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Chile's Socialist Rebar
Ever since deregulation caused a worldwide economic meltdown in September '08 and everyone became a Keynesian again, it hasn't been easy to be a fanatical fan of the late economist Milton Friedman. So widely discredited is his brand of free-market fundamentalism that his followers have become increasingly desperate to claim ideological victories, however far-fetched.
A particularly distasteful case in point. Just two days after Chile was struck by a devastating earthquake, Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens informed his readers that Milton Friedman's "spirit was surely hovering protectively over Chile" because, "thanks largely to him, the country has endured a tragedy that elsewhere would have been an apocalypse.... It's not by chance that Chileans were living in houses of brick -- and Haitians in houses of straw -- when the wolf arrived to try to blow them down."
According to Stephens, the radical free-market policies prescribed to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet by Milton Friedman and his infamous "Chicago Boys" are the reason Chile is a prosperous nation with "some of the world's strictest building codes."
There is one rather large problem with this theory: Chile's modern seismic building code, drafted to resist earthquakes, was adopted in 1972. That year is enormously significant because it was one year before Pinochet seized power in a bloody U.S-backed coup. That means that if one person deserves credit for the law, it is not Friedman, or Pinochet, but Salvador Allende, Chile's democratically elected socialist President. (In truth many Chileans deserve credit, since the laws were a response to a history of quakes, and the first law was adopted in the 1930s).
It does seem significant, however, that the law was enacted even in the midst of a crippling economic embargo ("make the economy scream" Richard Nixon famously growled after Allende won the 1970 elections). The code was later updated in the nineties, well after Pinochet and the Chicago Boys were finally out of power and democracy was restored.
Little wonder: As Paul Krugman points out, Friedman was ambivalent about building codes, seeing them as yet another infringement on capitalist freedom. As for the argument that Friedmanite policies are the reason Chileans live in "houses of brick" instead of "straw," it's clear that Stephens knows nothing of pre-coup Chile. The Chile of the 1960s had the best health and education systems on the continent, as well as a vibrant industrial sector and rapidly expanding middle class. Chileans believed in their state, which is why they elected Allende to take the project even further.
After the coup and the death of Allende, Pinochet and his Chicago Boys did their best to dismantle Chile's public sphere, auctioning off state enterprises and slashing financial and trade regulations. Enormous wealth was created in this period but at a terrible cost: by the early eighties, Pinochet's Friedman-prescribed policies had caused rapid de-industrialization, a ten-fold increase in unemployment and an explosion of distinctly unstable shantytowns. They also led to a crisis of corruption and debt so severe that, in 1982, Pinochet was forced to fire his key Chicago Boy advisors and nationalize several of the large deregulated financial institutions. (Sound familiar?)
Fortunately, the Chicago Boys did not manage to undo everything Allende accomplished. The National copper company, Codelco, remained in state hands, pumping wealth into public coffers and preventing the Chicago Boys from tanking Chile's economy completely. They also never got around to trashing Allende's tough building code, an ideological oversight for which we should all be grateful.
Thanks to CEPR for tracking down the origins of Chile's building code.
71 Comments so far
Show AllThese kinds of historical perspectives are very important to counter the ever-pervasive free market faith that, amazing as it is to believe after Sept '08 (not '09), still have 'currency' in the hopelessly lost rightwing media.
Money belongs to the people, not people to the money.
-" Chile's modern seismic building code, drafted to resist earthquakes, was adopted in 1972. That year is enormously significant because it was one year before Pinochet seized power in a bloody U.S-backed coup. That means that if one person deserves credit for the law, it is not Friedman, or Pinochet, but Salvador Allende, Chile's democratically elected socialist President."
-"It does seem significant, however, that the law was enacted even in the midst of a crippling economic embargo ("make the economy scream" Richard Nixon famously growled after Allende won the 1970 elections). "
Why does the Nixon regime remind me of Obama's Democrats? Oh yes, it must be the part about the policy of coups or "regime change" for Venezuela, and embargo or "cripling sanctions" against Iran. All part of Obama's "democracy promotion" program that he is bringing to occupied countries across the globe.
But let's hear from the obamabots about how the Republicans are worse!!!
for the record obama got his 1st coup(honduras) sooner than shrub bush got hsi 1st coup....
Do you think the Democrats are through "re-couping" Venezuela? Word on the street is that the US is building a new series of army bases across the border in neighbouring Columbia, kind of like the ones across the border from Iran, in Iraq. But I'm sure there is an innocent explaination. Perhaps Obama had some money left over after bailing out the banks and couldn't find any other place to spend it?
Make no mistake. Invading Venezuela is the big wet-dream of the Petroleum-Military-Industrial Complex and their NeoCon/NeoLiberal political puppets. Even mainstream Liberals have bought into the Chavez as dictator and evil lie. If McCain had won we'd be fighting in Venezuela right now. I used to think Obama would keep us from that. I'm now convinced that is not so.
Watch for an increase in negative propaganda against Chavez to prepare us to conquer the largest petroleum producer in the Americas.
With Brazil right nextdoor.
Since Nixon's henchman Henry Kissenger (the secretary of state who engineered the Allende assassination) continues to thrive in Democratic and Republican Party circles, Hillary won't have any qualms about covert action against the Chavez Government.
For a nice perspective on what a heroic man of the people Chavez is, see "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," available at http://www.documentary-film.net/search/video-listings.php?e=29
It's depressing that the automatically accepted narrative nowadays is always that of the neoliberal right. How many people will listen to Naomi Klein as she unearths the unfashionable truth? History as written by the winners makes Pinochet the hero and Friedman the guardian angel. The truth is out there, but nobody gives a damn.
You give a damn, and I give a damn, and lots of people give a damn, even if in a certain way, we're a minority.
The $$$ people want to be able to make more $$$ with impunity, so democracy and anything leftward theatens and hampers them. So they fight tooth and nail.
But wait a minute... they have all the loot! So... they make the case powerfully, smoothly (with the best experts $$$ can buy) and they inundate regular folks with propaganda by buying the communicators.
So most regular TV-watching folks are profoundly confused about basics because of the power of communication of the $$$ people.
You shouldn't allow the age-old problem of fighting treachery of the $$$ to make you cynical.
Very true the internet is just about the last bastion of relatively unfiltered information for USAians. And shortwave too although it is more cumbersome and less diverse than the internet.
What a treasure Klein is.
She told half this story here, though. The other half is how Friedmanomics and its obscene "free market" bedfellows are the reasons Haiti's earthquake, 1000 times less powerful as Chile's, resulted in such mind-boggling devastation and misery.
The earthquake didn't destroy Haiti. A century and more of Chicago School-style economic and imperialistic raping of that country by the U.S.A. created the stage for that continuing disaster.
Z-Man--Klein wrote that missing other half soon after the Haiti quake and also several follow-ups. An iteresting list of Klein-influenced articles about Haiti sprinkled with Klein herself can be viewed here, http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=0&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=
naomi+klein+haiti&oq=%22naomi+klein%22
Here's a link to Klein's Haiti essay republished by CD on 22 January, http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/22-11
To be sure, karlof1, but I was speaking of this article. And not in any way meaning to criticize Naomi, either ... just adding to an already thought-provoking article.
Thanks for including those sites, though.
I knew you weren't bashing Klein. It's often hard for writer's to reference previous works they've written for publication before the same audience as it is assumed the audience will remember and include that context. This is something Chomsky and more experienced writers will do through a very brief referral to the previous item(s). Klein is still on the writer's learning curve and has progressed a long way since I first started reading her almost 15 years-ago.
Klein's parents were lifelong activists. She grew up with a different perspective than the average american; products of plastic people.
would we be nitpicking naomi if she were an aged white academic instead of a beautiful, intelligent, and presumably fertile 40 year old female scholar? the left's deafening and definitive rebuttal to sarah palin? i wonder!
Yes, I would and have critiqued older women's writing. Klein is a Canadian and cannot run for the US presidency. Nor do I think she'd want the job.
She's a treasure, but I already read about the building code being Allende's work in the comments section of another forum.
Still, it's nice to have a messiah to take credit for any truth that gets through the elite's media blocade.
What a snotty piece of passive-aggressive bullshit.
If you're going to accuse Klein of taking credit for other peoples' work then you need subtantially more evidence than what you've provided here.
q
At the article's bottom, she thanks CEPR for the details of Chile's housing code.
Other people's **work?**
Anyone can find out when a piece of legislation was passed in Chile. All you need is free time. It's not a full time job to write 700 words around one piece of legislative history.
Klein has never actually "worked" at a full-time job for any lenght of time, so she's always had more time than she knew what to do with. So she figured she's try her hand at "Che-type social messiah." An obvious choice for her demographic.
But this makes her a very poor choice for representing the interests of working people.
In reality, she represents the entertainment needs of middle class college undergrads. Her publications are like a perpetual rescreening of Avatar:The Book for guilt-ridden middle class parasites. "We have a good vocabulary and read all the right books, so we don't have to work for a living like other people."
Read Klein, and the world will save itself.
My what a shallow criticism of a woman who has brilliantly shed much light on the politics of greed and selfishness.
In case you missed it:
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and syndicated columnist and the author of the international and New York Times bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, now out in paperback. Her earlier books include the international best-seller, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (which has just been re-published in a special 10th Anniversary Edition); and the collection Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate (2002). To read all her latest writing visit www.naomiklein.org
Further, if its so damn easy why are you not doing such?
Every statement that you made about Klein is a lie. But then, lying is what you're being paid to do.
q
This slander/smear marks you as a troll of some sort. Journalism and editing aren't considered full-time jobs?
qatzelok I often find your comments very interesting, so I am puzzled as to why you would harbor such resentment against Naomi Klein. I like to support people like Howard Zinn, Amy Goodman, Naomi Klein who stand out as intellectuals who are uncomprimsing in their pursuit of authentic information. Not perfect every minute, perhaps, but head and shoulders above the rest.
You say "Klein has never actually "worked" at a full-time job for any lenght of time"... Most people require some level of leisure and support in order to write and research. She may be an upper middle class woman, but Naomi Klein has used her time well. Her insights are very helpful to the interests of working people. She sees through situations, links things up in an original way and presents them in a clear style. She was among the first to point out the huge shift in capitalism, a shift that means that we cannot expect capitalists to save themselves as they did under Roosevelt, but we can instead expect them lay waste to the economy and use that chaos to engineer a whole new world of exploitation and privatization. That is useful information for working people.
Regarding Chile, it may not be Marie Curie level of discovery to know that a law was passed under Allende, but someone has to say it in order to counter misinformation crediting their fascists and ours.
Joe
"Her insights are very helpful to the interests of working people."
Her insights are very entertaining to middle class undergrads going through a "working class" phase.
Do working people even read Naomi Klein?
And why should they. She knows nothing of their way of being on this earth. And that is the tragedy of her isolated, rich-ghetto upbringing.
She is famous exactly because she is NOT working class. She grew up in a multicultural French-speaking city, but speaks no French, and married into her own ethnicity and social class. In her real life, she is as elitist and cliquey as any of the corporate leaders she calls out.
Her tirades on the proliferation of corporate logos and the tactic of destroying social capital to gain control... are just rehashings of themes that have been explored and regurgitated for many centuries.
Ours is a time to act, and not to read the Naomi Klein's Prolo-xploitation drama. And she, in no way, knows how to act or what to do to change where humanity finds itself. She is just another rich tourist snapping pix of a car accident in which poor people have once again died. She's not a doctor or a road engineer. And she drives as fast as anyone else.
"And she drives as fast as anyone else."
Really? What evidence do you have that she did?
That was an allegory; a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than the literal. (wiki)
An interesting take. Am I to understand that you are one of the poor underpriveleged masses of the World more properly representing their views then is Naomi?
The majority of the peoples of the World do not have access to Computers, do not read Common dreams or post here and do not take the time out of their days to debate whether or not a particular spokeperson is "Working Class".
What Demographic do you represent?
There an interesting piece most here have no doubt read where the Worlds Population is broken down into 100 people.
Of those 100 only one would have a College Education
80 would live in Substandard housing.
24 would have no electricity.
67 would be unable to read.
50 would be malnourished.
33 would have no access to clean drinking water.
7 would have access to the internet
1 would own a computer.
Do you own your own Computer? If so you are closer to a naomi kelin then 99 percent of the worlds people. You obviously have access to the internet and that to puts you in a distinct minority.
Now just as those 99 people out of that 100 without a Computer can not help the conditions that they were born under, nor could I, or you, or Naomi Klein. The circumstances of birth does not make one "elitist" nor does having a College education or being able to read make one so.
If I am working on some task in the darkest of night and am asking some one to hold the flashlight for me so that I can better see what I am doing.
It really makes no difference if other peoples have held flashlights before, or if the person holding the flashlight married into their own Social class, or if that person makes more money then me, or if that person has never worked a day in their life or if that person white, protestant, liberal or college educated, the same LIGHT will be cast upon the work I have to do and I will thank them for it.
I am not submitting myself as a replacement for Naomi Klein as "international anticapitalist messiah for undergrad college kids," so my working class credentials aren't important.
In fact, if I patiently explain to you that I make approximately the average income of an adult on this planet (about 11,000 dollars Canadian per year) you would probably consider this a sign that I am not qualified to speak of any subject "as complicated" as income distribution.
So I am better to not brag about being poor.
A little more about Naomi Klein: the exclusive Jewish suburb in which she grew up - Town of Mount Royal - as a chain-link fence on its Eastern border which is closed and locked on the last week of October every year. Why? To keep the poor Indian-Bangla-Pakistani children of neighboring Park Ex (another district) from going there to trick-or-treat.
Her "save the world" theme and openess to income sharing is FOR OTHER PEOPLE to consume. And her support for the sovereignty of "the underclasses" of the world has never lead her to learn French (the language of the Quebec underclass) or to fight for Quebec sovereignty. Why would she. She gets such a good deal for herself by clinging to the spoiled media brats of the anglosphere.
I'm in the middle (literally) of reading The Shock Doctrine currently, and it's so awful it makes me want to cry. How she was able to put together such an amazing book without, at the very least, going into full-blown depression I'll never know.
If you think that's bad, you should visit the Far East. There are some people there fighting against their own cultural traditions sucking up to this disaster style capitalism. The good news is that unlike this lost soul of a nation, there are anti-capitalist backlashes there fighting against the yuppies. Klein has visited far more of this world than I ever have so she would be able to do thorough comparisons.
Another great article by Naomi, putting things in perspective as only research and solid analysis can do.
Absolutely Brilliant post,thanks CD and Ms. Klein I can't wait for the comments.Perfect title succinct writing,Naomi will you have my children?
love in peace
Naomi Klein is a hero to me, too. Thanks, Naomi, for bringing up this inconvenient fact about the date for the adoption of the all-important building codes. Where else would we ever learn about such things? The mainstream press? Not likely.
I notice that Bachelet continues to refrain from requesting US aid, while Marines choke Port au Prince.
The BBC and NYT (sorry, but I've been collecting examples of self-styled "objectivity" for a class) keep mentioning it, as though any moment, Chile is likely to repent.
Ay, que misteriosos los Chilenos!
IT needs mention that recently -- the national elections for the NEXT president to follow Bachelet -- produced by a close margin a businessman who is considered Right-winger..
the Chileans are said to generally have the opinion that they want "fresh direction" -- after the quite successful years of left-leaning more independent chile after the Pinochet years.
the Chileans have that right -- one has to consider that probably a new generation of voters has come of age that largely escaped the old pinochet years - or even if not - the chileans have grown "easy" and now think more of a "USA" style free-enterprise can make them even MORE "prosperous" -- but I fear that if they go through with this - as usual, in the end they are setting themselves up for many of the same problems incurred under Pinochet...if not as severe or outrightly "fascistic" - than a "softer" form --but one that will again lead to 'disaster capitalism'.
the incoming President is likely already being celebrated - though quietly - in washington...as their point-man to chip away at the dreaded and hated "socialist" policies under Bachelete and others like her for the last 50 years since pinochet..and bring it around to more "privatization"......to be raped once more by the USA.
=================
Billionaire Pinera wins Chile presidential election
Sebastian Pinera
Sebastian Pinera has promised to continue the centre-left's social policies
Conservative billionaire Sebastian Pinera has won Chile's presidential run-off, ending two decades of centre-left rule.
Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei conceded defeat after results from 60% of polling stations showed Mr Pinera with 52% of the vote to Mr Frei's 48%.
Mr Pinera promised a tough law-and-order programme and vowed to use his business know-how to boost the economy.
Outgoing President Michelle Bachelet was barred by law from standing again.
Mr Pinera has promised to continue her highly popular social policies.
He will be Chile's first democratically elected conservative leader for more than half a century.
Mr Pinera's victory ends the long run in office of the Concertacion - a coalition of left-wing and centre parties that had run Chile since the end of military rule under Gen Augusto Pinochet in 1990.
'Fresh air'
Mr Pinera won 44% of the vote in last month's first round, well ahead of Mr Frei, the governing Christian Democrat candidate.
After 20 years I think a change will be good for Chile
Sebastian Pinera
Pinera's growth promise
Profile: Sebastian Pinera
Mr Pinera, 60, made his fortune introducing credit cards to Chile.
He now owns a television channel, a stake in Chile's most successful football club and has millions of dollars in investments.
He has promised to increase investment, fight crime and create one million jobs, the BBC's Candace Piette reports from the capital, Santiago.
He has also promised to cut taxes for small businesses and make government more efficient.
"Better times are coming for Chile. There is a great new phase on the way," Mr Pinera said on Sunday.
"After 20 years I think a change will be good for Chile. It's like opening the windows of your home to let fresh air come in."
It was the second time Mr Pinera had run for the presidency at the head of a centre-right coalition.
Eduardo Frei, 17 January 2010
Eduardo Frei had been seeking a second term as president
In 2006, he lost to Socialist Ms Bachelet. Under the constitution she could not stand for re-election in 2010.
She will leave office in March with a high approval rating as a result of policies to tackle poverty and use Chile's all-important copper exports to offset the effects of the global economic crisis.
Mr Frei, 67, had promised a continuation and deepening of many of her policies.
He had been seeking his second term as president after an absence of 10 years.
Conceding defeat, he said Chile was "much better than the country we received in 1990".
"We will be guardians of liberty and of all our social victories," he said
Actually France was the deepest hook into Haitian poverty, though I will not argue the harmful US policies that helped impoverish that nation and so many others as well.
Haiti was still paying reparations to France for throwing off its colonial bondage so long ago.....I must note that France has suspended said payments in light of the catastrophic events in Haiti, but I am uncertain if they expect them to resume afterward.
France wanted payment for the slaves it lost to freedom and forced (at gunpoint) the Haitians to agree to pay a compensation equal to the entire Haitian GDP (150 million francs). It would take 122 years to pay off from the actual governmental income. Even worse Haiti had to borrow from French and American banks for the money to pay the reparation -- paid off in 1947 -- an amount owed now equal to $20 billion.
>>In 2003, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, facing a crippling economic embargo, announced that Haiti would sue the French government over that long-ago heist. "Our argument," Aristide's former lawyer Ira Kurzban told me, "was that the contract was an invalid agreement because it was based on the threat of re-enslavement at a time when the international community regarded slavery as an evil." The French government was sufficiently concerned that it sent a mediator to Port-au-Prince to keep the case out of court. In the end, however, its problem was eliminated: while trial preparations were under way, Aristide was toppled from power. The lawsuit disappeared, but for many Haitians the reparations claim lives on.<<
Naomi Klein, Haiti: A Creditor, Not a Debtor, The Nation (February 12, 2010)
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/12-1
Gary
"And the fact that Haiti was occupied for 19 years by the United States, from 1915 to 1934."
-- Edwidge Danticat
The payments due to Haiti throwing off French colonialism and slavery were paid in full by Haiti.
The current debt, which is different, which was caused (in part) by the Duvaliers has been canceled by France.
Yes, in 1947 I believe, but 20 billion might go a rather long way in todays Haiti. The payments were forced on Haiti and now should be returned. Especially because of the usurious interest rate France charged.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-14/why-haitis-earthquake-is-frances-problem/
Friedman, the Chicago School, the free market --are done! Finished! Chile survived thanks to Allende, not Friedman--only the privatized, neo-liberal causeways collapsed in Chile!
Viva la revolucion !
Spread the truth ...
Where appropriate, select pertinent points or paraphrase and post them on reich wing sites.
Right wing opinion mavens depend on their readerships not knowing the facts.
Anyone wishing some more information on Chile and Chicago School economic theory can check this essay out - "Road From Serfdom: Milton Friedman and the Economics Of Empire"
by Greg Grandin.
http://www.counterpunch.org/grandin11172006.html
LOL. You apparently still believe Obama is a liberal. He's center-right and believes in all the free market claptrap. The only thing Obama doesn't like about NewsCorp is that they falsely call him a socialist. McCain's policies would have been identical to Obama's. The only difference would have been that Republicans would still be getting blamed instead of progressives or "socialist" Obama.
William Rood, patriotic citizen of the world
Ignorance is a prerequisite for Conservatism
Don't you have to feel sorry for all of the well-intentioned people who get fed such misinformation on such a regular basis by 'The Wall Street Journal?'
Our country deserves a better business press than it gets. In fact, is there anything more responsible for our lack of progress as a people and a nation? If there is, I cannot think of what that might be.
Operation Mockingbird is still in full swing.
'WE'LL KNOW OUR DISINFORMATION PROGRAM IS COMPLETE WHEN EVERYTHING THE AMERICAN PUBLIC BELIEVES IS FALSE': William Casey, Director of Central Intelligence: An observation by the late Director at his first staff meeting in 1981.
Also; a tendency towards genuine treason & betrayal of all things good & kind & decent.