"Immediately after the coup the junta moved to crush their left-wing opposition. In addition to pursuing armed revolutionary groups it embarked on a campaign against opponents and perceived leftists in the country. As a result, according to the Rettig Commission, approximately 3,000 people are known to have been killed, 27,000[1] were incarcerated and in a great many cases tortured." [1]
Reading "The Shock doctrine" by Naomi Klein opened my eyes. She would disagree with you on the "halfway-to-Cuba socialism":
"As for the argument that Friedmanite policies are the reason Chileans live in "houses of brick" instead of "straw", it's clear that Stephens knows nothing of pre-coup Chile. The Chile of the 1960s had the best health and education systems on the continent, as well as a vibrant industrial sector and a rapidly expanding middle class." [2]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Junta_of_Chile_(1973...
[2] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/mar...
I sometimes defend Pinochet, mostly economically. So do millions of other Chileans. I'd guess about half. Hell, I know people who had champagne ready for when the coup came about. Did people die? Yes. Lawfully? No. But Allende's government had already been declared illegal by the Chilean Supreme Court, and was rapidly turning into Cuban-style communism. Pinochet didn't make the stakes higher than they already were.
And economically, which was what we were talking about, again, it was a case of taxing less and spending less that worked very well.
I'd have to dig a bit for the link to his speech though, it was a few years ago.
(Besides, 3000 dead and 27000 incarcerated and many of those tortured -- sounds like a left regime rounding error... :-) )
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-pinochet-affair-i-saw-...
It was during the first three days they were held captive that Mr Schesch and his wife became aware of the lines of people being formed up and then led out of the stadium - almost certainly to concentration camps - or else inside, to face the firing squad.
3000 dead is, sadly, a rounding error for the ideology that gets five percent of the vote in my home country.
Right now I'm in East Europe and shocked at the stories of how Soviet broke the back of any complaints -- just these are worse than Chile in most countries here... And mostly unknown.
It might be different where you live.
But I do agree with what you seem to imply -- one person is too many.
But it is wasted of course, no idealist changes his/her mind just because they learn that their empress is naked.
You did mention the economy getting hit bad in 1982 (and 1983, and 1984), you didn't mention Chile was bailed out by an IMF loan of over $7 billion. As Chile's GDP in 1986 was $17 billion, this was a rather big bailout from Uncle Sam.
Speaking of Uncle Sam funding, you can read on the CIA's own web site a rather polished up version of its involvement in Chile at that time ( http://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/chile/i... ). While it mentions plenty of covert funding, what is not mentioned is how many of those strikes you speak of were bankrolled by the CIA, US AID, ITT affiliated organizations and so on. Many of the workers who were on strike were managers or professionals.
Then of course there's the question of whether a democratically elected government should be overthrown with the heavy financial and military help of a foreign power, leading to a new system where a happy day for a young woman imprisoned in secret detention centers was where she would just be raped, as opposed to a host of the bizarre things that happened at the secret detention centers that came out in Chile's 2004 government Valech commission report. That aside, the GDP growth was less than Chile's neighbors were doing at the time and was fairly small anyhow.
Yes it was. Keep in mind, the price of copper favoured Chile during Allende and disfavoured Pinochet--and it was, as we say, "el sueldo (salary) de Chile." I don't see what's wrong with the loan--Chile paid it back in full--and really, you're cherry picking when it comes to dates after the coup.
At the center of the argument is the question: does spending less and taxing less work? Keep in mind, the tax regime, to this day, is almost identical to what it was in the eighties (very low), and now Chile is the only country in the region in the OECD.
Chile's GDP in 1969 was 7 billion. 1970 Allende becomes president it is 8 billion. 1971 its 9 billion. 1972 its 10 billion. 1973, the year of the coup its 11 billion. Then 1974: 16 billion, 1975: 15 billion, 1976: 7 billion, 1977: 9 billion. It was 3.5 billion less in 1976 then it has been in 1972 under Allende. So then it runs up and begins descending again. 1984 19.8 billion, 1985 19.2 billion, 1986 16.5 billion, 1987 17.7 billion.
Going from 11.5 billion in 1972 to 16.5 billion in 1986, 17.7 billion in 1987 is not all that impressive.
From 1994 to 2010, under left wing governments, Chile's GDP grew by $124 billion to $172 billion.
This notion that the coup transformed the Chilean economy for the better was at its height (in the U.S. as well) in 1982 - right before the crash, which needed a multi-billion dollar IMF loan/bailout. The story you're telling sounded better 31 years ago, before that big crash.
It was only ratified in 2010 after being run by socialist governments for twenty years.
Ultimately, if, as a country, you're thinking of going down the tax-less spend-more road, you have to amass enough power in the hands of the people that will carry it out (in this case a dictator) that the public sector can't go on an endless tirade of strikes and sabotage. If not, guess what'll happen? The essentials from among the things the government provides will be the first to go in an attempt to rile the public up. But how many cushy do-nothing bureaucrats will get fired? That's where government spending is, in its vast majority—in the salaries of government employees. If you want to tax less and spend more, keep in mind that you'll be going toe-to-toe with the people that run government (more-so than politicians) and that it's a serious political battle for the country to take on.
So in that sense you're right--expecting to politically shift over to tax-less spend-less policy may be fruitless and unrealistic, if only because the people one is trying to lay off will always sabotage the effort.