a lot of these strains of right-wing belief with them. Moreover, the conference’s “big tent” philosophy seems to be the political equivalent of a startup blender: throw it all in and see what sticks. Ames notes that many of these political ingredients have very different political underpinnings.

Start with the “two libertarianisms, the hick fascism version owned by the Koch brothers, essentially rebranding Joe McCarthy with a pot leaf and a ponytail; and Silicon Valley’s emerging brand of optimistic, half-understood libertarianism, part hippie cybernetics, part hot-tub-Hayek,” he writes, referring to Friedrich Hayek, the Austrian economist worshipped by Libertarians. But there’s more.

“Lincoln Labs, the organizers of the Reboot conference, is run by a young Republican Party activist from Texas named Aaron Ginn, and Ginn has acknowledged that he’s essentially running a talent scouting agency for the talent-starved GOP, which recently set up offices in Silicon Valley.

“Running the GOP operations in Silicon Valley is a former senior Facebook engineering manager named Andrew Barkett, who now works as CTO of the Republican National Committee and partners in a privately held GOP data-mining firm based in San Mateo called Data Trust. Barkett explained [in the New York Times Magazine] how Lincoln Labs helps recruit new GOP foot soldiers: ‘We don’t need thousands of people; we need dozens,’ Mr. Barkett said. ‘We could do a lot of damage with 30 people. A lot. But they’ve got to be real engineers.’

Will the GOP’s organizers and recruiters find their next big thing at Reboot 2014? In the political world, one learns never to say never. But GOP prospecting in Silicon Valley is not exactly new. Sure, Rand Paul may walk away with money for TV ads in Iowa and New Hampshire. The California and House GOP may find new donors too, just as Reason.com may end up with new subscribers and underwriters. But will 30 code writers upend American politics as Barkett bragged to the Times? I don’t think so.

The anti-regulatory prescriptions no doubt appeal to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who want it all, want it now, and don’t want government in their way. But most of America doesn’t live in Libertarian utopias—like San Francisco’s fancy salons. They are like the rest of California, which is racially diverse, economically struggling, and more ripe for a different populist message, one more geared to working people.

There’s a reason why Republicans have floundered in California. People don’t like to be told by the religious right what to believe and how to live morally, just as they don’t like to be told by millionaires that they have to work harder to reach a new rung on the economic ladder. Libertarians may be making inroads into wealthy Silicon Valley, but they’re still a single-digit Republican Party faction in the rest of America.

Even Reason magazine’s latest national poll found that millennials—said to be the most Libertarian young generation in decades—overwhelmingly plan to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

FADEtoBLACK posted:

I don't understand why people promote Ayn Rand, she clearly didn't know what she was talking about and even said women shouldn't lead countries right?

Gantolandon posted:

I suppose a somewhat similar thing happened with Rand - a mediocre philosopher and atrocious writer got some praise from influential people because they liked her message, which started a chain reaction of praises. It helped that people likely to become libertarians tend to adhere to the Great Man Theory. They wanted to see a genius philosopher and helped to create one by becoming members of her army of sycophants.

wateroverfire posted:

D&D.txt. "Let me tell you about how your history has no nuance and no I don't know anything about it why would that be important?"

wateroverfire posted:

D&D.txt. "Let me tell you about how your history has no nuance and no I don't know anything about it why would that be important?"

Filippo Corridoni posted:

so I can easily assume you aren't amongst the legion of ordinary Chilean people who got dicked so hard that even today Chile is one of the most unequal nations in south america.

I really love how libertarians can only propagate the great leap forwards caused by the free-market in the world by ignoring the fact that the vast majority end up getting hosed in the rear end. They talk about how during Thatcher's reign the GDP went up by x% while ignoring that the livelihoods of the working-class faced a dramatic decline. They talk about New Zealand while ignoring the decline of wages for most workers. They talk about Hong Kong while ignoring the life of the average person living there. If it was good for the rich, then its automatically considered to be good for everybody. Then they can argue that libertarian policies just magically work despite common sense dictating otherwise.

wateroverfire posted:

D&D.txt. "Let me tell you about how your history has no nuance and no I don't know anything about it why would that be important?"

Mr Interweb posted:

I must say, I'm quite fascinated that libertarians and conservatives proudly bring up a brutal dictator like Pinochet as an example to bolster right-wing economic theory.

Mr Interweb posted:

I must say, I'm quite fascinated that libertarians and conservatives proudly bring up a brutal dictator like Pinochet as an example to bolster right-wing economic theory.

El Pollo Blanco posted:

Changing the subject somewhat; how do Libertarians who are absolutely opposed to any form of Government assistance propose to feed/house severely disabled people who are unable to work, and do not have families to care for them? I ask this because the leader of my country's Libertarian party has proposed an utterly ludicrous policy that would require any government department to disclose what the personal income tax brackets would be if their department was not funded. This of course focuses heavily on showing that the 19% income tax band would become 13% if the Ministry for Social Development (welfare) ceased to exist.

El Pollo Blanco posted:

Changing the subject somewhat; how do Libertarians who are absolutely opposed to any form of Government assistance propose to feed/house severely disabled people who are unable to work, and do not have families to care for them? I ask this because the leader of my country's Libertarian party has proposed an utterly ludicrous policy that would require any government department to disclose what the personal income tax brackets would be if their department was not funded. This of course focuses heavily on showing that the 19% income tax band would become 13% if the Ministry for Social Development (welfare) ceased to exist.

Filippo Corridoni posted:

Some really dumb

asdf32 posted:

Well it's pretty much identical, and as fascinating as leftists that will do the same for Stalin etc.

Mr Interweb posted:

I must say, I'm quite fascinated that libertarians and conservatives proudly bring up a brutal dictator like Pinochet as an example to bolster right-wing economic theory.

wateroverfire posted:

What would you know about conditions in Chile at the time? Or now, for that matter?

Chile was desperately poor and unequal when Allende was elected. Inflation and shortages due to mismanagement pretty well ensured that the poor were going to stay hosed.

You guys are the most absurd caricatures of clueless privileged leftists. You know nothing about the actual history of Chile or the conditions in Chile but gently caress it who cares because Communists Are Never Wrong and gently caress Capitalism Anyway and I Took a Lat Am Marxist Studies Internet Course Once.


It's not identical because saying "Allende was a failure and his policies were driving Chile into collapse" is not the same as saying "I approve of Pinochet".

Absurd Alhazred posted:

I'm actually interested in that period of time in Chile, through reading way too much about Project Cybersyn/Synco. If you wanted to create a relevant thread in... I guess SAL? I would gladly participate. Otherwise, would you say Sergio Bitar's book, "Chile: Experiment in Democracy" is good for getting a better idea of the economic background to Allende's rise and fall?

wateroverfire posted:

It's not identical because saying "Allende was a failure and his policies were driving Chile into collapse" is not the same as saying "I approve of Pinochet".

Steinlight posted:

“And we all know, if there ever was a president that deserved to be impeached, it’s this guy. Alright? And I wouldn’t stop. I would think being hung, drawn, and quartered is probably too good for him. But you know, this man who wants to rule by the use of a pen, a telephone, let us not forget his teleprompter … the fact is that it would backfire very badly and we’ve got to be grownups and accept that we can’t have everything we want, you know, [like] his head on a skewer.”

wateroverfire posted:

What would you know about conditions in Chile at the time? Or now, for that matter?

Chile was desperately poor and unequal when Allende was elected. Inflation and shortages due to mismanagement pretty well ensured that the poor were going to stay hosed.

You guys are the most absurd caricatures of clueless privileged leftists. You know nothing about the actual history of Chile or the conditions in Chile but gently caress it who cares because Communists Are Never Wrong and gently caress Capitalism Anyway and I Took a Lat Am Marxist Studies Internet Course Once.

clueless privileged leftist posted:

Pinochet was the figure-head of a military coup in 1973 against the democratically elected left-wing government, a coup which the CIA helped organise. Thousands of people were murdered by the forces of "law and order" during the coup and Pinochet's forces "are conservatively estimated to have killed over 11 000 people in his first year in power." [P. Gunson, A. Thompson, G. Chamberlain, The Dictionary of Contemporary Politics of South America, Routledge, 1989, p. 228]
The installed police state's record on human rights was denounced as barbaric across the world. However, we will ignore the obvious contradiction in this "economic miracle", i.e. why it almost always takes authoritarian/fascistic states to introduce "economic liberty," and concentrate on the economic facts of the free-market capitalism imposed on the Chilean people.

Working on a belief in the efficiency and fairness of the free market, Pinochet desired to put the laws of supply and demand back to work, and set out to reduce the role of the state and also cut back inflation. He, and "the Chicago Boys" -- a group of free- market economists -- thought what had restricted Chile's growth was government intervention in the economy -- which reduced competition, artificially increased wages, and led to inflation. The ultimate goal, Pinochet once said, was to make Chile "a nation of entrepreneurs."
The role of the Chicago Boys cannot be understated. They had a close relationship with the military from 1972, and according to one expert had a key role in the coup:
"In August of 1972 a group of ten economists under the leadership of de Castro began to work on the formulation of an economic programme that would replace [Allende's one]. . . In fact, the existence of the plan was essential to any attempt on the part of the armed forces to overthrow Allende as the Chilean armed forced did not have any economic plan of their own." [Silvia Bortzutzky, "The Chicago Boys, social security and welfare in Chile", The Radical Right and the Welfare State, Howard Glennerster and James Midgley (eds.), p. 88]
It is also interesting to note that "[a]ccording to the report of the United States Senate on covert actions in Chile, the activities of these economists were financed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)" [Bortzutzky, Op. Cit., p. 89]
Obviously some forms of state intervention were more acceptable than others.
The actual results of the free market policies introduced by the dictatorship were far less than the "miracle" claimed by Friedman and a host of other "Libertarians."

The initial effects of introducing free market policies in 1975 was a shock-induced depression which resulted in national output falling buy 15 percent, wages sliding to one-third below their 1970 level and unemployment rising to 20 percent. [Elton Rayack, Not so Free to Choose, p. 57] This meant that, in per capita terms, Chile's GDP only increased by 1.5% per year between 1974-80. This was considerably less than the 2.3% achieved in the 1960's. The average growth in GDP was 1.5% per year between 1974 and 1982, which was lower than the average Latin American growth rate of 4.3% and lower than the 4.5% of Chile in the 1960's. Between 1970 and 1980, per capita GDP grew by only 8%, while for Latin America as a whole, it increased by 40%. Between the years 1980 and 1982 during which all of Latin America was adversely affected by depression conditions, per capita GDP fell by 12.9 percent, compared to a fall of 4.3 percent for Latin America as a whole. [Elton Rayack, Op. Cit., p. 64]
In 1982, after 7 years of free market capitalism, Chile faced yet another economic crisis which, in terms of unemployment and falling GDP was even greater than that experienced during the terrible shock treatment of 1975. Real wages dropped sharply, falling in 1983 to 14 percent below what they had been in 1970. Bankruptcies skyrocketed, as did foreign debt. [Elton Rayack, Op. Cit., p. 69] By the end of 1986 Gross Domestic Product per capita barely equaled that of 1970 [Thomas Skidmore and Peter Smith, "The Pinochet Regime", pp. 137-138, Modern Latin America, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 1989].

The Pinochet regime did reduce inflation, from around 500% at the time of the CIA-backed coup, to 10% by 1982. From 1983 to 87, it fluctuated between 20 and 31%. The advent of the "free market" led to reduced barriers to imports "on the ground the quotas and tariffs protected inefficient industries and kept prices artificially high. The result was that many local firms lost out to multinational corporations. The Chilean business community, which strongly supported the coup in 1973, was badly affected." [Skidmore and Smith, Op. Cit.]

However, by far the hardest group hit was the working class, particularly the urban working class. By 1976, the third year of Junta rule, real wages had fallen to 35% below their 1970 level. It was only by 1981 that they has risen to 97.3% of the 1970 level, only to fall again to 86.7% by 1983. Unemployment, excluding those on state make-work programmes, was 14.8% in 1976, falling to 11.8% by 1980 (this is still double the average 1960's level) only to rise to 20.3% by 1982. [Rayack, Op. Cit., p. 65]. Unemployment (including those on government make-work programmes) had risen to a third of the labour force by mid-1983. By 1986, per capita consumption was actually 11% lower than the 1970 level. [Skidmore and Smith, Op. Cit.] Between 1980 and 1988, the real value of wages grew only 1.2 percent while the real value of the minimum wage declined by 28.5 percent. During this period, urban unemployment averaged 15.3 percent per year. [Silvia Bortzutzky, Op. Cit., p. 96] In other words, after nearly 15 years of free market capitalism, real wages had still not exceeded their 1970 levels.

The decline of domestic industry had cost thousands of better-paying jobs. The ready police repression made strikes and other forms of protest both impractical and dangerous. According to a report by the Roman Catholic Church 113 protesters had been killed during social protest against the economic crisis of the early 1980s, with several thousand detained for political activity and protests between May 1983 and mid-1984. Thousands of strikers were also fired and union leaders jailed. [Rayack, Op. Cit., p. 70] The law was also changed to reflect the power property owners have over their wage slaves and the "total overhaul of the labour law system [which] took place between 1979 and 1981. . . aimed at creating a perfect labour market, eliminating collective bargaining, allowing massive dismissal of workers, increasing the daily working hours up to twelve hours and eliminating the labour courts." [Silvia Borzutzky, Op. Cit., p. 91] Little wonder, then, that this favourable climate for business operations resulted in generous lending by international finance institutions.

One consequence of Pinochet's neo-classical monetarist policies "was a contraction of demand, since workers and their families could afford to purchase fewer goods. The reduction in the market further threatened the business community, which started producing more goods for export and less for local consumption. This posed yet another obstacle to economic growth and led to increased concentration of income and wealth in the hands of a small elite." [Skidmore and Smith, Op. Cit.]

It is the increased wealth of the elite that we see the true "miracle" of Chile. According to one expert in the Latin American neo-liberal revolutions, the elite "had become massively wealthy under Pinochet" and when the leader of the Christian Democratic Party returned from exile in 1989 he said that economic growth that benefited the top 10 per cent of the population had been achieved (Pinochet's official institutions agreed). [Duncan Green, The Silent Revolution, p. 216, Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy, p. 231] Thus the wealth created by the relatively high economic growth Chile experienced in the mid to late 1980s did not "trickle down" to the working class (as claimed would happen by "free market" capitalist dogma) but instead accumulated in the hands of the rich.

For example, in the last years of Pinochet's dictatorship, the richest 10 percent of the rural population saw their income rise by 90 per cent between 1987 and 1990. The share of the poorest 25 per cent fell from 11 per cent to 7 per cent. [Duncan Green, Op. Cit., p. 108] The legacy of Pinochet's social inequality could still be found in 1993, with a two-tier health care system within which infant mortality is 7 per 1000 births for the richest fifth of the population and 40 per 1000 for the poorest 20 per cent. [Ibid., p. 101]
Per capita consumption fell by 23% from 1972-87. The proportion of the population below the poverty line (the minimum income required for basic food and housing) increased from 20% to 44.4% from 1970 to 1987. Per capita health care spending was more than halved from 1973 to 1985, setting off explosive growth in poverty-related diseases such as typhoid, diabetes and viral hepatitis. On the other hand, while consumption for the poorest 20% of the population of Santiago dropped by 30%, it rose by 15% for the richest 20%. [Noam Chomsky, Year 501, pp. 190-191]

The impact on individuals extended beyond purely financial considerations, with the Chilean labour force "once accustomed to secure, unionised jobs [before Pinochet] . . . [being turned] into a nation of anxious individualists . . . [with] over half of all visits to Chile's public health system involv[ing] psychological ailments, mainly depression. 'The repression isn't physical any more, it's economic - feeding your family, educating your child,' says Maria Pena, who works in a fishmeal factory in Concepcion. 'I feel real anxiety about the future', she adds, 'They can chuck us out at any time. You can't think five years ahead. If you've got money you can get an education and health care; money is everything here now.'" [Duncan Green, Op. Cit., p. 96]

Little wonder, then, that "adjustment has created an atomised society, where increased stress and individualism have damaged its traditionally strong and caring community life. . . suicides have increased threefold between 1970 and 1991 and the number of alcoholics has quadrupled in the last 30 years . . . [and] family breakdowns are increasing, while opinion polls show the current crime wave to be the most widely condemned aspect of life in the new Chile. 'Relationships are changing,' says Betty Bizamar, a 26-year-old trade union leader. 'People use each other, spend less time with their family. All they talk about is money, things. True friendship is difficult now.'"[Ibid., p. 166]
The experiment with free market capitalism also had serious impacts for Chile's environment. The capital city of Santiago became one of "the most polluted cities in the world" due the free reign of market forces. [Nathanial Nash, cited by Noam Chomsky, Year 501, p. 190] With no environmental regulation there is general environmental ruin and water supplies have severe pollution problems. [Noam Chomsky, Ibid.]

Since Chile has become a democracy (with the armed forces still holding considerable influence) some movement towards economic reforms have begun and been very successful. Increased social spending on health, education and poverty relief has lifted over a million Chileans out of poverty between 1987 and 1992. In even the neo-liberal tiger has had to move away from free market policies and the Chilean government has had to intervene into the economy in order to start putting back together the society ripped apart by market forces and authoritarian government.

So, for all but the tiny elite at the top, the Pinochet regime of "economic liberty" was a nightmare. Economic "liberty" only seemed to benefit one group in society, an obvious "miracle." For the vast majority, the "miracle" of economic "liberty" resulted, as it usually does, in increased poverty, pollution, crime and social alienation. The irony is that many right-wing "libertarians" point to it as a model of the benefits of the free market.

Halloween Jack posted:

Did anyone get raped by dogs under Allende's regime? No? Okay, he wins. It is that simple.

Filippo Corridoni posted:

V. Illych L. posted:

Eh. Brutal regimes often have some redeeming features, and economic policy can generally be held as at least somewhat loose from social policy. Of course, Pinochet's economic policy also didn't work except for the already very rich, so he doesn't even have that going for him.

wateroverfire posted:

Bitar is a good source.

For a purely economic reading of Chilean history Economic Reforms in Chile: From Dictatorship to Democracy by Ricardo Ffrench-Davis is decent.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Ooh, and in PDF, to boot! Thanks a bunch! In return, if you're ever interested in the history of the European Southern Observatory in the Atacama desert, there's a recent 50-year retrospective available online here. Has a little bit about the Pinochet coup, although it doesn't really go into Chilean politics very much.

El Pollo Blanco posted:

wateroverfire posted:

What's your source? I just know it's got to be amazing scholarship.