Jeorg writes:
I largely subscribe to you view. But it is exactly like in the Bigfoot world: same people or same events – and two TOTALLY different points of view about it/about them? Is Dyer the devil (or just a clown) or the holy saver of the bf community?
Assigned to this issue: Is Chile – and other parts of Latin America – now so strong, because of decades of socialism that redistributed public wealth among the people OR because of the more liberal, free-market policies even those socialist governments have adopted in recent years (especially Chile and Brazil)? I am with you, Robert, but one can see it totally different like this free-market think-tank guru.
First of all, the Right lies all the time about Venezuela. It has actually been a smashing success, maybe not for the rich and the top 20%, but for everyone else it has been. It’s been a wild success story. Now, maybe if you lay the figures out, Chile looks better, but so what? Chile is just about the only place where even partway neoliberal model even works at all.
Everywhere else on the continent, and indeed in the world, it’s caused nothing but disaster. Generally what happens is you get slow economic growth, and you have a massive redistribution of wealth from the bottom 80% to the top 20%. So neoliberalism in the US basically takes money from everyone making less than $80,000/year and gives it to the people making more than $80,000/year.
This is what neoliberalism does everywhere. Furthermore, it has dismantled health and welfare systems all over the world and the truth is it has killed millions of people due to disease, lack of medications, etc. Education systems have been dismantled. Unions are wiped out and pared way down.
The Right lies about Chile. After the coup, Pinochet called in the Chicago Boys and they implemented some of the most radical free market projects ever tried anywhere. This quickly caused an extreme economic crisis and a huge depression followed. Pinochet then threw the Chicago Boys out, reversed a lot of their crazy neoliberal stuff, and adopted a more state-centered approach to growth involving a lot of government involvement and spending.
Society then began a long, slow climb out of the horrible depression. It is the growth coming out of this Depression that the neoliberal liars refer to as “Chile Miracle.” When Pinochet left office, the economy was about where it was when Allende was in in 1973.
Pinochet did do a lot of crazy things. He privatized Social Security, which is probably going to be a very bad idea. He engaged in massive wealth redistribution that shifted a huge amount of wealth from the bottom 2/3 of wage earners, who were horribly immiserated, upwards to the top 1/3 of wage earners, who got a windfall. Society ended up extremely polarized, and the class hatred is so thick you can cut it with your knife.
The rich live on hills in mansions with high walls and even barbed wire sometimes, guard dogs, you name it. Every night, the poor move up from the ravines into the hills to steal from the rich. So wealth gets redistributed one way or the other, you see, either legally or illegally. There are regular demostrations and riots which often turn deadly. There are also regular street protests between a radicalized Left and a Right that still loves Pinochet. There are attacks in these street fights and sometimes people are killed.
Pinochet never took apart the state health system, and the education system is not bad, but it has been defunded by the state, so the public schools are literally falling apart, as in their roofs are caving in. The rich won’t pay taxes, so there is no money to fix the schools. The students riot all the time. Sure, the Left is radicalized, but Bachelet sort of had her hands tied when she was in and she could not do a lot of the good stuff she wanted to do. I think a real rightwinger actually won the election last time around.
The Right lies because there is a lot of socialism in Chile. There is the foundations of a welfare state. On the other hand, there is some free market bullshit too. It’s not some neoliberal radical free market laissez faire paradise.
Venezuela has done very well under Bolivarian socialism, but apparently Chile has better figures. But Venezuela is probably a nicer place to live. The government cares about the masses in Venezuela, whereas in Chile, the whole system is set up to enrich the top 1/3 and screw everyone else.
