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Even so I usually get shunned by that opinion, I honestly believe that Chile is one of the examples where American interventionism has worked. Sure, there are a lot of question marks about the methods, but the long time effects are astonishing.

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.

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I'm sorry... are you actually saying that the intervention in Chile "worked"? What do you actually mean by "worked"? If you mean "they fixed the economy only after screwing it up themselves" then that's called "cleaning your own mess" and not fixing something. Sure, it wasn't the best thing and Allende's government had many faults, but it wasn't the big mess they try paint it.

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.

This is what I mean by worked:

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile

That doesn't mean at all that it worked. All that information means is that Chile, now is in a good position relative to the rest of Latin America. Taking conclusions and saying that the reason Chile is the way it is now is due to the US intervention is naive and simplistic. There are so many factors involved in that fact, that it makes little sense to make that argument.

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.

I absolutely agree that certain key numbers are always simplifying the complexity inherent in an economy. But it appears to the outside, that fundamentally there are no particular reasons that would make Chile any different to other Latin American countries (e.g. historic trade positions, natural resources, etc).

You don't know what you're talking about.

You seem biased. He offered a valid argument.

Pinochet was brought to power by a brutal coup displacing a democratically elected government. They rounded up thousands of dissidents and killed them.

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%...

I am just taking under consideration the events at that time, i.e. an eminent fear of another Cuba situation in Latin America and the resulting fears. Castro repeated visits to Allende did symbolize this development maybe even more than the increasing nationalization of the Chilean economy.

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_...

Total nonsense. The Chilean people are the foundation for Chile's success today and they would have succeeded just as well (or better!) without meddling from the US. And with a lot less death.

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.

> I honestly believe that Chile is one of the examples where American interventionism has worked.

Tell that to the women still wandering the deserts of Chile searching for the bones of their disappeared loved ones.

Maybe I am abnormally ignorant about recent history, but could you expand on this statement?

No problem, I've only really become versed in these events recently myself after a trip to Chile. During the reign of Augusto Pinochet thousands of people were 'disappeared' - most were executed and buried in the desert, there's a decent bit of information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet#Suppression_of...

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.

In 1973, when the US intervened, Chile's GDP per capita was slightly above average for Latin America. It crashed after the US intervention, and only caught up with the rest of Latin America in about 1990 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GDP_per_capita_LA-Chile.pn...

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.

What on earth are you talking about? The "Chilean miracle" was a miracle of how the Chicago boys stabilized the economy that they nearly destroyed. It took years to even get back to the place Chile was before the US interfered. Chile is the best example of Friedman's methods not working since his hardcore stance had to be toned back as it was destroying the country.

You have to put this into perspective to Alende's approach:

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile

So what? Nothing you said is inherently bad.

But then, again:

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.

Chile has a GDP per capita 50% higher than that of Brazil.

Where did you got that data?

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).

You need to look at the per capita GDP and per capita GDP adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) to measure the relative economic strength of countries regardless of population disparities. Chile should have a smaller GDP; it has 16 million people compared with Brazil's 180. However, its GDP is proportionally higher:

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)

I actually think Chile's current success has more to do with Pinochet's purging of so called "corrupted politicians" by having them killed or exiled from the country. He had so much control he had a new Constitution written which tied things so much, it made politics almost irrelevant.

End result : the method may not have been "nice", but achieved measurable results (GDP per capita, etc).

What measurable results? Do you have the results of a parallel universe where the US minded its own business so we can compare? Read up on the subject, Chile was doing better before the US got involved and took decades to recover from the intervention.

Can you qualify what you mean by "the long time effects"?

See above my clarification on "worked", but I am quite aware that these effects were "bought" with a lot of blood.

And you are ok with that? You are ok with the fact that to implement Friedman's views it was necessary to exile, torture or murder thousands of people? Do you even know something about the horrors of Pinochetist dictatorship? You seem to believe that "American interventionism" is a perfectly normal foreign policy.

I am not ok with that, but I am not really that surprised by it either. Considering the Arabic spring bloodshed I am not sure that even today radical systemic change can occur in a completely peaceful fashion.

The blood pay was consequence to the resistance to the methods BECAUSE it was not working. If it had worked, then there would have no need for blood spillage.

It never had a chance to work. The US intervened the instant the socialist president was elected and never let up. Even with all that meddling, their plan was working incredibly well.

Sure, there are a lot of question marks about the methods, but the long time effects are astonishing

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!

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