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Judi Lynn

(160,211 posts)
Tue Sep 17, 2019, 03:28 PM Sep 2019

1973 Chile coup: "Miracle" of the neoliberal laboratory

14 September 2019 14:15

​​​​​​​The Chile coup saw the US turn the country into a neoliberal laboratory. This prescription in which political and economic violence walk hand in hand was also applied in Turkey.



Chilean Presidential Palace was bombed in September 11, 1973. (Photograph: Biblioteca del Congresa Nacional/Wikimedia Commons)

Mithat Fabian SÖZMEN

“Regression for the majorities and ‘economic freedom’ for the small privileged groups are two sides of the same coin.”

From an article that Orlando Letelier, one of Chile’s coup-ousted leader Salvador Allende’s most trusted confidants, wrote for The Nation in August 1976.

One of the most shameless terms ever associated with an economist was coined in the 1980’s: the “Miracle of Chile.” To see what was meant by the description “miracle” as per Milton Friedman and what the reality was, let us first tell the story leading up to Chile’s 1973 coup.

19TH CENTURY: WAR OF THE PACIFIC
Following the discovery in the nineteenth century by British scientists of the fertilizing properties initially of guano and then saltpetre (potassium nitrate), the value of the Pacific shores of Latin America augmented. The British had their eyes trained here and first Peru, then Bolivia’s Antofagasta province and Chile became centres for the manufacture of and trading in saltpetre. Over time, Bolivia, believing itself deprived of its just share of the saltpetre trade, taxed saltpetre resources within its own borders and this created tension in its relations with Chile. In 1879, the War of the Pacific broke out; another, and more correct, name of this war was the Saltpetre War. In the war in which Peru formed an alliance against Chile, the latter scored an important victory and took possession of Bolivia’s Antofagasta and Puna de Atacama regions and Peru’s Tarapaca region. Chile had both expanded its narrow territory and increased its role in the saltpetre trade and also cut off Bolivia’s passage to the sea. However, more important was the addition to its territory of the copper mines whose value would be appreciated in the 20th Century.

POLITICAL ATMOSPHERE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Relations with British imperialism, the basic winner from these developments and all that happened at the end of the 19th Century, endowed Chile with a sounder structure in economic terms at the start of the 20th Century and fostered the emergence of conditions of partial prosperity, industry and a small middle class alongside the working class.

This structure that, alongside great wealth, also harboured massive inequality gave rise to the emergence of left-leaning, populist, socialist or even communist political parties at the start of the 1920’s. This political atmosphere that led to the electing of Arturo Alessandri on a populist programme in 1920 ended in a coup in 1924. Even if a short-lived “Socialist Republic of Chile” was experienced in 1932, this date saw the onset of twenty years of social democratic rule.

“MASTERS OF COPPER THE MASTERS OF CHILE”
Chile in the 1930’s was under the influence of the economic crisis that spread from the USA. Of prime importance in the economy by now were the country’s rich copper mines and most of these mines were owned by US monopolies.

More:
https://www.evrensel.net/daily/386790/1973-chile-coup-miracle-of-the-neoliberal-laboratory

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1973 Chile coup: "Miracle" of the neoliberal laboratory (Original Post) Judi Lynn Sep 2019 OP
Put em in a soccer stadium safeinOhio Sep 2019 #1
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