[ It is entirely fitting that Chile should be in the vanguard of
protests in this Autumn of Discontent, since Chile served as the
laboratory for the neoliberal transformation of economics and politics
that has swept the world since the 1970s.] [[link removed]]
NEOLIBERALISM’S CHILDREN RISE UP TO DEMAND JUSTICE IN CHILE AND THE
WORLD [[link removed]]
Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies
November 6, 2019
Common Dreams
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_ It is entirely fitting that Chile should be in the vanguard of
protests in this Autumn of Discontent, since Chile served as the
laboratory for the neoliberal transformation of economics and politics
that has swept the world since the 1970's. _
If Chenoweth is right and the million Chileans in the street have
breached the tipping point for successful non-violent popular
democracy, Chile may be leading the way to a global political and
economic revolution. , (Photo: RODRIGO ARANGUA/AFP via Getty Images)
Uprisings against the corrupt, generation-long dominance of neoliberal
“center-right” and “center-left” governments that benefit the
wealthy and multinational corporations at the expense of working
people are sweeping country after country all over the world.
In this Autumn of Discontent, people from Chile, Haiti and Honduras to
Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon are rising up against neoliberalism, which has
in many cases been imposed on them by U.S. invasions, coups and other
brutal uses of force. The repression against activists has been
savage, with more than 250 protesters killed
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Iraq in October alone, but the protests have continued and grown. Some
movements, such as in Algeria and Sudan, have already forced the
downfall of long-entrenched, corrupt governments.
A country that is emblematic of the uprisings against neoliberalism is
Chile. On October 25, 2019, a million Chileans—out of a population
of about 18 million—took to the streets across the country, unbowed
by government repression that has killed at least 20 of them and
injured hundreds more. Two days later, Chile's billionaire president
Sebastian Piñera fired his entire cabinet and declared, "We are in a
new reality. Chile is different from what it was a week ago."
The people of Chile appear to have validated Erica Chenoweth’s
research
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non-violent protest movements, in which she found that once over 3.5%
of a population rise up to non-violently demand political and economic
change, no government can resist their demands. It remains to be seen
whether Piñera’s response will be enough to save his own job, or
whether he will be the next casualty of the 3.5% rule.
It is entirely fitting that Chile should be in the vanguard of the
protests sweeping the world in this Autumn of Discontent, since Chile
served as the laboratory for the neoliberal transformation of
economics and politics that has swept the world since the 1970s.
When Chile’s socialist leader Salvador Allende was elected in 1970,
after a 6-year-long covert CIA operation
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prevent his election, President Nixon ordered U.S. sanctions
to “make the economy scream.”
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In his first year in office, Allende’s progressive economic policies
led to a 22% increase in real wages, as work began on 120,000 new
housing units and he started to nationalize copper mines and other
major industries. But growth slowed in 1972 and 1973 under the
pressure of brutal U.S. sanctions, as in Venezuela and Iran
[[link removed]] today.
U.S. sabotage of the new government intensified, and on September
11th, 1973, Allende was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup. The new
leader, General Augusto Pinochet, executed or disappeared at least
3,200 people, held 80,000 political prisoners in his jails and ruled
Chile as a brutal dictator until 1990, with the full support of the
U.S. and other Western governments.
Under Pinochet, Chile’s economy was submitted to radical “free
market” restructuring by the “Chicago Boys,”
[[link removed]]a
team of Chilean economics students trained at the University of
Chicago under the supervision of Milton Friedman for the express
purpose of conducting this brutal experiment on their country. U.S.
sanctions were lifted and Pinochet sold off Chile’s public assets to
U.S. corporations and wealthy investors. Their program of tax cuts for
the wealthy and corporations, together with privatization and cuts in
pensions, healthcare, education and other public services, has since
been duplicated across the world.
The Chicago Boys pointed to rising economic growth rates in Chile as
evidence of the success of their neoliberal program, but by 1988, 48%
of Chileans were living below the poverty line. Chile was and still is
the wealthiest country in Latin America, but it is also the country
with the largest gulf between rich and poor.
The governments elected after Pinochet stepped down in 1990 have
followed the neoliberal model of alternating pro-corporate
“center-right” and “center-left” governments, as in the U.S.
and other developed countries. Neither respond to the needs of the
poor or working class, who pay higher taxes than their tax-evading
bosses, on top of ever-rising living costs, stagnant wages and limited
access to voucherized education and a stratified public-private
healthcare system. Indigenous communities are at the very bottom of
this corrupt social and economic order. Voter turnout has predictably
declined from 95% in 1989 to 47% in the most recent presidential
election in 2017.
If Chenoweth is right and the million Chileans in the street have
breached the tipping point for successful non-violent popular
democracy, Chile may be leading the way to a global political and
economic revolution.
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