Chile's Failed Economic Laboratory

[Say_What]

<clips>

In acknowledging the recent thirtieth anniversary of the US-sponsored coup that brought to General Augosto Pinochet to power in Chile, a number of articles and opinion pieces have appeared. The Nation recently cast the incident in somewhat sentimental terms. Such efforts to turn Salvador Allende's death into a martyrdom for democratic socialism obscure the most important legacy of the coup. Not only did it give rise to one of the twentieth century's most violently repressive regimes, it inspired subsequent financial dictatorships to use privatization schemes to consolidate their power.

As economic historian Michael Hudson pointed out to me, a recent interview in the Moscow Times (October 1, 2003: "Corruption, Chechnya: The Price We Paid for '93" by Ruslan Khasbulatov) confirms this. Recalling the ten-year anniversary of Boris Yeltsin's 1993 attack on Parliament and his replacement of its rule by his own diktat carrying out the recommendations of U.S. HIID and AID advisors, Russia's then-head of Parliament Khasbulatov explained recently:

"Yeltsin's close advisers at the time were gripped by the Pinochet syndrome. Their strategy was simple. Yeltsin needed to disband Khasbulatov's parliament, then concentrate all power in the country in his hands. Having done so, the president could easily implement economic reforms, including privatization, and then bestow a new Constitution upon the people. Overjoyed by their newfound prosperity, the people would greet their leader with ovations."

In the face of falling wage levels the junta's austerity program involved higher wage withholding that was channeled into the stock market, now a model for efforts to privatize Social Security in the United States. In Chile this process led to a stock market bubble and provided public resources freely to General Pinochet's supporters, creating an aggressive financial elite-the grupos, a harbinger of oligarchies to come in Russia and elsewhere.

http://www.counterpunch.org/schaefer10202003.html

[SharonAnn]

1. Timely article. I'm leaving for Chile tomorrow so I'm printing it

out to take and give to a business acquaintance.

We share this kind of information since he doesn't always see the periodicals that I do here in the United States.

Thank you for posting it.

[Dirk39]

2. Reminds me of what Putin did in St. Petersburg...

his boundaries with the mafia are coming from his times as the Governour of St. Petersburg during the massive privatisation.
I'm not into conspiracy theories, the facts are very clear.
Even the german police seemed to be very surprised.
Moscow Times Article
Hello from Germany,
Dirk