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The Allende administration intervened companies, and took on the task of managing production and logistics directly. It resulted in a large, cascading failure,

The Allende administration intervened companies, and took on the task of managing production and logistics directly. It resulted in a large, cascading failure, with scarcity and shortages everywhere. So as a last resort they created this solution, which seemed better than the previous approach: manage the economy via government appointed people, usually union leaders and friends. Cybersyn was dismantled after the government was replaced through a coup.

monocasa 6y ago
An alternative telling: Allende's form of socialism was distinct from the centrally planned soviet style economy, focusing on responding to problems and creating high level economic goals, but otherwise focusing on a self organizing, bottom up, worker led economy extremely distinct from the Soviet system. This idea started actually working, and the United States fearing, in the CIA's own words, "a successful socialist experiment" tried everything they could to remove Allende and push the country away from socialism. They even looked at the idea of invading the country, but couldn't because of the public opinion of how poorly Vietnam was going. The most successful intervention was, in the United States government's own words again, "making the economy scream". However despite this Allende still kept being elected clearly in elections that no one has disputed the validity of. So enough being enough, the US government backed one of the most brutal dictators ever, Pinochet, to illegitimately take over the government, killing Allende in cold blood and beginning a reign of terror. Theyd do stuff like rape your wife and children to death in front of you, so that when they took you out to sea on a "helicopter ride" to dump you at sea still alive, you welcomed death. We as the United States trained his staff in torture in the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, and provided an immense amount of funding. Over 10,000 people were killed. To rebuild the economy after the intervention, they brought in the Chicago Boys, a set of Chicago school economists, to "unleash the economy" from the socialist practices of Allende, but it didn't really work. Chile's growth trailed the rest of South America's until those practices were rolled back. And even now the scars of all this still exist in Chile, with the massive protests that have been going on for over a year focusing on demands to replace the terrible Pinochet era constitution, and state security forces openly killing protestors.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  Here's the point where the frame of the discussion is shifted from "Chilean socialism was bad" to "well both sides are morally inscrutable." A "fun" excerpt from the School of the Americas training manual: https://twitter.com/LLinecook/status/1314164836427857921 https://twitter.com/LLinecook/status/1314164836427857921
- blueline 6y ago
  > killing Allende in cold blood people unfamiliar with the story might find it interesting that the exact manner of his death is somewhat disputed. obviously he wouldn't have died then if it weren't for the coup, so it's not like what you wrote is really a stretch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Salvador_Allende https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Salvador_Allende
  - monocasa 6y ago
    Well, the Pinochet government's own internal documentation found that it was an assassination. http://archive.boston.com/news/science/articles/2011/05/31/chile_tv_secret_report_suggests_allende_murdered/ http://archive.boston.com/news/science/articles/2011/05/31/c...
    - drran 6y ago
      Nope. It says that he was shot with AK into the head after his death. It doesn't look like assassination.
      - monocasa 6y ago
        > citing a reference in the initial military autopsy to a small bullet hole in the back of Allende's skull that he alleges is inconsistent with an AK-47 fired from below the chin through the top of his head.
- young_unixer 6y ago
  You're not mentioning the fact that Allende's government did not respect the laws and was declared unconstitutional by congress[1]. [1] https://obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/obtienearchivo?id=documentos/10221.1/13377/1/mj_00061.pdf https://obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/obtienearchivo?id=documentos/1...

monocasa 6y ago

An alternative telling: Allende's form of socialism was distinct from the centrally planned soviet style economy, focusing on responding to problems and creating high level economic goals, but otherwise focusing on a self organizing, bottom up, worker led economy extremely distinct from the Soviet system. This idea started actually working, and the United States fearing, in the CIA's own words, "a successful socialist experiment" tried everything they could to remove Allende and push the country away from socialism. They even looked at the idea of invading the country, but couldn't because of the public opinion of how poorly Vietnam was going. The most successful intervention was, in the United States government's own words again, "making the economy scream". However despite this Allende still kept being elected clearly in elections that no one has disputed the validity of. So enough being enough, the US government backed one of the most brutal dictators ever, Pinochet, to illegitimately take over the government, killing Allende in cold blood and beginning a reign of terror. Theyd do stuff like rape your wife and children to death in front of you, so that when they took you out to sea on a "helicopter ride" to dump you at sea still alive, you welcomed death. We as the United States trained his staff in torture in the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, and provided an immense amount of funding. Over 10,000 people were killed. To rebuild the economy after the intervention, they brought in the Chicago Boys, a set of Chicago school economists, to "unleash the economy" from the socialist practices of Allende, but it didn't really work. Chile's growth trailed the rest of South America's until those practices were rolled back. And even now the scars of all this still exist in Chile, with the massive protests that have been going on for over a year focusing on demands to replace the terrible Pinochet era constitution, and state security forces openly killing protestors.

AndrewBissell 6y ago
Here's the point where the frame of the discussion is shifted from "Chilean socialism was bad" to "well both sides are morally inscrutable." A "fun" excerpt from the School of the Americas training manual: https://twitter.com/LLinecook/status/1314164836427857921 https://twitter.com/LLinecook/status/1314164836427857921
blueline 6y ago
> killing Allende in cold blood people unfamiliar with the story might find it interesting that the exact manner of his death is somewhat disputed. obviously he wouldn't have died then if it weren't for the coup, so it's not like what you wrote is really a stretch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Salvador_Allende https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Salvador_Allende
- monocasa 6y ago
  Well, the Pinochet government's own internal documentation found that it was an assassination. http://archive.boston.com/news/science/articles/2011/05/31/chile_tv_secret_report_suggests_allende_murdered/ http://archive.boston.com/news/science/articles/2011/05/31/c...
  - drran 6y ago
    Nope. It says that he was shot with AK into the head after his death. It doesn't look like assassination.
    - monocasa 6y ago
      > citing a reference in the initial military autopsy to a small bullet hole in the back of Allende's skull that he alleges is inconsistent with an AK-47 fired from below the chin through the top of his head.
young_unixer 6y ago
You're not mentioning the fact that Allende's government did not respect the laws and was declared unconstitutional by congress[1]. [1] https://obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/obtienearchivo?id=documentos/10221.1/13377/1/mj_00061.pdf https://obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/obtienearchivo?id=documentos/1...