Would you support a military coup?

Economics Political Theory
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Would you support a military coup and its paternalistic policies in order to provide economic freedom?
Consider, that under such conditions, the dictator will restrict individual freedom and civil liberties. Moreover, opponents may get killed or imprisoned. Take Pinochet’s junta as an example. He restricted and killed people.

  • Do you support PInochet’ s restriction methods?
  • Would you support something like that?
  • In other words, do Libertarians support the saying “The end justifies the means.” If no, why not?
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Make sure you call the cops on any idiot that says “yes”. Unless of course, you don’t have to call…

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The first bolded phrase contradicts the second one. Paternalistic policies, by definition, don’t provide economic freedom.

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Of course not Officer!

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Well we would have to, no? You said opponents would be liable to be killed!

Please don’t worry about us Mr. Fascist, we would support the hell out of your junta! We’re no threat to you, promise!

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People in South America generally supported the 60’s and 70’s coups by military juntas, because they understood their democratic systems had been hijacked by soviet funded political machines, whereas their military and their church remained comparatively more aligned to the traditional values embraced by these peoples.

It is clear that Pinochet regimen doesn’t look good compared to the one headed by the dannish prime minister at the time. But only for a complete idiot or the people running Amnesty International it would make any sense to compare the groundlevel situations in Denmark and Chile. If you compare it to the more probable alternative of Chile becoming a USSR satellite, just like Cuba, Pinochet’s rule doesn’t look that bad at all.

On the contrary, he was the only South American dictator that effectively forestalled the rising red tide in his country, something he achieved by killing the main KGB assets infiltrated in Allende’s government and neutralizing other high profile communist operators. And he was able to get much of the job done during and shortly after the critical takeover phase of the coup.

Every successful political gangster knows that purges must be executed fast. The good thing about the communist, and what makes him an easier foe than the otherwise similar islamic terrorist, is that he is generally materialistic and he fears dying, so you can bring him down by sheer brutality.

The less abrasive approach of other countries, like Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela, has allowed the radical left to regroup and wait for their hour of reprisal.

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Pinochet opened Chilean economy. He applied Chicago Boys’ policies. Before him, Alliente restricted extremely economic transactions of Chilean citizens.

That’s why I asked if you would support Pinochet’s coup (with all his murders etc), in order to prevent Aliente make things worse. In other words, my question is if you would support the State in imprisoning, killing, restricting freedom of expression …in order to implement free market economy..in order to open the economy.

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answer is “no.”

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No I don’t think Chile needed to be protected from any Alliente/Aliente.

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Thread "would you support a military coup" was blocked
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You may be under the impression that the primary goal of Pinochet coup and regime was to free Chile’s markets.

That’s not exactly true.

He was the leader of a military coup against a controversial marxist president in a politically unstable country.

It was not a particularly new situation to Latin America. Nine years before it had been Brazil.

The move towards free markets happened mainly because Chilean universities had already successful exchange programs with American universities at the time, in particular the Chicago University.

Due to this and other fortunate circumstances, the economic advisory body of the new regime became quickly populated with free-marketeers from Chicago.

But that was largely incidental, not part of a plan by Pinochet.

He would probably have used whomever was available at the time who was not a marxist. Keynesians or austrians or anything. And it happened to be chicagoites, for the good luck of the chilean people.

In Brazil, for instance, the economic advisors to the early military presidents were mainly keynesian people from places like Princeton, Harvard and Yale, with their much more inflationist and protectionist views.

The developmental approach they designed was based upon substitution of imports and cheap credit and after a brief boom period in the early seventies Brazil’s economy experienced a long period of twenty years of stagflation, with episodes nearing hyperinflation. And many currency reforms, the average lifetime of a given currency denomination being less then the time bitcoin has been around.

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I don’t know who in their right mind would say, “the primary goal of Pinochet coup and regime was to free Chile’s markets.”

Or that allende was unstable (unless you are henry kissinger…)

Allende was the first democratically elected socialist leader in either of the Americas. The US helped Pinochet into power and supported him secretly the whole time. he was a brutal dictator and had no care at all for free markets. the point of having pinochet was to prevent socialism from having even symbolic victories in the US sphere of influence. See, the Pinochet File (It is fascinating)

“Free marketeers” don’t come from the Univ. of Chicago. They are economic advisers for the US and US corporations. I don’t know where you learned about Pinochet, but the fact that you seem to think that the above quoted statement, “isn’t exactly true” makes me think you think there is some truth to it when there isn’t.

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Get your history right.

And I’ll take Kissinger’s geopolitical assessments before yours any day of the week.

One of the hot political issues before the coup was the fact that 1973 the congressional majority questioned the legality of Allende’s election in 1970.

I don’t want to pose as an expert on chilean history or constitutional right (I’m not). But as far as talking out of one’s own ass goes you are way ahead of me pal.

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What the fuck are you talking about? I admire Kissinger for being a real diplomat (Nixon too). I don’t know if you study geopolitcs or anything (I do), but don’t pretend that Pinochet was about free markets or that Allende was unstable. kissinger and Nixon (refer to the book that i linked) didn’t want Allende because it would have been a symbolic success for socialism in the Americas and they secretly backed Pinochet, sold him guns, covered up his atrocities, etc. Allende’s instability may have been a reality, but it was not at all why the US cared so much about Chile. The US economic warfare against most of Latin America (central and south) made Allende unstable. Again, I’ll refer you to the book on the subject that i posted; it is very enlightening.

BTdubs, when someone links you to an academic source and you say that they are speaking out of their ass and then you proceed to post wiki sources…well anyone reading this will get the picture…

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I didn’t pretend Pinochet was about free markets at any time.

Read the fucking post, it says exactly the opposite. I said “[h]e would probably have used whomever was available at the time who was not a marxist. Keynesians or austrians or anything. And it happened to be chicagoites, for the good luck of the chilean people.”

Pinochet was a military leader and a political thug, and he probably didn’t think very high of ivory tower and highly abstract economic concepts like “free market” and shit. I doubt he had read any thing by Friedman or Hayek before staging the whole coup d’état thing.

And I’ve never said US was not interested on Chile or never backed Pinochet. I said Allende was a KGB asset on KGB payroll and this was confirmed by the publication of the Mitrokhin archive, go check it out.

And on Allende being “unstable”, of course I was talking about his regime, and not his temperament. I thought that was clear, but go on, you can blame my engrish, I don’t give a shit.

To offer you evidence I posted the timeline of major events in Chile during the time. Just to remind the basic stuff, like general strikes and the situation in the congress.

Yes it is wikipedia, do you have a problem, college boy? You can verify the list of sources, if you think I’ve edited it or something.

Wikipedia might be far from perfect, and if it has any bias, it’s certainly not pro-Pinochet.

But at least these event timelines are reasonably objective and get additions from all parts of the political spectrum, unlike certain “scholarly” books kids like you are force-fed at your liberal arts colleges.

Anyway, you are the guy who was the other day bragging about being smarter than Kant and Aristotle because you’ve read them or some asinine shit like that, and I even bother answer you now, so fuck me right? Hell, I too used to go around talking like a know-it-all asshole sometimes (before the obligatory graduate school reality check), but kid, you are fucking ludicrous.

You are a college schmuck who has skimmed some book and went on an ego trip online because most people here are even less educated than you are.

Now go study for your finals.

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Prove this. I’ve read a lot about the CIA and all of the various foreign operations they have under gone and NEVER ONCE did I come across that claim. it is right wing rhetoric that you are buying.

just like your claim that Chicago economists were advising for Pinochet…

Can you tell me, without looking it up, how long Allende was in power?]

yeah, I do. it is called "academic integrity, kiddo.

Yeah, the politically correct University assigns books published by the National Security Archives. I wish. I’d say you are the one who is brainwashed; claiming that Allende was a KGB asset. hahahahah

ha, that comment was from a Heywood Banks song…he is a comedian.

You get that from wikipedia? What did you study in grad school anyway?

Thanks! And that’s right. When i see people posting things that I know to be untrue I call them out on it. Particularly things I study in my life. Notice how I don’t combat the kids who debate on economics.

Foreigners…

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Christopher Andrew. I don’t remember which book I think it’s mentioned in both. I’m going to check it for you.

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Well, I didn’t get the reference (don’t know the guy), my fault. That’s a relief I guess. I thought you’re nuts. It’s an online forum, you never know.

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I suggest you read his recents threads and retract your comment LOL. Sorry for trolling I couldn’t resist.