"The Chicago School Neoliberal Success Model in Chile" Lie

What is your response to the fact that Chile, Milton Friedman’s free market experiment, recently became the first Latin American nation to be accepted into the OECD? It’s the first developed Latin American nation, and they had General Pinochet, wow! He wasn’t a socialist, he was pretty right wing. Cato insists that Friedman and his Chicago School boys fixed Chile.

What exactly was the basis for that decision? I’d take Trinidad and Tobago over Chile any day of the week -it’s 2X as rich as Chile. On what basis do they say it’s “the first developed country in Latin America?” Compare Chile to most any country in Europe. Not a pretty picture! It’s not even a very wealthy country. Venezuela is richer. Chile’s been a pretty middle class country for 40 years. Nothing new there. Actually, Friedman’s boys, a bunch of Jews from Chicago, destroyed Chile. They implemented the most radical neoliberal experiment the world has ever seen under Pinochet, and within a few years, it caused one of the worst depressions in modern times. Pinochet quickly threw the Chicago Jews out after he figured out they were selling snake oil, and he reinstituted a lot of state controls, spending, etc. The result was a long slow climb in economic growth out of the Chicago Crash. But that growth was due to a more socialist project, not the neoliberal project. The neoliberals are taking credit for the socialist stuff that came afterward that was put in to undo the damage they caused. By the end of Pinochet’s era, in 1990, the Chilean economy finally matched where it had been under Allende. However, Pinochet’s project did result in massive income redistribution in Chile. Since 1990, Chile has been run in general by socialist parties which have not pursued a radical neoliberal agenda. Income was distributed upwards, in a major way, from the bottom 2/3 to the top 1/3. If Chile were the US, this would be like a massive redistribution of wealth from families earning less than $75,000/yr to families making more than $75,000/yr. This is the sort of income redistribution that makes the Cato Institute party til dawn. Do you agree with such an income redistribution project? Public transit is in shambles, and the public schools are falling apart. You have nice neighborhoods with big houses, but they have private guards, big dogs, high walls and barbed wire fences to keep out the armies of criminals. Meanwhile, the masses teem below. There is a tremendous amount of property crime due to the massive inequality. Chile still has some pretty good health figures because they put in a lot of socialism in 1960-1973, and Pinochet was never able to dismantle it all that much. Privatization of social security has been a dismal failure. Chile is sickeningly classist and racist. The classism and racism would freak out any American. Society has contempt for anyone who works with his hands. The best men are said to have “fine hands,” as if you never did manual labor. If your hands are rough (means you’re a worker) then you’re a no-good derelict loser. Society blames the working class for being poor. It’s said that the reason they are poor is because they drink and gamble away their paychecks and don’t save it for a rainy day, not because they aren’t paid shit. The Indians are hated and ridiculed and regarded as ugly. Chileans hate Peruvians, and one of their complaints against Peruvians is that Peruvians are hideous Indians, whereas Chileans are you know, White people. Except they are 2 Chile is shit. Fuck that country.

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0 thoughts on “"The Chicago School Neoliberal Success Model in Chile" Lie”

  1. “Chile is shit. Fuck that country”
    Brilliant ending. I get sick of reading dull boring writing and really wish people woulkd add more bluntness and character to their pieces. Brilliant.

  2. Would have been better if you shown evidence of things like wealth distribution, level and growth of the middle class, corruption, etc in regards to Chile and other Latin American countries which is considered the best performing country in the LA region.
    “Chile is sickeningly classist and racist. The classism and racism would freak out any American.
    So is Venezuela and Bolivia were you have essentially the darker skin indigenous people in the poorer areas who support Chavez and Morales and the rich elite aligned with the oligarchs white skinned people in Venezuela anyway who hate each other.

    1. Chile is “the best performing country in Latin America.” WTF are you talking about, dude? Huh?
      Chile sucks. The gap between the rich and the poor is insane and the state hasn’t tried to do much about it.
      The problem with Chile is that it is like the USA. The dominant cultural tropes are things like contempt for the working class, hatred for the Indians, etc. These dominant tropes are the dominant tropes of Chilean society as a whole. Sure, in Bolivia and Venezuela, there are similar elites with similarly shitty attitudes, but guess what? They’re a minority! Their cultural views are not those of the culture at large. ATM, the dominant cultural view in Venezuela is Chavismo. The dominant cultural view in Bolivia is Moralesismo. That’s better! Culture is nation, and Chile is one sick case.
      I told you about how the Pinochet project resulted in a massive wealth redistribution from the lower 2/3 to the upper 1/3, which was its main achievement over a 17 year period. A lot of folks who favor the upper classes think that kind of class war is pretty cool. Is that the way you feel, John UK? If not, why are you cheering on the Chilean project?
      How do you feel about the privatization of Social Security in Chile, regarded as a disaster? Are you aware that public schools in Chile are literally falling apart? Do you know why that is? It is because rich Chileans run Chile, and they are such assholes that they refuse to be taxed to pay for public schools, because anyone with money in Chile (the top 1/3) sends their kids to private schools. This is the dominant cultural mindset of the ruling class in Chile: fuck the public schools, and the rich shall pay no taxes.
      Why are you singing the praises of this fucked up country, John UK?
      Granted, Chile’s been ruled by socialists for a while now, but I’m not sure what they were able to accomplish. They were pretty wimpy and restrained in what they tried to do. They were afraid of the oligarchy.

  3. Chile is also often proclaimed to be the least corrupt Latin American country. They score high on the corruption index.

    1. Good for them.
      Oh.
      One more thing, under the massive income redistribution under Pinochet, Chilean workers saw their wages fall by 1/3. Chile really sucks, I’m telling you. It’s sort of like the US though. It’s probably more like the US than any other country in Latin America. The US, UK and Chile are the only 3 places on Earth where neoliberalism is actually embraced by large sections of the masses. The rest of the world rightfully despises it.

    1. No, he is not ok. Neoliberal “free marketeer.” Supports the privatization of Social Security in the US, among other things. A typical asshole, probably well to do, blogger from that part of the world. Understand that almost everyone on the Net at all in Latin America is part of the well to do classes, hence they are politically rightwing.
      In the Americas except Canada and Costa Rica, well to do = rightwing.

  4. I lived up in Canada for quite some time, and your absolutley right Robert. Theyre pretty leftwing. Which is kinda weird, if you think about it. Alot of people speculate on this. Why do you think Canadian whites are so much more socialist than their american white counterparts? quite the conundrum.

    1. They stayed with Britain longer as a colony, hence they are a lot more British. We had our revolution, which unfortunately set the ball rolling on the US rightwing in a way. Frontier ethic, go it alone, and all that.

  5. Dear Robert
    Not only did Pinochet’s government impoverish the masses for the benefit of a minority, in the early 1980’s the Chilean economy went into a deep depression, not a recession. Unemployment reached 25% and the banks collapsed, forcing Pinochet to nationalize the banks temporarily. That’s how it is with these market fundamentalists. As soon as things go seriously wrong, they throw their supposedly steely commitment to the free market overboard and rely on the state to save them. They are like teenagers who incessantly complain about their parents, but who run to those same parents when they get in serious trouble.
    If you saw the 33 Chilean miners who were in the news recently, you will have noticed that the majority were at least partially Amerindian. Chile is no more a white country than Costa Rica. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Amerindian contribution to the Chilean genetic pool is around 40%.
    Cheers. James

    1. I know what you mean. I’m getting sick of my shit too. It’s like mud from the Colorado River! You know what I mean? I mean visualize it man, visualize it! I wipe and wipe, and there’s still more. I could lay and egg and hatch it and still be wiping away with no end in sight to the shit.
      You got a solution bro?

  6. it’s hard to even have these arguments when so much of world economic activity is hidden away from us. it’s hidden away two ways: the US military black budget, and the drug war (and other black-markets).

  7. You people are funny, have any of you actually lived, or even visited Chile or other Latin American country? If you have you would not be speaking the ridiculous things you do on here.
    You talk about the Pinochet years bla bla. In 1973 the country’s economy was nearly destroyed. It rebounded by the late 70s but guess what? The world went onto a WORLDWIDE recession in 1982-83. Somehow this was Pinochet’s fault hey? Then policies became more pragmatic and by 1990 the country was economically stable.
    Most measures you look at versus other Latin American countries you will notice Chile on top. If this country is such ‘shit’ as some of you say, why are thousands of immigrants coming to Chile from Argentina, Bolivia and Peru? There are 200.000 Argentines and 100.000 Peruvians living in Chile.
    As for the miners…yes they were all mostly mixed blood Id say about equal European and Amerindian. But guess what? Miners are at the very bottom of the social scale..as you move up, amerindian blood is less and less. And dont give me this racist and discrimination speech, there are millions of non white people in the USA and Canada, and how many do we see in high positions of power? Government? In proportion to their numbers?Do not be two faced.

    1. Fuck you Pinochetist dog. Your country is shit and so are you. Back to your doghouse!
      Pinochet’s radical reforms ruined the economy. Then he threw out the Chicago Boys and put in more Keynesian measures and things got back in control. Neoclassical economics, including the ultraradical experiments like Pinochet did., don’t work. Even the dog Pinochet admitted that. BTW, I am a supporter of the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front, who almost killed your pet dog Pinochet in 1986. They missed him but they killed some other fascist dogs instead.
      Your country has always been one of the wealthiest in Latin America, even under Allende. It has nothing to do with radical capitalism or any of that. Sure, other Latin Americans are coming there. People from poor countries migrate to sickening racist shitholes like Chile for the sole reason that it is richer.
      BTW, your “Allende destroyed the economy” crap. First of all, there was a capital strike and capital flight, and your beloved CIA gusanos tried to “make the economy scream” in the words of your hero Henry Kissinger. Despite all of that chaos, by 1990, 17 years after Allende, Pinochet’s economy finally *reached* the level of the Allende economy in 1973. So Allende’s economy totally kicked ass on Pinochet’s crap GNP wise.
      Your country is a shithole, and you’re a bourgeois reactionary asshole. Fuck you.

  8. Robert,
    I was a supporter of Patria Y Libertad, so we are even you Marxist scumbag! And yes, we did get rid of the scum in Chile, starting with the drunken Allende who had very burgeois tastes himself!
    Robin Hood policies do not apply in the real world and at a national scale, go back to your la la land little mind where this may just work! People like you are for the most part a joke in Chile regardless of what you say, the Chilean Communist party gets 4% or 5% of the vote if they are lucky. If the economy and everything the military did was such shit, why didnt the centre-left government change it completly in 1990? It is because of these policies that Chile has the lowest rate of poverty in the region, and the highest Per Capita income as well. Fuck these neo-liberal policies are shit hey? We should just scrap all this and turn Marxist, where everyone can be equal in poverty, well except off course for Communist party officials, just ask Fidel Castro and his close circle of dictatorial friends.

    1. Ok, that does it. You’re banned, you little fascist dog.
      My position is that you can make alliances with anyone, but no alliances with fascists. You don’t make alliance with fascists. You kill fascists.
      I was a supporter of Patria Y Libertad
      Yes we know you are a fascist, Perro.
      the Chilean Communist party gets 4% or 5% of the vote if they are lucky.
      Yes but Allende’s party just keeps winning and winning, no? 1999, Bachelet?

      1. But he does make an interesting point Robert don’t right wing governments usually fair better than left wing ones?
        I don’t know who has the better human rights record.

  9. Chiles economy is expected to reach first world standards by 2017;) cheers:) And considering that fact that most of them are Mestizos, whites in Chile have no problem against them, since they are used to them. You are not born racist;)

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