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Chile ranks first in Latin America — and 44th among 189 countries — in the United Nations Human Development Index. "The U.N. ranking counts not only economic gr

Chile ranks first in Latin America — and 44th among 189 countries — in the United Nations Human Development Index. "The U.N. ranking counts not only economic growth, but also health and education standards." https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andres-oppenheimer/article237575534.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/an...

zorked 6y ago
Chile hasn't been ruled by Pinochet since 1990, when it scored a 0.7 in the Human Development Index, about the same score as Bolivia today.
- collegecamp293 6y ago
  The "CIA backed coup" apparently worked out for the people of Chile.
  - the_only_law 6y ago
    Human rights abuses are great! Since you seem to think the ends justify the means, I suppose you'll start to sing praise of China as well, since they've done a very good job of developing the nation despite some unscrupulous actions against some people.
    - collegecamp293 6y ago
      Do you think socialism doesn't have human rights abuses? You name China, a country that backed Cuba. Cuba backed Allende's Chile.
      - the_only_law 6y ago
        > Do you think socialism doesn't have human rights abuses? Not sure how you got that from my comment, which implicitly mentioned China's own abuses.
  - CyanBird 6y ago
    It, really, really didn't I don't recommend you to use that example again, because it would only make you look bad to anyone who knows what he's/she's arguing about When Pinochet was forced to step down from power, Chile had a ~39% poverty rate, which if we were to use today's new poverty metric it would be around 70% poverty. [pg17] https://www.undp.org/content/dam/chile/docs/pobreza/undp_cl_pobreza_cap_7_desiguypob.pdf https://www.undp.org/content/dam/chile/docs/pobreza/undp_cl_... If you'd like it in graph form, here's a GINI/GDP graph of Chilean presidential administrations https://imgur.com/k0s8tKe https://imgur.com/k0s8tKe X axis is GDP, rightmost is better, Y axis is GINI, highest GINI means stronger inequality As you can easily see, all the advancements on Chile's development have come since Pinochet stepped down from power and his reforms removed one by one, the source of that data was from the Chilean Central Bank Also, there was an interview around 8 years ago, where historians outlined that basically the only reason why Pinochet stepped down was because the CIA informed him that the US would not continue to prop up his regime, as Pinochet wanted to renege on the vote to step down from power, but the at the time General in charge of the Navy and the General in charge of the Airforce both of them disagreed with Pinochet, so had the CIA not done so, it could have ended on civil war. And what's interesting of it all, is that the CIA had documents/assessments which stated that if Pinochet were to continue in power, the already rampant poverty and growing slums in Santiago would work as perfect spots for a hard Communist uprising along the MIR and FPMR, both groups communist guerrillas which had already tried to assassinate Pinochet. So the US stopping support of Pinochet was again, intended to advance their own interests in the country But yeah, slowly things which were done while Pinochet was in power are being corrected > https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/privatization-origins-of-political-corporations-evidence-from-the-pinochet-regime/2A1DAF4195974902AB28F1FDA7AA972D https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-... > ...We show that the sale of state-owned firms in dictatorships can help political corporations to emerge and persist over time. Using new data, we characterize Pinochet’s privatizations in Chile and find that some firms were sold underpriced to politically connected buyers. These newly private firms benefited financially from the Pinochet regime. Once democracy arrived, they formed connections with the new government, financed political campaigns, and were more likely to appear in the Panama Papers. These findings reveal how dictatorships can influence young democracies using privatization reforms.
littlestymaar 6y ago
Comming next: “let's discuss how the Nazi were in fact a good thing because their politics successfully saved the German economy”.
- lawtalkinghuman 6y ago
  On the one hand: genocide. On the other: Volkswagens! There are clearly two sides to the debate here. /s
socialdemocrat 6y ago
Thanks to social democrats who took over after Pinochet. So whatever Chile is today, a lot of it is thanks to democratic socialism. Still Chile has not gotten rid entirely of its troubled Milton Friedman and the Chicago boys legacy.
- collegecamp293 6y ago
  "Social democrats" are capitalists. They didn't abandoned capitalism. The current president is an independent who is backed by center-right organizations.
lawtalkinghuman 6y ago
"In Villa Grimaldi detainees would be electrocuted, water boarded, had their heads forced into buckets of urine and excrement, suffocated with bags, hanged by their feet or hands and beaten. Many women were raped and for some detainees, punishment was death." https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2013/09/life-under-pinochet-they-were-taking-turns-electrocute-us-one-after-other/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2013/09/life-under-pi...

zorked 6y ago

Chile hasn't been ruled by Pinochet since 1990, when it scored a 0.7 in the Human Development Index, about the same score as Bolivia today.

collegecamp293 6y ago
The "CIA backed coup" apparently worked out for the people of Chile.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  Human rights abuses are great! Since you seem to think the ends justify the means, I suppose you'll start to sing praise of China as well, since they've done a very good job of developing the nation despite some unscrupulous actions against some people.
  - collegecamp293 6y ago
    Do you think socialism doesn't have human rights abuses? You name China, a country that backed Cuba. Cuba backed Allende's Chile.
    - the_only_law 6y ago
      > Do you think socialism doesn't have human rights abuses? Not sure how you got that from my comment, which implicitly mentioned China's own abuses.
- CyanBird 6y ago
  It, really, really didn't I don't recommend you to use that example again, because it would only make you look bad to anyone who knows what he's/she's arguing about When Pinochet was forced to step down from power, Chile had a ~39% poverty rate, which if we were to use today's new poverty metric it would be around 70% poverty. [pg17] https://www.undp.org/content/dam/chile/docs/pobreza/undp_cl_pobreza_cap_7_desiguypob.pdf https://www.undp.org/content/dam/chile/docs/pobreza/undp_cl_... If you'd like it in graph form, here's a GINI/GDP graph of Chilean presidential administrations https://imgur.com/k0s8tKe https://imgur.com/k0s8tKe X axis is GDP, rightmost is better, Y axis is GINI, highest GINI means stronger inequality As you can easily see, all the advancements on Chile's development have come since Pinochet stepped down from power and his reforms removed one by one, the source of that data was from the Chilean Central Bank Also, there was an interview around 8 years ago, where historians outlined that basically the only reason why Pinochet stepped down was because the CIA informed him that the US would not continue to prop up his regime, as Pinochet wanted to renege on the vote to step down from power, but the at the time General in charge of the Navy and the General in charge of the Airforce both of them disagreed with Pinochet, so had the CIA not done so, it could have ended on civil war. And what's interesting of it all, is that the CIA had documents/assessments which stated that if Pinochet were to continue in power, the already rampant poverty and growing slums in Santiago would work as perfect spots for a hard Communist uprising along the MIR and FPMR, both groups communist guerrillas which had already tried to assassinate Pinochet. So the US stopping support of Pinochet was again, intended to advance their own interests in the country But yeah, slowly things which were done while Pinochet was in power are being corrected > https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/privatization-origins-of-political-corporations-evidence-from-the-pinochet-regime/2A1DAF4195974902AB28F1FDA7AA972D https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-... > ...We show that the sale of state-owned firms in dictatorships can help political corporations to emerge and persist over time. Using new data, we characterize Pinochet’s privatizations in Chile and find that some firms were sold underpriced to politically connected buyers. These newly private firms benefited financially from the Pinochet regime. Once democracy arrived, they formed connections with the new government, financed political campaigns, and were more likely to appear in the Panama Papers. These findings reveal how dictatorships can influence young democracies using privatization reforms.

littlestymaar 6y ago

Comming next: “let's discuss how the Nazi were in fact a good thing because their politics successfully saved the German economy”.

lawtalkinghuman 6y ago
On the one hand: genocide. On the other: Volkswagens! There are clearly two sides to the debate here. /s

socialdemocrat 6y ago

Thanks to social democrats who took over after Pinochet. So whatever Chile is today, a lot of it is thanks to democratic socialism. Still Chile has not gotten rid entirely of its troubled Milton Friedman and the Chicago boys legacy.

collegecamp293 6y ago
"Social democrats" are capitalists. They didn't abandoned capitalism. The current president is an independent who is backed by center-right organizations.

lawtalkinghuman 6y ago

"In Villa Grimaldi detainees would be electrocuted, water boarded, had their heads forced into buckets of urine and excrement, suffocated with bags, hanged by their feet or hands and beaten. Many women were raped and for some detainees, punishment was death." https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2013/09/life-under-pinochet-they-were-taking-turns-electrocute-us-one-after-other/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2013/09/life-under-pi...