Salvador Allende Was Overthrown Because His Government Showed Chile Could Be Transformed

[Judi Lynn]

09.12.2021
CHILE
STATE POLICY HISTORY

AN INTERVIEW WITH
TOMÁS MOULIAN

This weekend marks the 48th anniversary of the US-backed coup against Chilean socialist president Salvador Allende. That coup’s history is important, but we can’t forget that Allende’s government also achieved incredible things while in power.

INTERVIEW BY
Mía Dragnic

The first commemorative march for Chile’s Popular Unity government took place on September 11, 1989. Paying homage to the victims of the military dictatorship, it gathered more than five thousand people at Salvador Allende’s then-unmarked tomb in Viña del Mar.

It would also be the final year of Augusto Pinochet’s bloody dictatorship. Before stepping down, Pinochet ominously announced on national radio that even in his absence the “struggle against Marxism must go on.”

Every year since that date, a commemorative march is held in Santiago de Chile. However, in 2005, the route was reversed so that it would begin, rather than end, at the cemetery and head toward its final destination at the Moneda Palace. The message behind the route change was clear: there will always be a place for the Left to mourn its fallen heroes, but its ultimate destiny lies elsewhere.

The Chilean left also seems to be reversing course in recent years, most spectacularly by winning majority representation in the all-important Constitutional Convention, responsible for rewriting the nation’s magna carta.

Amid growing confidence on the Left, many people have also begun to look back with a different attitude on the history of Allende’s Popular Unity government (Unidad Popular, UP) — less as a solemn act of remembrance than an active search for useful political experiences.

More:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/09/salvador-allende-popular-unity-government-chile-quimantu-industrial-textile-democracy-nationalization-banks-copper

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Nothing inconsistent

Capitalism had a plan for eastern Europe post-war, it had a plan for developing the world and making it safe as corporate resources - everywhere. I'm not making a statement in support of socialism, Marxism, or against capitalism. Just describing from what I've read. The quintessential concepts are delineated in John Perkins' books beginning with "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". Once they loan you money, you eject the natives and make room for the foreign capitalists, basically. Useful concepts in analyzing world and financial events.

[gab13by13]

3. C'mon man, have you been to Chile?

Nixon, Kissinger and our CIA conspired with Pinocet who rolled tanks up to the main federal building and fired 2 dozen rockets into that building. Shortly thereafter Milton Friedman sent his goons to Chile from the Chicago School of Economics to install its economy. Pinocet murdered and imprisoned those on the left.

I worked in Chile for 2 years and I saw the results of Friedman's economics. There were no safety rules in factories, no OSHA, women were not permitted to do many jobs, only the rich were educated. Friedman's economy did bring families together, I watched them eating out of dumpsters.

Chile had a thriving Socialist economy with a thriving middle class before Friedman came to town. Chile was the grand experiment, it was done with the express intent to have zero opposition to Friedman's economic plan, it was nothing more than Voodoo, trickle down economics. I saw it first hand. People were so poor that money was no object to them.

What happened in Chile was a disgrace to the United States because we were a big part of what happened.

[Doc Sportello]

7. Thanks

Good information and perspective from someone who was there. Of course, Kissinger, Nixon, et al got away with murder, as is almost always the case. And Friedmanomics continues to be a pillar of our world order.

[robbob]

2. And THIS is what the US government really means

when they talk about spreading democracy and US values abroad. And remember also the torture and violence that followed the CIA backed overthrow of Allende. All paid for with your tax dollars.

[gab13by13]

4. Exactly, thank you.

I was in Chile in 2003 when a man came at our group screaming at us. He knew we were Americans. I didn't know that much Spanish but I kept hearing the word Pinocet. I gathered that his relatives were either murdered or imprisoned by Pinocet so that Milton Friedman could set up his economic plan.

[Loki Liesmith]

5. It couldn't be

Have you ever seen Allende’s “economy control room” (Project Cybersyn) The idea that something like this would function on a national scale is ludicrous.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/12/project-cybersyn.html

[gab13by13]

6. Marginal Revolution - Libertarians.

How many countries follow a Libertarian form of economics?

[Doc Sportello]

8. So you're posting from right wing sources?

Conservative David Brooks on one of the authors:
"In 2012, journalist David Brooks called Tabarrok one of the most influential bloggers on the political right, writing that he is among those who "start from broadly libertarian premises but do not apply them in a doctrinaire way."[1]"

Cohen is a disciple of the Austrian economists who are the godfathers of Friedmanomics, which has been a total disaster for millions across the world.