I thought of this argument: Yes, the U.S. supported a brutal dictator, but if it did not, a communist would have been elected, and contrary to the naïve belief a future election would have removed him from power, there would not have been another election. The brutality under Pinochet pales with what would have happened under a communist. We did evil to prevent greater evil, but since the greater evil did not occur, people are ungrateful from what we saved them from.
Feedack?
Sounds like Hazlitt’s book, The Cold War in One Lesson.
You can predict the future?
Plus, state intervention is ok if it’s in defense of capitalism?
I thought of this argument: Yes, the U.S. supported a brutal dictator, but if it did not, a communist would have been elected, and contrary to the naïve belief a future election would have removed him from power, there would not have been another election. The brutality under Pinochet pales with what would have happened under a communist. We did evil to prevent greater evil, but since the greater evil did not occur, people are ungrateful from what we saved them from.
I don’t believe Pinochet’s success depended on the U.S. Government’s support, though perhaps it did depend on not being subverted by them. I also do not think Pinochet was that bad, relatively speaking. Leftist rhetoric aside probably the vast majority of people he killed and kidnapped were Communist insurgents who, to put it lightly, had it coming. Certainly he was violent and oppressive, but that is all governments; compared to the objective facts of the United States Government or his neighbors he is virtually called for Sainthood.
George Reisman has written on him here, here and here; while Jeffrey Tucker has a different take here.
there would not have been another election.
This is absolutely truth.
The naive notion that a socialist regime that openly declared its disgust for “bourgeois democracy”, defied the chilean congress and the courts of justice, broke the constitution and the laws, promoted political violence and terrorism and accepted financial, military and political support from the KGB and the cuban DGI was going to leave power peacefully is absurd.
Allende himself was called class traitor by the most radical marxists in 1973 just for considering the posibility of a negotiation with the chilean opposition.
You people disgust me.
Let me just break it down on what Chile under Pinochet really was like.
The Chilean economy was a state-controlled economy even under Pinochet. The junta controlled nationalised businesses like CODELCO, and used CIPEC, a copper cartel, to raise prices and benefit junta controlled copper company. To protect their nationalised interests from foreign competition, the junta launched CORFO, a state agency that maintained an ISI policy (import substitution industrialization), where they created every protectionist barrier to prevent foreign competition from destroying their source of income. CORFO formed 13 public sector companies which would export goods, have a monopoly, and bring the money to junta hands. After CORFO, the junta used Fundación Chile and ProChile to ensure that all the foreign investment that came in was diverted only to their monopoly export businesses, which mostly controlled all natural resource commodities, like forestry sector.
Chile was like this before the junta, during the junta, and after the junta. The system remained the same, “reforms” aside. Calling Chile a free market country is the biggest lie of tabloid media I have ever heard, and it is debunked by actually looking into how the Chilean economy worked. Let alone any discussion on whether the Chilean junta’s state controlled economy was good or bad, people can’t even establish facts first.
Chile went from 500 nationalised industries to 25 nationalised industries. 25 nationalised industries is ALOT, no? One must not ask whether Pinochet was a reckless privatizer so much as whether the older Chile was a reckless nationaliser. Reducing the level of nationalised control from 500 industries to 25 industries is like United States halving the size of its navy - it will still have the largest fleet in the world. United States does not have 25 nationalised industries because it never nationalised 25 industries in the first place. In Chile, we have a despot who wanted less feudal power in his hands than the feudal power his predecessor did - not because he believed in ideology, but because he needed to give his serfs some space to make more money for him. This was never an issue of “free market vs. government control”.
I am deeply annoyed that Illana Mercer, whom I consider a joker of a woman in the first place, thinks it is a good thing to drown communists in water filled with feces, drop communist families from helicopters into the ocean, or tear young communist teenagers apart from their families and put them in a place where they sing national anthems all day long. Let me remind Mises.Org forum posters that many people here, such as Andrew Cain, are ex-communists and would have befallen the same fate if they were in Chile.
Tell me this. You people consider it to be a good thing that a man murders communists, simply because he held fewer nationalised industries under his hands?
The Chilean economy was a state-controlled economy even under Pinochet.
Yes, but it was significantly liberalized with regards to tax rates and outright expropriation, likewise social security was significantly privatized; and as the years went in it got even better. Now, there is no question that Pinochet was a thug - of course he was, he was a politician. But there is nothing better about a democratic government as opposed to a military one; and there is nothing more just about a democratically elected Communist than a nationalist put into power by a coupe. Now it would be better if the Commies and the military had all shot each other or themselves and left people to their own devices, but as it was I think this was definitely the better alternative to a communist who was ruining the economy.
Today Chile is one of the freest economies in the world, and in terms of tax rates and regulations the leaders in economic freedom are about equally divided between authoritarian and democratical regimes; and the democratic regimes are far more militant and far more obsessed with politically correct reform of the individual.
Nobody is looking for a ‘good guy’, if anyone was a good guy it was the handful of economists who actually were interested in liberalization; nobody is saying Pinochet is some kind of libertarian hero; what he was was less-bad than Allende and the murderous communist insurgents. While Pinochet undoubtedly abused innocent people the majority of people he was fighting with were violent communists who were fight to turn the country into a Stalinist hell-hole. And that, IMO, is pretty much an abdication of any rights.
The junta launched CORFO, a state agency that maintained an ISI policy (import substitution industrialization), where they created every protectionist barrier to prevent foreign competition from destroying their source of income
Actually the CORFO was founded during the government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda during the 40s.
Chile had been a heavily state regulated economy for years before Allende took the power, he just took advantage of was already in place and pushed it to the limit.
Chile had been a heavily state regulated economy for years before Allende took the power, he just took advantage of was already in place and pushed it to the limit.
Right, like most South and Central American states, Chile was already a hyper-mercantalist kleptocracy.
And Pinoochet’s Chile wasn’t a mercantilist kleptocracy?
One of the things that amazes me about some South and Central American states is that some “small government” military dictator will take over, and then leave with far greater government excesses under his belt, with fat public sector paychecks for him and his friends.
And Pinoochet’s Chile wasn’t a mercantilist kleptocracy?
It was more of a Cameralist kleptocracy, which is somewhat better from an economic standpoint. Obviously, as I said, not something a libertarian would recommend.
So if I understand you guys correctly, we should invade N Korea right now. And so what if another brutal dictator takes power… at least he’s not a marxist!
So if I understand you guys correctly, we should invade N Korea right now. And so what if another brutal dictator takes power… at least he’s not a marxist!
What does this have to do with anything anyone has said? People have said that Pinochet may not have been as bad as Allende. I don’t think the United States even had anything to do with Pinochet’s coupe, at most they failed to subvert him when he was in power. I don’t know what point you’re trying to make, as this is a total misrepresentaiton of what anyone has said; and gives me the feeling that you are a leftist; since this is the same knee-jerk reaction they have to Pinochet.
and gives me the feeling that you are a leftist; since this is the same knee-jerk reaction they have to Pinochet.
That was uncalled-for.
That was uncalled-for.
I’m not using it as an insult, this is the experience I have had with left-libertarians and leftists more generally. Because the accusations he made had no actual resemblance to what anyone in this thread said.
The communist exile from the Chile that I knew said that Pinochet was given a $4m bribe by the CIA to start the coup. (No idea what is the source.) His dad was among those interned for communist activism.
Chile is #5 in the EFW 2010 Annual Report in summary economic freedom ratings. The chain-linked summary goes back to 1980, when the rating for Chile was 5.53, moving up to 7.02 in 1995. (Mostly from hyperinflation.) Sanjay apparently disagrees?
The communist exile from the Chile that I knew said that Pinochet was given a $4m bribe by the CIA to start the coup. (No idea what is the source.)
Probably some communist BS that he just believed because some other commie said it. I find it really hard to take a communist partisan’s claims about knowledge of what the CIA is doing at high government levels seriously. That is not a credible source, for reasons of access and selection bias if not outright dishonesty.
Now, I am sure the CIA embedded itself into Pinochet’s regime, somewhat. They do that with every country they can. Doesn’t make Pinochet a ‘CIA’ job. National Review is a CIA job, as are most pro-democracy revolutions in the middle east and Eastern Europe. Chile was a classic example of the military stepping in when the commander of the state is endangering their privileges with his rampant abuse.
It sure wasn’t libertopia and the should not have intervened, if American intervention was indeed what brought Pinochet to power.
But aside these two remarks, I still hold him to have instituted the most decent dictatorship ever. is a step ahead in these days precisely because of Pinochet. Too bad he could not name himself King of Chile, instead of being jailed in a continent teeming with commie dictators who walk freely in daylight.
It sure wasn’t libertopia and the US should not have intervened, if American intervention was indeed what brought Pinochet to power.
But aside these two remarks, I still hold him to have instituted the most decent dictatorship ever. Chile is a step ahead in Latin America these days precisely because of Pinochet. Too bad he could not name himself King of Chile, instead of being jailed in a continent teeming with commie dictators who walk freely in daylight.
Agreed on all counts. The leftist Pinochet haters always leave out one thing: Pinochet left most normal people alone and let them work and live however they wanted as long as they stayed out of his way. The same can not be said for Allende or psychopaths like Chavez.
The communist exile from the Chile that I knew said that Pinochet was given a $4m bribe by the CIA to start the coup.
Thats not true, there is no document, at least I have never seen or heard of one, that mentions any movement of money from the CIA to the chilean military.
In reality the chilean army had a very strong anti-communist mentality, partially because many of its officials had been formed in the “School of the Americas”, they didnt need an economic incentive to hate Allende’s socialist regime or to be suspicious of its ties to the cuban dictatorship.