i'm Chilean and this is a huge problem here in Chile. Allende's government is constantly remembered as "what is what could have happened if US had not intervened?"
This is even more amazing taking into consideration its geographical location and the situation of its neighboring countries. Friedman should get another Noble Prize just for being one of the few economists, who were given this fascinating opportunity of putting his economic views at work - and providing evidence that it does.
Something like Startup Chile gives me hope that this spirit of unconventionalism stays relevant even today.
Tell that to the women still wandering the deserts of Chile searching for the bones of their disappeared loved ones.
Nowadays relatives (mostly female) of those missing still systematically search the deserts of northern Chile for the remains of their loved ones. For anyone interested there's a film - Nostalgia for the Light (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1556190/) which examines the search of the families alongside the rather different 'searching' of the astronomers working in the same deserts. Personally I wasn't crazy on some aspects of the film, but it's a good insight into the ongoing work that victim's families are doing in the Atacama desert around the city of Calama.
Being a chilean, I would say that the chilean economy and the whole system is in a very bad shape: huge inequalities, screwed up health system, educational system about to collapse, etc... Most of them we can thank Friedman and his free market policies... so don't tell me that the intervention in Chile was a good thing or turn out to be a good example, there are many, many counter-examples you can find of how bad things are now because of the intervention and forced policies in the economy.
It leads Latin American nations in human development, competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, economic freedom, and low perception of corruption. It also ranks high regionally in sustainability of the state, democratic development and state of peace. However, it has a high economic inequality, as measured by the Gini index.
Using the same co-relation you're trying to use, I could say that the intervention was a bad thing, because while Chile is not bad, we could be doing a lot better if it weren't because of the problems we had to face. That is also not the case, and again, too many variables involved that you're freely taking away.
Allende's program included advancement of workers' interests, replacing the judicial system with "socialist legality", nationalization of banks and forcing others to bankruptcy, and strengthening "popular militias" known as MIR.
OK, it did better under Hernán Büchi (one of the "Chicago Boys", who floated the Peso). But it's a big stretch to say that the 17 years of moribund GDP were worth it, just to catch up with where they were before the intervention.
All we've really learnt is "don't peg your currency to the US dollar if your economy is a shambles". I don't think Friedman should win another Nobel Prize for that, it's not exactly a radical idea.
The reason you get shunned is that you're cheerleading for a mass murderer. What are these "long time effects" that justify the death of thousands, the oppression, the torture?
Edit: links: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/807599.stm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadio_Nacional_Julio_Mart%C3%...
Even considering BBC's numbers and the unaccounted death these are still substantially lower than those of the death count of the Cuban Revolution. Considering the instability of Latin America at that time (e.g. the ongoing battle against armed communist guerrilla infiltrating the country [1])
I am not cheering for a mass murder, but acknowledging that creating stability in a highly instable environment is a painful process. A process that used highly questionable methods, but was never the less the foundation for Chile's success today.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973#Guerrilla_...
Most of the destabilization that happened in Chile was a direct result of US meddling. It's talked about right in the article this thread is about.
1) Almost every other country in Latin America suffered from a military coup based on the same ideological grounds, that applied almost the same policies. They all suffered an "intervention", and not all ended up like Chile. There is not even a correlation between "interventions" and their current economic state.
2) Chile is not the economic leader of Latin America, Brazil is, with it's modern success atributed mostly to a former union leader, who was also part of of Brazil's "Workers Party", Lula da Silva.
According to the IMF Brazil is 6th world-wide, while Chile is 39, even lower than the other key player of the region: Argentina (27).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nom...
Chile: 48th; Brazil: 58th
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP...
Chile: 53rd; Brazil: 75th
(both taken from the World Bank list)
Because Widow Ramos no longer had a husband to share her hovel with, GDP per capita in the hamlet doubled!
How prosperous she must have felt that he was executed!
As for the US "intervening," what post-1970 interventions can you specifically cite that you think brought about the coup? Remember that Allende nationalized the assets of foreign companies, and foreign investors subsequently pulled out of Chile. Remember also that Allende was denounced by the Chilean Supreme Court and Congress, and that he was ultimately overthrown by his own military, and that despite the constant assertions of him having been "democratically elected," he only won 36% of the vote, less than Bush in 2000 (47%), but acted as if his plurality victory gave him some sort of political mandate to transform Chile into a communist country in six years.