WaPo Loves Dictators

Ah, Fred Hiatt, we hardly knew ye. . . .

Seriously, a love letter to Augusto Pinochet and Jeanne Kirkpatrick on The Washington Post editorial page? Even worse, the quality of argumentation is terrible.

It's hard not to notice, however, that the evil dictator leaves behind the most successful country in Latin America. In the past 15 years, Chile's economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It's leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired.

Seriously? The justification of Pinochet's 1973 coup and subsequent seventeen-year dictatorship is Chile's strong economic growth record after Pinochet left office? Then we learn that Pinochet was a good guy because Fidel Castro is a bad guy, which I think is the moral philosophy of six year-olds. And then Kirkpatrick: "Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right."

I don't really see what's obvious about this. Communist regimes in Central Europe were replaced by liberal democracies, much as Pinochet's right-authoritarianism was replaced by liberal democracy in Chile. But Communist regimes elsewhere have often been replaced by non-Communist authoritarianisms. But then again, right-wing authoritarianism in, say, Venezuela doesn't seem to have paved the road for liberal democracy. And, of course, Communism arose in Russia in the wake of the Czar's right-wing authoritarianism and, indeed, Communism arose in Cuba as the aftermath of right-wing authoritarianism under Battista.

UPDATE: Sorry, Venezuala's a bad example; I thought the military was in charge there in the 80s. Consider, say, Haiti where the Duvaliers hardly seem to have paved the road for a smooth transition to liberalism.

Comments

right-wing authoritarianism in, say, Venezuela doesn't seem to have paved the road for liberal democracy

Umm... I assume you're referring to the authoritarian regime of Marcos Perez Jimenez, who was ousted in 1958? By Latin American standards, the forty years of liberal democracy between Perez and Chavez is an extraordinarily good record, especially while Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru and others all succombed to military dictatorships. I agree with your general point, but this was a poor example to use.

Posted by right | December 12, 2006 11:37 AM

I think that Bush is the Greatest President Ever. The proof is the economic growth that took place before he ran the country.

Posted by reino | December 12, 2006 11:42 AM

right is correct, and I'll add that while Chavez is hardly committed to fostering what we would recognize as a totally open civil society, his electoral legitimacy is really not much in doubt at this point. He has a mandate from a clear majority of the population, however much that might annoy the local corporate interests, the Bush administration or the Washington Post editorial board.

Total sidebar there, but you're right on as to the larger point, and the WaPo's general moral obtuseness in this regard. Tying in with your earlier point about costs, it seems tht for the WaPo editorial board there is no cost in terms of human rights and liberty that is not worth paying to facilitate the unfettered flow of capital.

Posted by jkd | December 12, 2006 11:44 AM

"Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies."

This is of course the same argument for why we supported Saddam during the 1980's. Then he crossed the magical line between good right-wing dictator and bad right-wing dictator. But we were right to support him up until that point.

Posted by being released | December 12, 2006 11:48 AM

Argentina's 2005 GDP per capita measured by PPP: $13700. Chile's 2005 GDP per capita measured by PPP: $11900. "It's leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired." Yeah, indeed.

Posted by Carlos | December 12, 2006 11:55 AM

If your internet-search skills are better than mine, you may be able to find a memorable (at least to me) WaPo editorial from approximately September 1983, around the tenth anniversary of Pinochet's coup. The editorial allowed that Pinochet had been fulfilling his patriotic duty, or something of that sort, in deposing Allende's elected government.

Posted by k | December 12, 2006 11:56 AM

Venezuela had a system that only allowed two parties to run in elections. Both parties were beholden to the oil interests and the military above the interests of the working poor.

Good by Latin American standards when Pinochet was in power is equivalent to saying that Hussein had a great human rights record compared to Saudi Arabia, which is also true.

Posted by reino | December 12, 2006 11:57 AM

Jeanne Kirkpatrick (and far too many others)ignored George Kennan who was right afterall about the Soviet Union.

Not a comment about Fred Hiatt, except that you would think, after all these years, that at least some pundits would have figured out where foreign policy first went astray and that one seemingly subtle error would lead to continuous blundering.

Posted by cal | December 12, 2006 11:59 AM

Just a comment on Venezuela -- open society for whom? Democracy for whom? The Venezuelan "democratic republic" pre-Chavez, like the ancient Greek "democracies", was about as open and democratic for the masses as was, e.g., democracy in the American South in the days of poll taxes.

To the extent that there has been a miracle in Chile, to the extent that Pincochet created a functioning "free market" economy -- it was because the "commie" Allende pushed through land tenure and similar reforms that forced the Chilean economy out of neo-feudalism (and which led to his deposal in a coup). Chavez may be no Allende, but what he's doing is as much necessary to the development of one of those modern economies with a fancy democratic republic, that we in the US are so rightly proud of having for ourselves, as the homestead act was in the US and the enclosure system was in Britain.

That we, through the World Bank and IMF, essentially bribe (and the bribes are "loans" that have to be paid back, which makes it even more whack!) other countries (and also blackmail, by preventing capital access in case of non-cooperation) into following the exact opposite course as that taken by every single major economic power, perhaps is "why they hate us", not for our freedoms per se?

Oh well, I'm drifting ... but my point is, when people say "Venezuela was a Democracy until Chavez ruined it", they really are missing the larger picture, nu?

Posted by DAS | December 12, 2006 11:59 AM

Greg Palast has been pointing out in his e-mail newsletter and on his website that Pinochet's rule -- done with the full approval and supervision of the infamous "Chicago School" of economic hit men -- was an utter disaster for all but the richest Chileans.

Posted by Phoenix Woman | December 12, 2006 12:03 PM

What DAS and the rest said RE: Chavez. If he was a dictator, he would never have free elections at all, or allowed the recall provision to be written into the Venezuelan Constitution. Remember, he didn't stand in the way of the attempted recall a few years back, even though there was serious doubt as to whether he'd survive it. That's a heckuva lot more democratic than, say, Pakistan or Russia or China, and Bush isn't going to diss them.

Posted by Phoenix Woman | December 12, 2006 12:08 PM

Gotta love Instapundit's take on the editorial:

The other contrast is that you can find apologists for Castro in pretty much every newsroom and university campus in America. Pinochet, not so much.

And he has, here in his hand, a list of two hundred and five copy editors that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party.

Posted by David Weigel | December 12, 2006 12:08 PM

If you look at the ranking of states by GDP (Purchasing Power Parity) per capita, Chile is second with $11,937, behind Argentina which has $14,109. (In terms of nominal GDP per capita, the ranking is reversed.) So the claim that Chile is a standout is definitely subject to debate. Or maybe Argentina's economic success is due to the failed attempt to capture the Falkland Islands - which seems to be the kind of reasoning that's used over at the Post.

Posted by Quiddity | December 12, 2006 12:08 PM

Nothing shocking about the Fred Hiatt editorial. He has turned the WP editorial page into a clone of the WSJ editorial page. The only reason to read it is for a good laugh.

This editorial, like most WP editorials, could have been written by Charles Krauthammer or Bill Kristol.

Posted by DonB | December 12, 2006 12:08 PM

I'm willing to bet the real issue here is the Post's love of Social Security privatization. Anyone who destroyed his country's public pension system can't be all bad!

Posted by William Burns | December 12, 2006 12:09 PM

This is why smart people don't even bother reading newspapers anymore. Seriously, how can you trust people like this will provide you anything remotely close to accuracy.

Posted by Soullite | December 12, 2006 12:11 PM

So in other words, Phoenix Woman, the reason the media elite in the US has the perception that Pinochet's plan was a success is because it benefitted the only Chileans rich enough to be in their social circle?

Posted by neil | December 12, 2006 12:14 PM

Found through LexisNexis:

Copyright 1983 The Washington Post
The Washington Post

September 11, 1983, Sunday, Final Edition

SECTION: Outlook; Editorial; C6

LENGTH: 552 words

HEADLINE: Chile: 10 Years Later

BODY:
IT IS ONLY half true that the coup in Chile, 10 years ago today, ended Latin America's longest democratic tradition. The elected president, Salvador Allende, was already losing control of his government to Marxist revolutionaries who did not in the slightest share his democratic commitment. That is why, in the beginning, many Chileans applauded or at least accepted Gen. Augusto Pinochet's intervention. Alarmed by the disintegration around them, they counted on him to return their country to its heritage in a reasonable time.

What they did not count on was that he would abuse his patriotic mandate and thrust on Chile a regime that went far beyond dealing with the emergency at hand and established a harsh police state. Some tens of thousands of Chileans were killed outside the law, many others were imprisoned and exiled, the natural political tendencies of the country were suppressed, and an economic system was imposed that has meant extreme hardship for most of the people. For turning a national crisis into an excuse for personal dictatorship, Gen. Pinochet will not be forgiven. It explains why most of his countrymen, believing his continuance in power to be a national disgrace, have turned against him now.

Gen. Pinochet appears to think that by superficial concessions he can end the now-common mass demonstrations, still political unrest and prolong his power for another six years. Meanwhile, he has sent his police into action against demonstrators, peaceful as well as violent. The other day, the police fired a water cannon to block the delivery of a statement demanding his resignation by Christian Democratic leader Gabriel Valdes, who heads the newly organized Democratic Alliance of non-communist parties. Police also beat Genaro Arriagada, another leading Christian Democrat. And Gen. Pinochet wants to know why the opposition doubts his good faith.

Gen. Pinochet's days, it would appear, are numbered. His policies do not even command the full support of the armed forces. When he goes, it will be through the working of Chilean forces. It is encouraging, however, that the United States, while it is not driving events, has finally stepped back publicly from Gen. Pinochet and taken a position in favor of a prompt and peaceful return to democracy.

Unquestionably the Reagan administration, often criticized for tilting toward authoritarian regimes like Gen. Pinochet's, would dearly like to see a transition occur on its watch. It would allow the administration to come forward in Latin America and in general ideological debate as a sponsor of democracy. It would prove its point that authoritarian regimes, unlike totalitarian ones, can move back to democratic rule.

Such results, if they come, are unlikely to erase the widespread impression--much of it myth, Nathaniel Davis, then the American ambassador, suggests on the opposite page today--that it was the United States that undid the democratic order of Chile in 1973. We accept that the American role was secondary then; Chilean democracy was being grossly abused by Chileans. All the same, the United States made its own distinct and cynical contribution to Chile's breakdown. It would be deeply satisfying to see democracy restored in Chile now--and to see the United States cheering the process on.

Posted by mugwumpia | December 12, 2006 12:14 PM

So the claim that Chile is a standout is definitely subject to debate. Or maybe Argentina's economic success is due to the failed attempt to capture the Falkland Islands - which seems to be the kind of reasoning that's used over at the Post. - Quiddity

Nope. The post would credit Argentina's military dictatorship. Or possibly the IMF-required policies that in fact nearly crippled Argentina's economy.

Posted by DAS | December 12, 2006 12:15 PM

Everything MY says above is true, but what makes the argument still worse, if possible, is the fact that the alternative to military dictatorship in Chile during the 70s was not a Castro-style communist dictatorship, but parliamentary democracy with an elected government led by a left-wing politician who--if I remember rightly--had spent pretty much his whole adult life in electoral politics. The unstated assumption behind the Pinochet-supporters argument, if I may call it that, is that with Allende in office, Chile was well on the way to communist dictatorship. It is telling that the Fred Hiatts of the world never feel any need to defend this assumption. I suspect it is less because the case for it is obvious than because it is, on the contrary, extremely feeble.

Posted by J | December 12, 2006 12:15 PM

Anyone arguing that Argentina(!) has a better economy than Chile is so utterly clueless that it is hard to fathom. If you look at Argentina's recent economic crash, its earlier hyperinflation, its enormous poverty rate (which was over 50% after the recent crisis)... And, hey, let's not even get into Brazil, with its unbelievable inequality (isn't it the most unequal society in the world)?

Posted by Al | December 12, 2006 12:28 PM

Why is it that everyone seems to ignore that the famous democrat Hugo Chavez himself initiated a coup in 1992?

Posted by Al | December 12, 2006 12:31 PM

At the very small risk of hijacking the discussion, and out of economic curiosity, I wonder if anyone here could explain 1) why the per capita GDP based on economic output is so different from the per capita GDP based on PPP in Chile and Argentina, and 2) why Chile should be better off if measured by the former than Argentina but worse off if measured by the latter? I get my figures from http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2006/01/data/index.htm and am looking at 2005.

I know that PPP calculates buying power based on a basket of goods, and thus is understood in the sense that a dollar in country X goes a lot farther than a dollar in country Y. Therefore, PPP is considered a better way to measure relative quality of life since it deals with how far people's money goes in a given country.

So why should the two measures of GDP be so different in those countries, and why should they reverse between Argentina and Chile?

(Even though it was offered as a joke, there is no way anyone would ever think the Argentine generals were good stewards of their nation's economy. It was the failure of the Falklands that gave them their final push from power, but it was hyperinflation that made them so unpopular that they thought they had to invade the Falklands in the first place to reinject some ultra-patriotic popularity into their regime.)

Posted by RWB | December 12, 2006 12:33 PM

No, Colombia, Haiti and Bolivia are all worse than Brazil in terms of the Gini index. Brazil is barely worse than Chile, which is worse than Argentina. Thank you, General!

Posted by neil | December 12, 2006 12:35 PM

Where is the commentary on the US role in toppling Allende? The CIA engineered the coup in Chile, systematically undermining the Allende government, inciting public unrest, sabotaging the economy, discouraging foreign investment (an international capital strike) and providing logistical and stategic support for Pinochet. After the overthrow of Allende, foreign investment was encouraged, subsidized by international institutions, and supported by the US government through foreign aid.
It was this support that made the meager success of the Pinochet dictatorship as marginally successful as it was. There was no popular revolt that brought Pinochet to power. Like the Shah in Iran, Somoza, Saddam in Iraq (until we decided that we didn't like him any more), etc. Pinochet's coup was bought and paid for by US government and multinational corporation funds.

Posted by beyond_left_right | December 12, 2006 12:41 PM

Why would you think everyone ignores it? Do you think a failed coup diminishes his status as elected leader, or that we should talk about his coup attempt but not his two landslide elections?

Posted by neil | December 12, 2006 12:41 PM

The CIA engineered the coup in Chile, systematically undermining the Allende government, inciting public unrest, sabotaging the economy, discouraging foreign investment (an international capital strike) and providing logistical and stategic support for Pinochet.

From what I have read, this is true, but I do question the CIA "discouraging foreign investment" part. Considering that Allende was rapidly nationalizing multinational industries and generally attempting to create a Marxist economy, who in their right mind would invest there? In other words, international finance, acting in purely rational self-interest, had every reason not to invest in Allende's Chile. It hardly requires some international plot by the CIA fo rthat result to occur.

Of course, none of this justifies the coup and subsequent fascist government. It would have been one justification for voting Allende's party out when the next presidential election came around--had Pinochet not stepped in to stamp out democracy.

Posted by RWB | December 12, 2006 12:48 PM

You'd think that just what the CIA did in Chile before the coup would be a secret, but surprisingly, you'd be wrong. Thank you, Senator Church!

On September 29, 1970, the 40 Committee met. It was agreed that the Frei gambit had been overtaken by events and was dead. The "second-best option" -the cabinet resigning and being replaced with a military cabinet- was also deemed dead. The point was then made that there would probably be no military action unless economic pressures could be brought to bear on Chile. It was agreed that an attempt would be made to have American business take steps in line with the U.S. government's desire for inimediate economic action.

The economic offensive against Chile, undertaken as a part of Track I, was intended to demonstrate the foreign economic reaction to Allende's accession to power, as well as to preview the future consequences of his regime. Generally, the 40 Committee approved cutting off all credits, pressuring firms to curtail investment in Chile and approaching other nations to cooperate in this venture.

emphasis mine.

Posted by neil | December 12, 2006 12:51 PM

The Church Report, to be clear, is not just about what the CIA did, but the whole US government and the 40 Committee was not part of CIA.

Posted by neil | December 12, 2006 12:54 PM

Neil, I'm not trying to get the CIA off the hook here. I'm just saying that their efforts to get firms not to invest in Chile were unnecessary. No one wants to invest in a country that is in the process of nationalizing foreign assets. Maybe years later, after the nationalization was more or less done, companies might return. But why put your new money into a country when there's a good chance that it will be expropriated?

Again, this is neither to apologize for the CIA nor Pinochet.

Posted by RWB | December 12, 2006 12:59 PM

Anyone who grew up in Venezuela after the overthrow of Marcos Perez Jiminez would know that electoral ballots were filled scores of candidates for the presidency. The only thing comparable were the walls of cities with propaganda promoting candidates from all parties, communist, socialist (including current vice-president Jose Vicente Rangel) and centrist parties. I have no idea how anyone could claim that two pro-corporate parties had a solid grip on the system. Previous Venezuelan administrations, now demonized by observers as rightist and pro-corporate, had nationalized all of the nations major industries and promoted major social programs that would scandalize the average American observer. Poverty nevertheless grew because of huge immigration from all over Latin America and the Caribbean, attracted by the oil wealth and the flourishing metropolises. However, poverty in Venezuela was and is due primarily to corruption, a problem which Chavez has not solved. In fact, in spite of all of his rhetoric and the credit he may receive for his outreach, which is by no means unprecedented, to the poor, he has failed in doing anything about the biggest problem faced by a country blessed with a windfall of oil revenue, systemic pilfering of the wealth at all levels and sectors of society, and not merely by an elite, as many foreign observers would have it in their stereotype-filled perspective.

The rich vs poor narrative may fit into the simplistic models of many foreign observers. Palast has even made it a racial issue, inaccurately projecting his Anglo-American perspective. However, Venezuela had been a social-democracy for decades before Chavez, with strongly populisitic, though corrupt, governments.

Posted by Ad Absurdum | December 12, 2006 1:00 PM

What kind of government are Fred Hiatt and Al making excuses for? A government that trained dogs to rape political prisoners. From the Chilean Truth and Reconciliation Committee, a by no means exhaustive list of tortures political prisoners were subjected to:

1.- Both men and women are given electric shocks in the
genitals. This happens on a metal bed to which the
naked victim is bound with his/her arms and legs
spread apart. This torture is called "roasting".
2.- Blows are dealt to all parts of the body an in many
cases this results in the deliberate rupture of the
ear-drum.
3.- The victim receives burns to parts of the body by
cigarettes or other forms of direct naked flame.
4.- The person to be interrogated has his/her nose and
mouth blocked in order to bring on suffocation.
5.- For periods at a time the prisoner's head is put into
a bucket filled with water or excrement.
6.- Women detainees are raped.
7.- Women detainees are forced to have sexual intercourse
with dogs.
8.- Hot iron objects are inserted into the vagina of women.
9.- Iron objects are inserted into the victim's anus.
10.- Detainees are made to comply by threats that if they
refuse to make any statement their families will be
tortured. Sometimes these threats are really carried
out.
11.- Pharmaceutical products, especially drugs, are
commonly used in the interrogations.
12.- Hypnosis is part of the interrogation procedure.

Posted by Hank Scorpio | December 12, 2006 1:04 PM

And who could forget the enduring right wing outrage -- Al, back me up here -- about the first terrorist attack on American soil, a 1976 car bombing in Washington, D.C. less than a mile from the White House, sponsored by the Pinochet government.

Posted by Alan in SF | December 12, 2006 1:04 PM

Update: I apologize if my post implied that the CIA was directly involved in the economic sabotage of the Chilean economy. The CIA was probably indirectly involved through informal contacts with other governments and multinationals, but the larger player was the US government, both informally and through institutions like USAID, and large multinational corporations. Withholding investment in a country because of the government's political leanings and then claiming that the country's economy is failing because no one is investing there is a self-fufilling prophesy.

Posted by beyond_left_right | December 12, 2006 1:23 PM

Uh, if memory serves, Chile was in constitutional crisis just before the military coup because President Allende was acting in defiance of the Chilean supreme court. In an interview at the time with a sympathetic leftist, the French journalist Regis Debray; Allende made it plain that he did not consider himself bound by his promises to his party's coalition partners to obey the rule of law. None of that bourgeois nonsense for him! Now that 'the people' (or at least his people) had won power, they certainly were not going to give it up. Let's not even get into the gross mismanagement of the economy (with Weimar Republic-level hyperinflation--perhaps deliberatly induced to wreck the 'enemy' bourgeoisie.)

Please do not (unintentionally or deliberately) misconstrue this; Pinochet was a monster who should have ended his life before a firing squad (or in least in an isolation cell). But Chilean democracy was already crumbling when Pinochet took a hammer to it and finished the job. And the blame for that rests with Salvador Allende Gossens.

Posted by Bill A. Bong | December 12, 2006 1:27 PM

Thanks to all for this enlightening conversation. Now I have the ammo I need for discussions on Pinochet and his goodness. :) When I read the The National Review columns on how all of us lefties don't understand how much net wonderfullness was because of Pinochet, I wanted to retch. I knew they had to be wrong.

Posted by Lilybart | December 12, 2006 1:27 PM

Beyond_left_right, don't apologize, read the Church Report linked above, which implicates the CIA in being directly involved in the economic sabotage of the Chilean economy.

Bill A. Bong, I think you're deliberately trying to mislead people about the political situation in Chile in 1973. Chilean democracy was crumbling about in the same way that American democracy is now, with the leader claiming unprecedented constitutional powers. The main crisis in Chile that year was the economic crisis, which was brought about either by Allende's policies or by the CIA's meddling, whichever you prefer; this economic crisis was leading to food shortages which are bound to be the death of any government. Allende took some extraordinary steps in light of the crisis; the Congress also took some extraordinary steps (such as calling for a military coup, which was surely not justified by the constitution); and of course the military took the most extraordinary step of all. Which just goes to show, in an extraordinary situation people do extraordinary things, which must be viewed in the proper context to be understood.

Posted by neil | December 12, 2006 1:34 PM

I think that even though it sounds a stretch to say that the 15 years of economic growth was a result of Pinochet policies, I argue that it is.

Why? In short. Because Pinochet implemented microeconomic reforms that provided the economy with efficiency and growth in the long term.

At the same time, economic indicators of his time don't bear this, because he faced two serious macroeconomic crises. The first as he took office where he faced the disastrous effects of ALlende's policies and the legacy of import substitution strategies of the 60s.

And the second, in 1982, when the world crisis was more costly to Chile - because of the Pinochet's regime mistake to peg the dollar to the peso.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | December 12, 2006 1:35 PM

Um, Matthew, regarding your update: are you still contending that Venezuela is currently not a liberal democracy? What sort of criteria are you using here, exactly?

The coverage of foreign affairs in the our media is either (a) clueless, due to corporate downsizing of foreign bureaus and the corrupt laziness of key media players, or (b) willfully deceptive, taking its cues from a government/corporate system that has been foisting exploitative economic policies on South America for decades. Take your pick. The coverage of the 2002 coup was most illustrative.

Chavez is trying, quite courageously, to make Venezuela a little more like, say, Sweden. For this, he must be crushed. Do oligarchs have to have all the power to qualify for a "liberal democracy" in your world?

Some cluefulness on your part would be most refreshing.

Posted by ppp | December 12, 2006 1:36 PM

So in other words, Phoenix Woman, the reason the media elite in the US has the perception that Pinochet's plan was a success is because it benefitted the only Chileans rich enough to be in their social circle?

Close. Rather, those Chileans that benefitted are the only ones rich enough to be in the social circle of the media elite's BOSSES, the hyper-rich, and the circle to which the media elite aspires but in most cases (Thomas "Billionaire Boy" Friedman aside) will not attain no matter how diligently they serve their corporate masters.

And is it just me, or isn't it interesting that Al, in his defense of Pinochet and the Chicago School, forgets to offer up exact numbers or time periods for his description of Argentina's economic state? (By the way, Argentina, which not too long ago was staggering under a huge debt load thanks to the shysters at the IMF, is now free of IMF debts thanks to Hugo Chavez -- in a move that actually irritated the hardcore lefties who wanted Argentina to totally blow off the IMF. Of course, blowing off the debt would have been used as a pretext by the IMF to push for invading Argentina, but what the heck.)

Posted by Phoenix Woman | December 12, 2006 1:43 PM

Um, Nick Kaufman:

Here's a little reality check on Augusto "Chicago School" Pinochet --

In 1973, the year General Pinochet brutally seized the government, Chile’s unemployment rate was 4.3%. In 1983, after ten years of free-market modernization, unemployment reached 22%. Real wages declined by 40% under military rule.

In 1970, 20% of Chile’s population lived in poverty. By 1990, the year “President” Pinochet left office, the number of destitute had doubled to 40%. Quite a miracle.

Pinochet did not destroy Chile’s economy all alone. It took nine years of hard work by the most brilliant minds in world academia, a gaggle of Milton Friedman’s trainees, the Chicago Boys. Under the spell of their theories, the General abolished the minimum wage, outlawed trade union bargaining rights, privatized the pension system, abolished all taxes on wealth and on business profits, slashed public employment, privatized 212 state industries and 66 banks and ran a fiscal surplus.

Freed of the dead hand of bureaucracy, taxes and union rules, the country took a giant leap forward … into bankruptcy and depression. After nine years of economics Chicago style, Chile’s industry keeled over and died. In 1982 and 1983, GDP dropped 19%. The free-market experiment was kaput, the test tubes shattered. Blood and glass littered the laboratory floor. Yet, with remarkable chutzpah, the mad scientists of Chicago declared success. In the US, President Ronald Reagan’s State Department issued a report concluding, “Chile is a casebook study in sound economic management.” Milton Friedman himself coined the phrase, “The Miracle of Chile.” Friedman’s sidekick, economist Art Laffer, preened that Pinochet’s Chile was, “a showcase of what supply-side economics can do.”

It certainly was. More exactly, Chile was a showcase of de-regulation gone berserk.

The Chicago Boys persuaded the junta that removing restrictions on the nation’s banks would free them to attract foreign capital to fund industrial expansion.

Pinochet sold off the state banks - at a 40% discount from book value - and they quickly fell into the hands of two conglomerate empires controlled by speculators Javier Vial and Manuel Cruzat. From their captive banks, Vial and Cruzat siphoned cash to buy up manufacturers - then leveraged these assets with loans from foreign investors panting to get their piece of the state giveaways.

The bank’s reserves filled with hollow securities from connected enterprises. Pinochet let the good times roll for the speculators. He was persuaded that Governments should not hinder the logic of the market.

By 1982, the pyramid finance game was up. The Vial and Cruzat “Grupos” defaulted. Industry shut down, private pensions were worthless, the currency swooned. Riots and strikes by a population too hungry and desperate to fear bullets forced Pinochet to reverse course. He booted his beloved Chicago experimentalists. Reluctantly, the General restored the minimum wage and unions’ collective bargaining rights. Pinochet, who had previously decimated government ranks, authorized a program to create 500,000 jobs.
In other words, Chile was pulled from depression by dull old Keynesian remedies, all Franklin Roosevelt, zero Reagan/Thatcher.
New Deal tactics rescued Chile from the Panic of 1983, but the nation’s long-term recovery and growth since then is the result of - cover the children’s ears - a large dose of socialism.

To save the nation’s pension system, Pinochet nationalized banks and industry on a scale unimagined by Communist Allende. The General expropriated at will, offering little or no compensation. While most of these businesses were eventually re-privatized, the state retained ownership of one industry: copper.

For nearly a century, copper has meant Chile and Chile copper. University of Montana metals expert Dr. Janet Finn notes, “It’s absurd to describe a nation as a miracle of free enterprise when the engine of the economy remains in government hands.”
Copper has provided 30% to 70% of the nation’s export earnings. This is the hard currency which has built today’s Chile, the proceeds from the mines seized from Anaconda and Kennecott in 1973 - Allende’s posthumous gift to his nation.

Agribusiness is the second locomotive of Chile’s economic growth. This also is a legacy of the Allende years. According to Professor Arturo Vasquez of Georgetown University, Washington DC, Allende’s land reform, the break-up of feudal estates (which Pinochet could not fully reverse), created a new class of productive tiller-owners, along with corporate and cooperative operators, who now bring in a stream of export earnings to rival copper. “In order to have an economic miracle,” says Dr. Vasquez, “maybe you need a socialist government first to commit agrarian reform.”

So there we have it. Keynes and Marx, not Friedman, saved Chile.

But the myth of the free-market Miracle persists because it serves a quasi-religious function. Within the faith of the Reaganauts and Thatcherites, Chile provides the necessary genesis fable, the ersatz Eden from which laissez-faire dogma sprang successful and shining.

In 1998, the international finance Gang of Four - the World Bank, the IMF, the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Bank for Settlements - offered a $41.5 billion line of credit to Brazil. But before the agencies handed the drowning nation a life preserver, they demanded Brazil commit to swallow the economic medicine that nearly killed Chile. You know the list: fire-sale privatizations, flexible labor markets (i.e. union demolition) and deficit reduction through savage cuts in government services and social security.

In Sao Paulo, the public was assured these cruel measures would ultimately benefit the average Brazilian. What looked like financial colonialism was sold as the cure-all tested in Chile with miraculous results.

But that miracle was in fact a hoax, a fraud, a fairy tale in which everyone did not live happily ever after.

Posted by Phoenix Woman | December 12, 2006 1:49 PM

Grant WAPO the (questionable) premise that Pinochet helped the Chilean economy strengthen, like Mussolini made the trains run on time. Is our foreign policy really about installing brutal, murderous dictators to increase economic efficiency? Gee, then why does IL Duce get such a bad rap? Maybe it's more: "He (Agusto) was a son-of-a-bitch, but he was our son-of-a-bitch."

The editorial teaches us more about the mission of the WAPO ed page than about Pinochet or Kirkpatrick. But events in Chile c. 1970 can teach us plenty about US government foreign intervention cloaked in promotion of democracy, national sovereignty, and self-determination.

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." — Henry Kissinger

"It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October [1970] but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end, utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden..." — A communique to the CIA base in Chile, issued on October 16, 1970

I guess we can endure another MSM attempt at whitewashing the more disgusting tendencies of our government, we're used to it by now. But the thousands and thousands of people who were imprisoned, tortured, raped, murdered and disappeared by our Chilean puppet deserve better.

Posted by Adams | December 12, 2006 1:59 PM

Well, I'm glad that at least we agree that Chile was in crisis. I have no brief to make for the CIA; they supplied the weapons used by the assassins who murdered Chilean Gen. Rene Schnieder, an act that went a long way towards politically destabilizing the country. (The case officers claim not to have known what the assassins wanted the weapons for--did the CIA officers think they were going quail hunting?) But there is a difference between necessary causes and contributing causes.

Christopher Hitchins' book length prosecutors brief against Henry Kissinger contains a brief resume and reconsideration of these matters. It should certainly make for fun reading by Hitchins' new-found friends.

Posted by Bill A. Bong | December 12, 2006 2:00 PM

Pinochet is gone...Let the rejoicing begin in Chile.

Posted by Karim | December 12, 2006 2:12 PM

Sorry for the crass self-promotion, but I think many of you will be interested. We did a report over at Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch about Chile's development strategy that show's how the much ballyhooed "free market miracle" under Pinochet has not been as wildly successful as claimed and further that many of the policies Chile used to sucessfully develop are actually counter to the normal free market prescriptions (for example, the use of capital controls). Hope it helps!
http://www.citizen.org/documents/chilealternatives.pdf

Posted by Paul Adler | December 12, 2006 2:15 PM

But events in Chile c. 1970

Allende wasn't overthrown in 1970. It was 1973. And the CIA had nothing to do with it. For some reason, people seem to conflate awareness with responsibility (same as with the coup attempt against Chavez).

Posted by Al | December 12, 2006 2:21 PM

What a piece of unmitigated shit the WaPo has become! I want to see the editors square their Pinochet love with their anti-Putin hysteria. Both Putin and Pinochet are or were first-rate ruthless bastards, sure, but it seems to me that every argument they make for the generalissimo applies just as well to the apparatchik.

Posted by sglover | December 12, 2006 2:28 PM

BTW - I'm not sure why some of the commenters (and Matthew, too, I think) seem to conflate a defense of Pinochet's economic policies with a defense of his torture and killing. It is possible to be a torturing, murdering dictator and to simultaneously have good economic policies. (It's the same as Matthew's last post, when he conflated Pinochet's minor corruption with his economic policies for the country - they for the most part have nothing to do with each other.)

It's undoubtedly true that Pinochet was a murdering, torturing dictator. And for that he should be condemned. And it's undoubtedly true that his economic policies have created the most economically stable country in Latin America. And for that he should be praised. Like many people, he's a mixed bag.

Posted by Al | December 12, 2006 2:34 PM

Al-

c. means "around". Maybe from the perspective of 35 years later "around" would take in the whole sorry progression of US involvement in deliberately destabilizing Chile economically and politically, starting in 1970.

Did you read the quote?
"It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup...."
— A communique to the CIA base in Chile, issued on October 16, 1970

Firm and continuing policy to overthrow. That's a little stronger than awareness?

Posted by Adams | December 12, 2006 2:40 PM

>people seem to conflate awareness with responsibility

These the same people asking what did Rahm Emanuel "know" about Foley before October 2006, right? From my peripheral view of the situation if someone tells you about emails, but you can't get your hands on copies of them, all you are dealing with is rumor.

By the way, anyone with time and LexisNexis want to see if Hiatt ever blamed Clinton for the 2001 recession?
I betcha he did.

Posted by bartkid | December 12, 2006 2:44 PM

I'm not sure what to tell you, Adams, other than 1970 is 1970 and not 1973.

Posted by Al | December 12, 2006 2:52 PM

Al-

Agreed 1970 is not 1973. I said "events in Chile c. 1970." I wasn't talking about when Allende was overthrown, but about US complicity in events leading up to his overthrow. Please review the context.

I may have stretched the use of "c."

Thanks for your attentive, but sloppy, reading of my posts.

Moving on ....

Posted by Adams | December 12, 2006 3:07 PM

Al, do us all a favor and read the Church Report about U.S. interference in Chilean politics that I linked above. If nothing else, the US spent an awful lot of money on its 'awareness' of the situation.

Posted by neil | December 12, 2006 3:17 PM

I knew the Post was pretty far gone but I hadn't realized they were making kissy face with death squads. Call it another example of that discreet charm of the bourgeoisie.

Personally, at this point I'd like to do to Fred Hiatt what Pinochet's goons did to the Chilean folk singer Victor Jara in the Santiago soccer stadium five days after the coup - cut off his hands and watch the miserable neoliberal piece of shit bleed to death.

Posted by PeterP | December 12, 2006 3:43 PM

It was smart foriegn to support right wing dictors and not leftwing dictators, because we were in a cold war with communists who were making serious moves toward world domination. That is also why it was ok to support a left wing dictator, Stalin, against a right wing dictator, Hitler. One was making serious moves toward world domination, and the other was not.

Posted by pjgoober | December 12, 2006 3:44 PM

"And it's undoubtedly true that his economic policies have created the most economically stable country in Latin America."

The previous statement needs to air out a bit - having been recently pulled from Al's ass. Just let it sit there. Do not attempt to handle it.

Posted by Danny Guam | December 12, 2006 3:54 PM

Al:

The U.S. didn't aid every military coup in Latin America in the postwar period, but it is a matter of public record that they did in Chile, as well as Brazil and Guatamala.

And it is simply the truth that Pinochet's economic policies--forced down the throat of a populace without a voice--didn't make Chile substantially better off than other Latin American countries, and by certain measures, made them worse off, as has been repeated demonstrated in these threads and can be easily checked by going to the website of that notoriously Marxist organization, the IMF. And certainly Chile's economic growth has been anemic compared to the superstars of development, South Korea and Taiwan.

The reason Pinochet's brutal authoritarianism and economic program are linked is because no one for an instant believes a population would voluntarily submit to the economic cruelties that Pinochet inflicted on Chile's population. The mistake that many editorialists are making is that this was somehow a "free" economy. But economy is linked with polity, like it or not. Pinochet tortured his political opponents, and tortured the poor of Chile at the same time. They had no choice--they didn't vote to have the minimum wage repealed. Force--political and economic--was the way Pinochet chose to rule.

Posted by RWB | December 12, 2006 3:56 PM

Didn't Mao lay the groundwork for the fastest economic growth in recorded history? Certainly China's been doing great since he died. When does he get *his* WaPo editorial?

Posted by MQ | December 12, 2006 5:01 PM

The U.S. didn't aid every military coup in Latin America in the postwar period, but it is a matter of public record that they did in Chile, as well as Brazil and Guatamala.

Again, the US supported (to some degree or another) the (aborted) coup in 1970. There's no evidence that the US did anything with respect to the 1973 coup. 1970 =/= 1973.

Posted by Al | December 12, 2006 5:25 PM

Didn't Mao lay the groundwork for the fastest economic growth in recorded history?

No, he didn't. Deng Xiaoping did. And, as I recall, he got kudos for that when he died, coupled with blame for, e.g., the Tiananmen Square massacre. Deng was, like Pinochet, a mixed bag.

Posted by Al | December 12, 2006 5:29 PM

"we learn that Pinochet was a good guy because Fidel Castro is a bad guy, which I think is the moral philosophy of six year-olds."

It sure is funny how a "moral philosophy of six year-olds" won World War 2.

Posted by pjgoober | December 12, 2006 5:38 PM

The health of a country's economy is not shown in per capita numbers. If one country has universal healthcare, another doesn't but they both have a per capita of 14,000 the country with universal healthcare is much better off. If Chile had a relatively high per capita, realize that much of that is going to services that are covered by states in other countries, which won't be reflected in per capita estimates. This is the less than honest way that the right wing has criticized the Nordic welfare states. Pay attention to per capita estimates and not to the services covered that aren't reflected in per capita estimates.

Also, per capita is simply an average. If I and you make a dollar a year and someone worth 3 million walks in a room, our per capita income is 1,000,000. It says nothing of the distribution of wealth, which in Chile's case was and is pretty bad.

Want to know when a right winger is attempting to hide bad economic news? They quote nothing but macro-economic numbers.

Posted by Dilbert | December 12, 2006 5:42 PM

If social services are paid for with taxes on income, how does per capita income understate per capita welfare in a country that spends relatively more on social services? I don't think it does. The justification for social services is that they reduce variance in welfare, not that they raise per capita welfare.

Posted by henry evans | December 12, 2006 5:49 PM

Actually, in thinking about it, the comparison to Deng Xiaoping is really a good one - someone who unleashed enormously beneficial economic changes but who was also a very bloody authoritarian responsible for the deaths of thousands.

It would be interesting to go back and look at the WaPo's editorial on Deng's death (I'm not going to purchase it). The free preview mentions that he was a "reformer of substantial achievement". Tiananmen Square is not mentioned in the free preview.

Posted by Al | December 12, 2006 6:00 PM

Al, give it a rest. The CIA, as you said, was behind the coup attempt in '70, supported Operation Condor (kindly looking the other way as Orlando Letelier was killed in the US), supported the Chilean secret police DINI and supported Pinochet all the way through his reign. It was revealed in the CIA report "CIA Activities in Chile". Even if the people who did the actual assassination weren't CIA themselves, you'd have to shut off logic to think it wasn't from the anti-communist web that the CIA created at the time. What, in the end, is the difference?

Posted by Dilbert | December 12, 2006 6:00 PM

Dilbert, you can spin ehatever conspriacy theories you'd like that the US is responsible for every single thing that happened in Chile, but that doesn't make it so. Bottom line is that there ain't any evidence that the US provided support or was otherwise responsible for the 1973 coup.

Posted by Al | December 12, 2006 6:14 PM

"It sure is funny how a 'moral philosophy of six year olds' won World War 2."

I've got news for you, goober: you don't require sophistication to wipe out your enemies, real or perceived. Sophistication about what you're doing can, however, ensure that you don't just lay the groundwork for even more problems down the line (General Marshall would agree). So bringing up WWII doesn't prove a single thing. It's not even relevant. Or are you one of those bogeyman-of-international-communism conspiracy wackos who thinks that everything starts and ends with the Last Good War, but would never dream of putting your own butt in uniform?

Posted by dangalong | December 12, 2006 6:15 PM

Al, read the Church report.

One thing that Hiatt and the other right-wingers ought to keep in perspective is that the comparison between Chile and Cuba is in no way a valid comparison between the innate validity of their respective economic models. For the period in question, the US has put all its power behind helping Chile's right-wing do as well as possible, while enforcing a crippling embargo on Cuba.

Mind you, I don't favor the Castro model. But Hiatt might as well be prasing the US's ability to screw over countries that don't play ball with our foreign policy.

Posted by Rick | December 12, 2006 6:27 PM

Conspiracy theory...those are things that have little to no factual backing correct? Yet, the CIA admitted to everything I mentioned above...nice blanket, brain dead response. Honestly, the only conspiracy I see in Chile during this period is the success of the "Chilean Maricle".

Posted by Dilbert | December 12, 2006 6:33 PM

Al:

Bottom line is that there ain't any evidence that the US provided support or was otherwise responsible for the 1973 coup.

This is exactly right, unless by "evidence" you mean such things as "conversations between Nixon and Kissinger immediately after the coup in which they spoke about how 'we helped them' though 'our hand doesn't show.'"

September 16, 1973

KISSINGER: The Chilean thing is getting consolidated and of course the newspapers are bleeding because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown.

NIXON: Isn't that something. Isn't that something.

KISSINGER: I mean instead of celebrating – in the Eisenhower period we would be heroes.

NIXON: Well we didn't – as you know – our hand doesn't show on this one though.

KISSINGER: We didn't do it. I mean we helped them. [Garbled] created the conditions as great as possible.

NIXON: That is right.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Al would have been right at home as editor of Pravda, circa 1936.

Posted by grh | December 12, 2006 6:40 PM

Dilbert, you're just flat wrong. Here's what Clinton's CIA found:

Q. All activities of officers, covert agents, and employees of all elements of the Intelligence Community with respect to the assassination of President Salvador Allende in September 1973.

A. We find no information-nor did the Church Committee-that CIA or the Intelligence Community was involved in the death of Chilean President Salvador Allende. He is believed to have committed suicide as the coup leaders closed in on him. The major CIA effort against Allende came earlier in 1970 in the failed attempt to block his election and accession to the Presidency. Nonetheless, the US Administration's long-standing hostility to Allende and its past encouragement of a military coup against him were well known among Chilean coup plotters who eventually took action on their own to oust him.

Q. All activities of officers, covert agents, and employees of all elements of the Intelligence Community with respect to the accession of General Augusto Pinochet to the Presidency of the Republic of Chile.

A. CIA actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende but did not assist Pinochet to assume the Presidency. In fact, many CIA officers shared broader US reservations about Pinochet's single-minded pursuit of power.

Q. All activities of officers, covert agents, and employees of all elements of the Intelligence Community with respect to violations of human rights committed by officers or agents of former President Pinochet.

A. Many of Pinochet's officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses following Allende's ouster. Some of these were contacts or agents of the CIA or US military. The IC followed then-current guidance for reporting such abuses and admonished its Chilean agents against such behavior. Today's much stricter reporting standards were not in force and, if they were, we suspect many agents would have been dropped.

It's possible that the Clinton Administration was lying. But there ain't no evidence for it.

Posted by Al | December 12, 2006 6:46 PM

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Al would have been right at home as editor of Pravda, circa 1936.

As, apparently, would the Clinton Administration.

Posted by Al | December 12, 2006 6:47 PM

Al, circa 1936:

Now that the NKVD has cleared itself of having stabbed Comade Makarenko exactly seventy-six times, we can now say definitively the NKVD never stabbed him at all! Nor anyone else! Clearly only running dog counterrevolutionary conspiracy theorists could possibly believe otherwise!

I hope Al keeps this up. His shameless hackery, while disgusting, is also quite entertaining.

Posted by grh | December 12, 2006 7:08 PM

Al, what exactly is your argument? The US supported the coup in '70, supported various anti-Allende actions before the 70 coup attempt, as the post above proves Kissenger and Nixon approved and laid the groundwork for the 73 coup, the US helped TRAIN people involved in Operation Condor and Chile had support from the US throughout Pinochet's reign. So, your argument is basically that the CIA hasn't been proven to be behind the coup of 73 directly...of course THAT is still being hotly debated as Kissenger barely escaped Paris after being summoned by a Chilean judge to appear for questioning regarding the '73 coup and Operation Condor (from: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/analysis/121)

"On May 31, 2001, French judge Roger Le Loire requested a summons served on Henry Kissinger while he was staying at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris. Loire claimed to want to question Kissinger for alleged U.S. involvement in Operation Condor as well as the death of French nationals under the Chilean junta. As a result, Kissinger left Paris that evening, and Loire's inquiries were directed to the U.S. State Department." (he fled?! But Al says he has nothing to worry about!)

"On September 10, 2001, a civil suit was filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court by the family of Gen. René Schneider, former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, asserting that Kissinger gave the order for the elimination of Schneider because he refused to endorse plans for a military coup. Schneider was killed by coup-plotters loyal to General Roberto Viaux in a botched kidnapping attempt, but U.S. involvement with the plot is disputed, as declassified transcripts show that Nixon and Kissinger had ordered the coup "turned off" a week prior to the killing, fearing that Viaux had no chance."

Posted by Dilbert | December 12, 2006 7:09 PM

Sorry Dilbert, but Al's too busy right now helping OJ find the real killers.

Posted by Dustbin of History | December 12, 2006 7:15 PM

Hmmm ... we supported a coup attempt in 1970, which certainly destablized the Chilean government and set things in motion for the 1973 coup. We supported the junta after the coup in 1973. Some of those involved in the coup were CIA contacts.

Even if we didn't order the coup, we were still part of the conspiracy, it seems to me. I do believe the Feds have made RICO cases on less substantial grounds.

Posted by DAS | December 12, 2006 7:15 PM

Al, what exactly is your argument?

Well, he doesn't have an "argument," unless you accept the editor of Pravda in 1936 had "arguments." Al's personality and regard for the truth are exactly the same. If he'd lived in Baathist Iraq, he would have been one of Saddam's most enthusiastic supporters, eager to cover up the Anfal campaign.

Al's greatest goal in life is to find a boot to lick. It doesn't matter WHAT boot it is, as long as he can grovel in the dirt in front of it.

Posted by grh | December 12, 2006 7:20 PM

It doesn't matter WHAT boot it is, as long as he can grovel in the dirt in front of it. - grh

Oh yes it does so matter. Notice how the boot-licking crowd hates the gummint whenever a Clinton, a Carter or even a Truman is the head of state? To please the boot-licking crowd, you do need to wear the right kind of boots, so to speak.

Posted by DAS | December 12, 2006 7:24 PM

Oh yes it does so matter. Notice how the boot-licking crowd hates the gummint whenever a Clinton, a Carter or even a Truman is the head of state? To please the boot-licking crowd, you do need to wear the right kind of boots, so to speak.

Well, the objection Al would have to Clinton/Carter/Truman would be to the times when they weren't WEARING boots. Any leader with fewer authoritarian tendencies would terrify him, because that would cut down on his opportunities to abase himself in front of Power. But to the degree Clinton/Carter/Truman carried out boot-heavy policies (which of course they often did), Al would have been right down in the dirt in front of them too, licking away.

Posted by grh | December 12, 2006 7:33 PM