Every person, whenever they act, has a complex mix of motives. I cannot speak with authority about what precise mix was in Pinochet's head in September, 1973. Nobody can. What I can say is that a lot of people who did not stand to get rich from a coup -- the supreme court, the congress, and the army -- backed the coup. That I think is significant evidence that there were reasonable grounds for doing so, other than personal gain. Showing that there were rational grounds, other than greed, is about all that can ever be shown, and for most purposes, is good enough.
What makes you say American democracy is dying? Or even ill? There are policy questions about which service the government should offer. But hiring civilian truck drivers in a war zone does not a tyranny make. It's not the least bit tyrannical.
"Shock therapy" and tyranny need not be connected. Most of Eastern Europe went through essentially an abrupt "shock therapy" transition to free market economics, without any sort of tyranny. That in Chile a military government took such steps proves little; many socialist economic systems have been set up by authoritarian regimes.
Now for the empirical question of how the Chilean economy did under various governments. It had ups and downs under Allende, and ups and downs under his successors. Your statistics, if I understand right, are comparing 1972. the best pre-coup year, with 1982, the worst post-coup year. That is not a legitimate comparison.
For the last 18 years since the end of military rule, Chile has had broadly free-market policies, and a remarkably good economic performance. The right comparison, I think, is free-market policies in democracy versus appropriationist policies under democracy -- military rule of course has economic costs of its own. As Milton Friedman often pointed out.
Every person, whenever they act, has a complex mix of motives. I cannot speak with authority about what precise mix was in Pinochet's head in September, 1973. Nobody can. What I can say is that a lot of people who did not stand to get rich from a coup -- the supreme court, the congress, and the army -- backed the coup. That I think is significant evidence that there were reasonable grounds for doing so, other than personal gain. Showing that there were rational grounds, other than greed, is about all that can ever be shown, and for most purposes, is good enough.
What makes you say American democracy is dying? Or even ill? There are policy questions about which service the government should offer. But hiring civilian truck drivers in a war zone does not a tyranny make. It's not the least bit tyrannical.
"Shock therapy" and tyranny need not be connected. Most of Eastern Europe went through essentially an abrupt "shock therapy" transition to free market economics, without any sort of tyranny. That in Chile a military government took such steps proves little; many socialist economic systems have been set up by authoritarian regimes.
Now for the empirical question of how the Chilean economy did under various governments. It had ups and downs under Allende, and ups and downs under his successors. Your statistics, if I understand right, are comparing 1972. the best pre-coup year, with 1982, the worst post-coup year. That is not a legitimate comparison.
For the last 18 years since the end of military rule, Chile has had broadly free-market policies, and a remarkably good economic performance. The right comparison, I think, is free-market policies in democracy versus appropriationist policies under democracy -- military rule of course has economic costs of its own. As Milton Friedman often pointed out.
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