Economically Benevolent Dictators: Lessons for Developing Democracies

I call to question the so-called "chilean economic miracle".

For Chile, although its economy did develop it's difficult is it really fair to attribute this to the policies of Pinochet? There was a good article I read from Noah Smith [1] some time ago that went through the economic basis of the regime.

I think the fact that these authors base their assumptions solely on GDP growth should raise some alarms. In today's age it's difficult to just go "high GDP means a successful economy" and even more so in a country like Chile whose economy is entirely dependent on raw exports of copper. I mean, how much of Chile's economy is simply due to having the right materials to sell to the right people, the 80s-90s and forward are characterised by the raise of high-tech all of which is dependent on copper.

Chile is also one of the countries with the most inequality in the world [2] and this is a direct consequence of Pinochet's economic policies. Of course, while times are good and the country is growing everyone is happy. But after 2010 the lack of innovation has really started to hurt the country and this lack of innovation is in big part due to the economy being in the hands of so little people. I mean, competition is necessary for innovation and this is a country where the 0.001% of the population own more than 40% of the wealth in the country. Also a consequence of Pinochet's economic policies.

All of this lead to huge social unrest just a few years ago. It's really difficult to see Pinochet's reforms as economically benevolent if you look at the long term consequences they've had on the country. I mean, yeah, dictators can implement any economic policies they want in the country. But are these really superior to the economic policies that are implemented in democracies, for example, wouldn't the right economic policies to implement in Chile be much more aligned to the policies that have been implemented in Norway when it comes to the right way to exploit and manage natural resources?

Dictators don't just implement policies in a vacuum either, in the case of Chile, these were entrenched into the constitution and the people given the keys to change it were the conservatives. Which is why the country has been unable to change any economic policies substantially to the point where even the IMF is calling for urgent economic reforms. It's really irresponsible, in my opinion, and disingenuous to look at things in a vacuum.

Finally, all of this is not even counting the humanitarian consequences of the regime.

[1] https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/pinochets-economic-policy-... [2] https://wid.world/country/chile/