Oh, Lordy, the nuts with a shaky knowledge of history, but the talismanic word "Pinochet" have crawled out of the woodwork to assert that Milton Friedman did, too, cause a dictatorship!
There are several problems with this theory:
1) Milton Friedman spent all of an hour with Augusto Pinochet
2) This occurred years after the coup.
3) The "Chicago Boys" reforms didn't even start until 1975, although I believe they did hand the brick to Pinochet the day after the coup. The Chicago Boys were not behind the coup; rather, they helped Pinochet undo the Allende nationalizations after he had already taken power. Early Pinochet economic reforms were along standard right wing Latin American crony capitalism lines. In fact, many of the reforms that the Chicago Boys put in place, such as opening trade, acted against traditional entrenched business interests.
Chile's economic miracle was indisputably the product of a vile dictatorship that overrode normal political considerations to make sweeping reforms before inexplicably dissolving itself in 1980. But the policies that led to the economic miracle did not cause the dictatorship, which would have been just as horrible without the Chicago Boys; indeed, as far as I know the worst abuses occurred right after the coup, as the regime was consolidating power.
Perhaps even more bizarrely, a few people in the comments are citing China as an example of how capitalism undermined democracy. Apparently I missed the section in history class where we covered the vibrant democracy that existed in China prior to pro-market reforms. Because in the history I learned, the openness and transparency required to support the market reforms have enabled what little movement towards liberalization China has had.
Good post. Chile isn't the only case where intelligent economic reforms were pushed through under a rightist autocracy. Another Latin American example is Brazil, where the policies that led to energy independence (sugar cane-based ethanol, flex-fuel cars, etc.) were instituted under the rightist military government. In both Chile and Brazil, subsequent left-of-center governments were smart enough to leave in place some intelligent policies that were instituted during periods when the respective countries were ruled by rightist autocracies.
As I noted in the other thread, Friemdan spent a lot more time advising the Chinese Communists of the Deng Era than he ever did Pinochet.
The Chinese Communists! Killers of 65 million people and impoverishers of a billion.
Nobody on the left has had a word of complaint about it yet. Nor did the Chicagoans.
It seems none of them are up on their Black Book of Communism, or don't care to be.
On the historical question regarding Chile, I'm not qualified to say.
In general, it's fairly easy to see how capitalism can undermine democracy. It's a simple question of competing power-aggregators. In a democracy, votes (the expression of the people) have power. In capitalism, currency has power. When you've got both, as we do, they are frequently in competition. The problem is that our ideology maintains that in questions of public policy and leadership, each individual should have equal say. And that clearly isn't true with the influence that money can have in given political campaigns.
I'm fully ready to concede that in developing nations market reforms are more likely to result in increased democracy than not. (Though there are certainly countries where free markets don't lead to liberal political orders.) But I think that as a country reaches a certain saturation point, that equation flips, and the more money a populace has, the more undue influence the wealthy have on what should be democratic decisions. I'm agnostic on campaign finance reform but I do believe that past a certain point of affluence capitalism becomes an impediment to egalitarian political decision making, and I'm open to policies that could fairly curb that.
That is, Friedman advised the Chinese Communists.
Friemdan advised Antiguan monarchists, I think.
I read somewhere that Pinochet clerked for Richard Posner after law school. Figures.
Freddie,
So you would like to see the influence of billionaires like George Soros, Ted Turner, etc., lessened? How would you propose to do that? It seems that campaign finance reform has only made them stronger.
Friemdan and the Antiguan Monarchy-- it's a dissertation waiting to happen.
I don't know, SteveD. I find the practical limitations of campaign contribution caps to be a steep hill to climb-- there's just too many ways around them. And I'm at least conflicted about the free speech implications of such a policy. But I do think that there are some severe negative consequences from the influence of so much money from individuals, consequences that can't help but distort our democratic process.
Freddie,
Under "capitalism," currency only has power insofar as the economy is not capitalist, rightly understood.
In other words, lobbying is a natural consequence of a mixed economy. In fact, the more control the government has to regulate economic transactions, the greater the incentive for economic actors to influence it.
I think you're right to say that free markets don't necessarily lead to liberal political orders. But your "saturation point" when a country becomes too rich, thereby undermining democracy, is a rather odd notion. Whatever the phenomenon, it can't fairly be ascribed to capitalism or wealth in and of themselves.
Don't bother, Megan that freak show of cluelessness in the U of Chicago post. It will continue forever and ever.
Those clueless people will always say the same things...things they can't elaborate on and demonstrate. You'd think they would notice the total lack of anything resembling a strong argument. It's all innuendo and simply saying Friedman and Pinochet in the same sentence. You'll never see anything real. Naomi Klein spent hundreds of pages doing it. I read it.
These people should be ashamed of themselves for being so empty in their argumentation.
Freddie,
Interestingly, campaign finance regulations allegedly aimed at fighting the disproportionate impact of the rich are also aimed at curbing efforts by the non-rich to band together for political purposes. When McCain-Feingold was being debated, liberal members of Congress repeatedly discussed the need to curb the influence of the NRA*--I guess because it's bothersome to have to contend with citizens who disagree with you and organize effectively to enhance their political power.
Of course, the same process can work just as well against any other group--the AARP, the Sierra Club, PIRGs, unions--anyone who aggregates small donations to influence policy.
So while I agree that money might bring corruption, it's important to remember that efforts to quash it really do have--and are intended to have--a negative impact on ordinary people's influence, too. And that is to me more fearsome that the occasional sweetheart deal for some company somewhere.
* For those of you who think the NRA is the tool of gun companies, the organization you're looking for is the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Freddie:
I'm agnostic on campaign finance reform but I do believe that past a certain point of affluence capitalism becomes an impediment to egalitarian political decision making, and I'm open to policies that could fairly curb that.
What point? Gates and Buffett have $60 billion each, and they don't seem to be causing any problems. So how much does it take?
Freddie,
Such in the social democratic conundrum:
More power for the government to do the "people's will" by intervening in the economy without ever saying what that will is and who those people are.
Coupled with:
Less influence for interest group and interested parties to influence policy that affects them through many interventionist policies.
Result?
Exactly what you don't want.
Solution?
Exactly what you don't want.
Friedman was only following the wisdom of P.G. Wodehouse's Uncle Fred: "How can I leave this foul hole a better and happier foul hole than I found it?" Barring some way of fixing everything about a country at once, it's the best approach.
James,
You have no point.
Friedman did not cause the dictatorship, nor support the atrocities, nor suggest the atrocities nor cause the atrocities nor did Friedman help the dictatorship through any of his reform ideas nor did those of the Chicago boys'.
Pinochet's atrocities were his own. Nothing in anything Friedman said or did caused those atrocities. Nothing, zilch, nada.
Quite to the contrary, Friedman's economic ideas, insofar as they were even implemented help take Chile out of dictatorship because true political freedom comes out of economic freedom.
What part of any of that do you dispute or not understand?
If the answer is "nothing", then you have no case.
Friedman should be commended for what he did. Suggesting reforms to dictators that help lead to their own demise as dictators is good.
"In general, it's fairly easy to see how capitalism can undermine democracy. It's a simple question of competing power-aggregators ... In capitalism, currency has power ... the more money a populace has, the more undue influence the wealthy have on what should be democratic decisions ...
The evidence shows that economic development is strongly associated with the development of democracy ... but the development of democracy has ambiguous effects on economic development, sometimes good, sometimes very bad.
Poor societies of any size are almost always under the thumb of feudal lords, warlords, the guys with the gun, whomever. Economic growth tends to lead to their demise by distributing economic power increasingly through the initially "lower" classes, who then bring the top dogs to heel or topple them.
Look at our own history. The British Kings initially had "absolute" power ... then they had to call the first Parliaments to *get money* from the Lords and commercial classes below them, submitting to explaining themselves and making deals ... then the Kings agreed to become "subject to law" after a couple who refused to pay back their debts found their lenders putting knives to their throats (and worse) ... then with the growth of the middle class power shifted from the Lords to the Commons, etc.
Fast forward to the 20th Century, the "women's rights" movement finally succeeded in getting the vote after women were freed from vast amounts of hugely time-consuming labor by washing machines, vacuum cleaners and all the rest, becoming able to get education, get jobs, travel to new opportunities, politically organize, etc. (Anyone see "1900 House"?)
Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Communism was finally toppled by the political demand for Western-quality consumer goods and services in Eastern Europe (East Berliners watching "Dallas" on TV while driving Trabants and carrying coal up the stairs of their walk-up flats to heat their water in the 1980s -- I knew those people personally).
OTOH, the development of democracy sometimes is good for economic development. In the US, the "Anglosphere" and Western Europe it has generally, mostly, aligned the interests of governments and polticians with favoring generally beneficial economic policies (yes, with limitless specific exceptions, but generally).
But there is no shortage of examples where political democracy has freed the noxious sides of populism, racism, sect-ism, tribalism, oligarchic cronyism, etc. to work through the political system to strangle economic growth and impoverish nations.
Mugabe was popularly elected. Hitler's Nazis came to power through free elections.
So if you want to develop a healthy democracy, support economic development by all means.
If you want healthy economic development, support democracy carefully, on a case-by-case, aspect-by-aspect basis.
("Moneyed interests" in places like the US are the least of the threats to healthy political democracy. The US middle class vastly outvotes Bill Gates. Even if George Soros was sent into US politics by Satan, is anybody politically afraid of him? AARP on the other hand...)
In a democracy, votes (the expression of the people) have power. In capitalism, currency has power.
In real life, currency -- and wealth in general -- has power. It has nothing to do with capitalism, unless you define "capitalism" as "any system which allows private property" (i.e. every system to the "right" of the Khmer Rouge).
Given that wealth always has and always will have political power, the only question is whether or not you allow people to freely acquire and transfer wealth (i.e., power) or whether you let the State attempt to control the flow of that power within the country.
So you've established that he didn't start the dictatorship (glad we arent debating that), but he was willing to meet and give help to someone who was clearly known by then to be a dictator.
So meeting with dictators is out of the question? Somebody should tell Obama. :)
As for "helping" Pinochet, the reforms championed by Friedman helped the people of Chile enormously. They probably also "helped" Pinochet in the sense that dictators ruling over people whose lives are steadily improving are somewhat less likely to be killed by an angry mob, but their primary effect was to improve the lives of the common people. Are you really arguing that it harms Friedman's reputation to have improved the lives of people living under a dictatorship?
Are you really arguing that it harms Friedman's reputation to have improved the lives of people living under a dictatorship?
No, Dan. James isn't arguing anything that concrete or easy to understand...however wrong it may be.
He's simply saying he doesn't like Friedman...just because.
I take James is among those not bothered at all by Friedman spending a lot more than an hour advising the Chinese Communists.
They killed 8 times the entire population of Pinochet's Chile ... but I guess a Chinese life is worth a lot less to an anti-Friedmanite.
Funny how the assumption that these policies 'worked' is being aggressively pushed; you'd think that the record would speak for itself. Oh. _That's_ why it's being aggressively pushed, as a quick glance at the wiki shows.
Or consider this with regard to the people trying to dismantle SS:
And so on and so forth.
"inexplicably dissolving itself in 1980"
No, the dictatorship of Pinochet didn't "inexplicably dissolv[ed] itself". There was a referendum that Pinochet won in 1980. In 1988 there was another referendum that he lost and because of that Chile became a sort of democracy on 1990. From the Pinochet entry on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet): "After stepping down, he continued to serve as Commander in Chief of the Chilean Army until March 10, 1998, when he retired and became a senator-for-life in accordance to the 1980 Constitution.
As for the inexplicability part of it, there as always a huge external pressure on the regime and a very, very long democratic tradition on Chile.
SOV,
Good wiki link. It's totally undermines the anti-Friedman argument.
As for the private pension system, it is entirely possible that is was poorly implemented. I'm not surprised. The Chicago Boys had a mixed record. Failing to float their currency was a big part of where they came up short. It's not a coincidence that their recession in the early coincided with Volker jacking up interest rates to end stagflation. The Chilean currency was pegged to the dollar and it was bound to cause problems.
But overall, it's really hard to argument with the market based reforms that Chile generally embraced and has now become part of their economic success. Chile is probably the freest and least corrupt country in Latin Amercia. Market based reforms are the reason for that.
Scent of Violets:
Social Security is an income transfer program, not a pension program which pays returns from investments.
Your quotation and reference is interesting. Were it me, I would be quite careful about taking this fellow Huppi's writing at face value. His endnotes cite no academic literature in economics, though there do appear to be some reference works there. Also, if you look here (http://www.huppi.com/resume/resume.pdf), you will see his formal background in the subject at hand is minimal; I would be skeptical he knows how to read the literature in question all that well.
Sorry, James but meeting Pinochet is not and should not be a blot on Friedman's record. I don't care what those with hard left economics think of it. It's a simple thing to understand without ideological blinders. Like Jim Glass said, he also met with Chinese leaders and in much more detail. The fact that they have nothing to say about that shows their problem is ideological and based on nothing else. It was not a deplorable thing to do to meet with Pinochet. It's nobody's fault but their own if they can't see that.
As I recall, he was in Chile anyway to give a speech at the Universidad Catolica. Pinochet asked for a visit so he went. Big deal.
hat bears no resemblance to the facts whatsoever.
The hell it doesn't.
Chile is probably the freest and least corrupt country in Latin Amercia. Market based reforms are the reason for that.
One of the difficulties Latin Americn countries have faced (which Hernando de Soto and others have written about) in the realm of economic development is a sclerosis in the market for real estate (and hence credit) due to fuzzy and insecure land tenure. Chile has a long history (from 1831 to the present, with three notable interruptions) of legal order in its political life, with the opportunity to develop a court system and civil service that are more organized and regular in their operations than is usually the case in Latin America. The military regime did not create a court system that could effectively adjudicate disputes. It was already extant.
james,
No. I'm not claiming that nor does that matter. We're talking about Friedman and his role in Chile. While the coup may matter in some other discussion, it doesn't here.
Spreading the argument into Pinochet's coup itself is irrelevant.
BTW, if you my remark doesn't pass for a rebuttal inlight of everything I've said, then you tell me how I'm wrong because telling that facts don't support what said is pretty weak when you nothing else.
Actually, I thought what was risible is the previous Friedman/U. Chicago post were the hackneyed cliches being thrown around about the signers of the petition and academics in general.
Megan for instance writes: "Uncle Miltie would be thrilled to see you shopping at farmer's markets and co-ops; their availability is a form of expanded consumer choice."
Yes, well Uncle Miltie had a rather less charitible view about unions, which he argued should be illegal. No doubt Pinochet found that particular chesnut quite agreeable, given his regime's very strenuous repression of any free union movement.
And while Chicago school academics (as a school of thought and as individuals) may not be responsible for overthrowing any democratic regimes or engaging in repressive activities, it does seem notable (or "it is not a coincidence" to use more doctinaire lingo) that so many of the regimes that have followed Chicago prescripts do seem to have been rather repressive and anti-democratic. Probably not surprising since the imposition of Chicago economics causes great hardship to the most workers, and especially to both workers and owners of capital in previously protected and favored sectors. This is often justified with the argument that the hardship today will lead to prosperity in the future. Stalin's apologiusts said the same, though I will grant that Chicago economics delivered much better on the promise. But then that's purely an instrumnental justification,not in keeping with the moral blather that libertarian economics types preen about.
Er, John, I think you need to go back and reread. I really do. This is part of what earns you so much ire over on Thoma's blog.
You're absolutely right. It's not a particularly authoritative review. But Megan seems to want to try to get people to buy into the notion that there's some sort of general acceptance that Chile represents some sort of vindication for these polices. Actually, there isn't. And by some very objective measures, those policies were a disaster. The question is, which measure, or set of measures, do you use, and how much weight do you give them? It's only by taking a very prejudicial and after the fact set of measures that one can claim any sort of 'miracle'.
Gene,
Where did Friedman argue that unions should be illegal? My guess is that he argued that employees shouldn't be coerced into union membership, and you characterize that as arguing that "unions should be illegal." I could be wrong, though--I've just never heard of such a thing, and I've read most of his lay-person-geared work, I think.
James, while I believe Pinochet regime was reprehensible, your contention that democracy was not just alive and well but thriving in Chile before the coup is laughably naive.
Joe
He argued that unions were essentially a form of combination in restraint of trade, analogous to a group of producers combining to limit supply and therefore force up the price of their output. I don't have the specific cite handy, I haven't read any Friedman in 20+ years.
You can make the case that it's actually a defensible position in terms of intellectual consistency, though it also can (and I think should) be attacked from other intellectually consistent positions.
But the comparison seems to me to fly in the face of reality in terms of who really wields economic power, workers or large business enterprises. Milton Friedman: pointy-headed ivory tower intellectual with no clue how economic power in the working world actually works!
I have to say that I always find it interesting when my friends of a more leftist persuasion jump on the Pinochet bandwagon. They find much to criticize: CIA collusion, suppression of dissent, Operation Condor, the murder of political opponents, and of course Friedman and the Chicago boys. They can barely find limits to their condemnation. Nonetheless, when the discussion turns to the Castro family's 40-year rule of Cuba, they terrific "yes but" phrase is immediately employed. Castro did, after all, improve literacy, create a national healthcare system, stamp out Batista's corrupt influences, etc. All of a sudden, authoritarianism in the service of left-wing causes is imminently nuanced and shaded. Almost makes one want to read Jonah Goldberg's book. Almost.
I was the one of the people that brought up Chile and China in the other thread. I never said neoliberalism causes fascism. I was stating that many of the reforms that passed were facilitated by a lack of democracy. Saying that the desire to impose neoliberal policies has at times come to a head with democracy/civil rights is not inaccurate.
This shouldn't be a controversial statement.
Milton Friedman should just say that this is all a distraction. Then say that he could not give up Pinochet anymore than he could give up his own grandmother. Then he could say that this Pinochet is not the Pinochet he met for one hour.
If Milton did this (and its too late I suppose with him being dead) then he would be okie dokie with lefties.
Why are the neoliberals here going crazy trying to defend friedman's honor? The guy wasn't perfect. Working and associating himself with Pinochet,a man who converted football stadiums into torture chambers, was hardly a high point in his career.
James,
It is well known that Milton Friedman believed that a free economy is fundamentally incompatible with an unfree political system, and that freeing the economy would help create the political dynamic that would eventually lead to greater political freedom.
And, in any event, anything that could be done to free the economy would make the people better off, regardless of the political system.
You might not agree with that, but it makes no sense to morally condemn Friedman for meeting with Pinochet, when Friedman considered the extent to which the Chilean government took his advice would serve to make the least well off people in Chili better off.
Indeed, it was Milton Friedman's belief that free market economic reforms introduced into countries under authoritarian governments would push them towards democracy. And did it work in Chile? Yes! Is China thinking of making concessions towards democracy? Yes!
Leftists betray their ignorance by condemning Friedman for working with Pinochet, because he explicitly believed free market reforms would assist in bringing him down!
Pinochet did not relinquish power because of the free market or because Friedmans's ideas. In fact the CIA never intended for him to stay in power forever. It was strong international/national opposition and pressure that eventually led to the referendum.
Well maybe some people were claiming that the Chicago Boys were somehow behind the coup in Chile - they are wrong, it was the CIA.
Nevertheless, the broader point stands that neoliberal reforms are almost always implemented under duress, whether it is at the barrel of a gun(as in Iraq), or in the form of emergency structural adjustment loans (as in say, pick your country). Whether these reforms "work" is debatable. Many of them did tame inflation - but with deleterious consequences for large swaths of the population. What is undeniable is that these reforms are incredibly popular and when democracy is allowed to flourish, as Milton Freidman claims it needs to, they are roundly rejected by the population. Even in Chile, its privatized social security is massively unpopular.
The posts on this blog and the comments are completely devoid of any statistics or arguments as to whether these reforms are desirable or not. That's okay, Megan generally lays in out elsewhere. But the question here to the supports of Milton and the boys is, why have they been so unpopular among those in developing countries that have had to live with their impact?
lobbying is a natural consequence of a mixed economy. In fact, the more control the government has to regulate economic transactions, the greater the incentive for economic actors to influence it.
That's the free market theory, but the reality seems to be that if regulating governments did not exist, then capitalists would create them. Outside of Rand's fantasies businessmen do not see the state as their enemy, but as their tool to get a leg up on their competitors.
Even in Chile, its privatized social security is massively unpopular.
The voucher school system is also heavily criticized I believe.
How many who condemn Milton Friedman for advising Pinochet's government condemn Hernan de Soto for advising repressive dictators? I haven't heard a lot of criticism of de Soto on that score. Why not? Is it because he isn't American or associated with American conservatism?
Isn't utilitarianism supposed to be part of the moral foundation of leftist policies? If so, then, from a utilitarian perspective, were de Soto and Friedman wrong to advise repressive dictators, if they thought that the policies they advocated would ultimately help the majority of the respective dictators' subjects?
D'oh! I left the "do" off of the end of Hernando de Soto's first name in the previous post. My apologies.
James: You are getting ignored because your point is irrelevant at best, because we are talking about the ethics of Friedman giving Pinochet economic advice, and whether free market capitalism was responsible for Pinochet's dictatorship. It is irrelevant because Chile was certainly not a democracy after Pinochet took power! Do you project much, because you are certainly just chanting?
Friedman believed free market capitalism would undermine dictatorships.
Undermining dictatorships is justified.
Pinochet is a dictator.
Therefore, Friedman meeting with Pinochet and giving him advice on adopting free market capitalism is ethically justified.
You might not agree with these premises, but how on earth is it relevant that Chile was a democracy before Pinochet to these set of statements?
Chile did not adopt free market capitalism before Pinochet came to power, rather Pinochet came to power and then adopted free market capitalism.
Therefore, free market capitalism did not cause Pinochet to come to power.
How on earth is it relevant that Chile was a democracy to these set of statements?
How many who condemn Milton Friedman for advising Pinochet's government condemn Hernan de Soto for advising repressive dictators? I haven't heard a lot of criticism of de Soto on that score. Why not? Is it because he isn't American or associated with American conservatism?
Isn't utilitarianism supposed to be part of the moral foundation of leftist policies? If so, then, from a utilitarian perspective, were de Soto and Friedman wrong to advise repressive dictators, if they thought that the policies they advocated would ultimately help the majority of the respective dictators' subjects?
THE PROBLEM IS THAT A MAJORITY IN CHILE DIDN'T WANT THESE POLICIES! That's why the country had democratically elected a hard left-wing president.
Stop acting like Friedman was handing out democracy. He was advising the passing of legislation that the country didn't support. He helped pinochet take advantage of the country when it couldn't have its say.
That's an ugly thing to do.
That's the free market theory, but the reality seems to be that if regulating governments did not exist, then capitalists would create them.
You're creating a false dichotomy. The choice isn't between an interventionist state and no government at all. Another option is a laissez-faire state--one with the power to enforce a monopoly on coercion (and prevent corporations from imposing their own regulatory schemes), but constitutionally restrained from economic intervention.
The problem is that it's hard to get this in a democracy because of anti-market bias. Whenever the market fails to get everything exactly right, people demand that the government step in and make things better. But because of anti-market bias, they fail to take into account all the ways a government solution can fail.
Corruption feeds off anti-market bias. Voters give the government power to "fix" the market, assuming that it will work exactly as they want it to, when in reality the government almost always screws up or flat-out abuses the power it's been given, creating a situation worse than the original market outcome. The more power you give government, the greater the potential for abuse.
For democracy to work well, the voters need to understand the risks of government failure and abuse, rather than basing policy preferences on a comparison between a utopian government and a real-world market. Of course, that itself is a utopian scenario, because that's far too much to ask of most voters. So basically we're screwed no matter what.
"It didn't undermine the dictatorship. The thing Chile needed to be a democracy (again) was to get rid of the dictatorship."
Congratulations, you've mastered the tautology! It's getting hard to take you seriously. Wow, I never realized it was so easy as "just need[ing] to get rid of the dictatorship"!
What naive thinking! The thing is, James, you can say "it just needed to get rid of the dictatorship", but this generally requires, you know, actually doing something. Like, encouraging conditions that undermine their power in some way so their abuse of power becomes untenable. Or you could do it by force, but I doubt you'd prefer that. Those things tend to sometimes work at least. Saying we "we just [need] to get rid of the dictatorship" is just a tad simplistic.
And you might want to actually demonstrate how the prior democracy is relevant to the arguments I posted, instead of just repeatedly insisting that it's "directly relevant". You wouldn't want to be accused of chanting, now would you?
Eric, suppose a despotic ruler calls you and asks for your policy advice. You have reason to think that your advice, if followed, will substantially improve the lives of those despotically ruled, and afford them more freedom. You also have reason to believe that if the despotic ruler does not heed your advice, the lives of those he despotically rules will substantially worsen, and they will enjoy less freedom. Do you counsel the despotic ruler, or refuse to meet with him?
I think those that roundly condemn Friedman for acting unethically with regard to Pinochet are engaging in moralistic posturing without regard to real world outcomes. On a more despearte level, making nice with Stalin, to the point that he starts to be referred to as "Uncle Joe" by some in the United States, is about as revolting as it gets. I'm damned glad it was done, however.
These ethical calculations are not the clear-cut cases that the Friedman/Pinochet critics like to suppose. It is all preening in pursuit of feeling superior.
"THE PROBLEM IS THAT A MAJORITY IN CHILE DIDN'T WANT THESE POLICIES!"
Perhaps you have poll data on the popularity of the specific policies at the time they were enacted, but in any case it's immaterial to the point about utilitarianism. A policy can be considered "good" from a utilitarian perspective even if it is not popular at the time it is enacted (e.g., if the advocates of the policy believe that, sometime after the policy is enacted, it will lead to the greatest happiness for the greatest number of citizens -- even if most of those citizens don't realize that now).
Glad to see McArdle's penchant for ideology over empiricism remains shared by the majority of her looney posters, while a frantic few foolishly attempt to inject facts.
I say foolish in the same admiring way I might speak of someone who spent time hanging around meth labs to preach about the purity of the bodily temple....mostly, they get ignored, but there is a Quixotic charm to it.
My own opinion on Friedman, based upon a moderate amount of reading during several years of graduate business school is that he had figured out some useful things, but that they are nowhere near as far-reaching or universal as he or his true believers might aver.
Unless one buys into the usual exceptionalism regarding China --which I do not -- his policies are clearly no guarantee of democracy.
Chile was a democracy before Pinochet's coup, whose aftermath killed far more innocent people than 9-11. There really was no excuse for Friedman having anything to do with him, except for the fact that he was rather the "thing" with right wing Republicans just then. (I remember my brother's endless plaudits). Friedman's dealings with Pinochet cannot --by any reasonable measure --be viewed as a last ditch effort to re-establish democracy.
And yes --sometimes dictatorships have successful economic policies. (Refer to Singapore and China).
On the other hand, he didn't cause the coup, although it may have been encouraged by elements of the American government.
So what do you end up with? The usual McArdle drivel. Some fool on the left said Friedman was responsible for Pinochet. This is used as some sort of basis to resanctify a pretty smart fellow who suffered from severe intellectual hubris. This would be similar to McArdle if you removed the term "pretty smart".
Lots of inane statements. A few suckers trying to inject facts. General chaos.
Welcome to the McArdle funhouse.
Entertaining, as long as you are not actually trying to do any reaql thinking.
Glad to see McArdle's penchant for ideology over empiricism remains shared by the majority of her looney posters, while a frantic few foolishly attempt to inject facts.
I say foolish in the same admiring way I might speak of someone who spent time hanging around meth labs to preach about the purity of the bodily temple....mostly, they get ignored, but there is a Quixotic charm to it.
My own opinion on Friedman, based upon a moderate amount of reading during several years of graduate business school is that he had figured out some useful things, but that they are nowhere near as far-reaching or universal as he or his true believers might aver.
Unless one buys into the usual exceptionalism regarding China --which I do not -- his policies are clearly no guarantee of democracy.
Chile was a democracy before Pinochet's coup, whose aftermath killed far more innocent people than 9-11. There really was no excuse for Friedman having anything to do with him, except for the fact that he was rather the "thing" with right wing Republicans just then. (I remember my brother's endless plaudits). Friedman's dealings with Pinochet cannot --by any reasonable measure --be viewed as a last ditch effort to re-establish democracy.
And yes --sometimes dictatorships have successful economic policies. (Refer to Singapore and China).
On the other hand, he didn't cause the coup, although it may have been encouraged by elements of the American government.
So what do you end up with? The usual McArdle drivel. Some fool on the left said Friedman was responsible for Pinochet. This is used as some sort of basis to resanctify a pretty smart fellow who suffered from severe intellectual hubris. This would be similar to McArdle if you removed the term "pretty smart".
Lots of inane statements. A few suckers trying to inject facts. General chaos.
Welcome to the McArdle funhouse.
Entertaining, as long as you are not actually trying to do any real thinking.
Glad to see McArdle's penchant for ideology over empiricism remains shared by the majority of her looney posters, while a frantic few foolishly attempt to inject facts.
I say foolish in the same admiring way I might speak of someone who spent time hanging around meth labs to preach about the purity of the bodily temple....mostly, they get ignored, but there is a Quixotic charm to it.
My own opinion on Friedman, based upon a moderate amount of reading during several years of graduate business school is that he had figured out some useful things, but that they are nowhere near as far-reaching or universal as he or his true believers might aver.
Unless one buys into the usual exceptionalism regarding China --which I do not -- his policies are clearly no guarantee of democracy.
Chile was a democracy before Pinochet's coup, whose aftermath killed far more innocent people than 9-11. There really was no excuse for Friedman having anything to do with him, except for the fact that he was rather the "thing" with right wing Republicans just then. (I remember my brother's endless plaudits). Friedman's dealings with Pinochet cannot --by any reasonable measure --be viewed as a last ditch effort to re-establish democracy.
And yes --sometimes dictatorships have successful economic policies. (Refer to Singapore and China).
On the other hand, he didn't cause the coup, although it may have been encouraged by elements of the American government.
So what do you end up with? The usual McArdle drivel. Some fool on the left said Friedman was responsible for Pinochet. This is used as some sort of basis to resanctify a pretty smart fellow who suffered from severe intellectual hubris. This would be similar to McArdle if you removed the term "pretty smart".
Lots of inane statements. A few suckers trying to inject facts. General chaos.
Welcome to the McArdle funhouse.
Entertaining, as long as you are not actually trying to do any real thinking.
So, given the moderated stance of many anti-Friedman commenters here, which is that Friedman is not responsible for Pinochet's regime but still shouldn't have met with him, I hope that they will now endorse the following thing -
When left-wing American intellectuals and development analysts are asked by the widely corrupt, undemocratic and downright dictatorial governments of Africa and Central Asia, they should tell the leaders of these governments to sod off and refuse to offer any economic policy advice. Let them rot and the people starve until they get a proper government.
Yet somehow this seems to me to be the policy territory of neoconservatives rather than the morally upstanding left.
"are asked by" should be "asked for help by," to clarify. Sorry for the error and double posting.
Tim, the irony is that you just wrote about 300 words without expressing a thought worth examining, and you did it without being entertaining, no matter whether one was trying to do any "real thinking" or not.
Did you practice pomposity while attending the "several years of graduate business school" you thought was worthwhile to inform us of, during which you read your moderate of amount of Friedman? Is there any other biographical trivia that you would like to waste our time with? The name of your hamster, perhaps?
Tim Connor:
So what do you end up with? The usual McArdle drivel. Some fool on the left said Friedman was responsible for Pinochet. This is used as some sort of basis to resanctify a pretty smart fellow who suffered from severe intellectual hubris.
On the contrary, Friedman's policy recommendations were essentially applied humility. Hubris is believing that you know how people should spend their money, run their businesses, educate their children, what they drugs--recreational or medical--they should or shouldn't take, etc., and forcing your vision on them. It takes humility to let people make those choices on their own.
Guess Brandon Berg has got that about right.
What is wrong with the original proposal for a U. Chicago Milton Friedman Institute is that it is likely to turn into a boring, useless shrine. Having looked at other such Institutes, and at Friedman's ideas and record I would be in favour of a University of Chicago Institute of Applied Macro-Economics dedicated to "Milton Friedman, who often got it wrong, but much less often than the rest of us." I would then finance it by public subscription, especially from China and Chile where millions of peole have a lot of reason to be grateful to him, but also allowing money from the rest of us whom he infuriated, amused and enlightened to some purpose.
As for the letter which disgraces so many of the Chicago faculty, and appalled Megan, it illustrates:
1. Inability to think coherently outside one's own discipline is a sad reality of much academic life.
2. A major part of the costs of idotic public statements is the drudgery of dealing with stupid and scelerotic responses to them.
3. Milton Friedman's habit of noting what had happened and is happening is not widely copied amongst his critics; whilst the responses show that it is not often followed by his admirers.
4. Megan's instinct that a stink in the intellectual drains like this one needs to be cleared is right; but one needs to put on a mental gas mask while the work is under way.
That's the free market theory, but the reality seems to be that if regulating governments did not exist, then capitalists would create them.
Brandon did a good job of explaining why that's a false dichotomy. I'm still curious, though, as to what prompted you to make that claim? Why does that seem to be the reality? Where has a "regulating government" been absent, then created by "capitalists?" It seems to imply--and correct me if I've misunderstood--that all, or at least a majority of, regulations came about as a result of one or another business interest. Do you think this is the case?
Outside of Rand's fantasies businessmen do not see the state as their enemy, but as their tool to get a leg up on their competitors.
I'm not sure how this advances your argument, but it's nice to have an official spokesman for the views of businessmen on the blog.
THE PROBLEM IS THAT A MAJORITY IN CHILE DIDN'T WANT THESE POLICIES! That's why the country had democratically elected a hard left-wing president.
Allende got ca 36 % of votes in a three-way race, only 40,000 votes more than his closest rival. In accordance with the Chilean constitution he was then elected by Congress.
The candidates to the right of Allende had gotten almost two thirds of the vote. While I leave further comments to people with a better knowledge of the country I think it's obvious that Allende's election does not mean that a majority wanted hard left-wing policies.
Tell all of this to the victims of the Chilean miracle:
http://www.amazon.com/Victims-Chilean-Miracle-Neoliberalism-1973-2002/dp/082233321X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216215843&sr=8-1
Heinz-
Maybe you should actually learn the history of the 1970 election before denouncing the ignorance of other people. The third party in the election, the Christian Democratic Party, won 27.8% of the vote. The Christian Democratic Party was a left wing party. Their politics were much closer to Allende's than Allesandri.
So yes, a majority of Chileans votes for left-wing parties in the 1970 election.
James,
I read it the first time. The point about Chili being a democracy before it was a dictatorship is irrelevant, as Friedman didn't have anything to do with it becoming a dictatorship.
"So you've established that he didn't start the dictatorship (glad we aren't debating that), but he was willing to meet and give help to someone who was clearly known by then to be a dictator."
To me, this makes no sense as a criticism. Friedman did not meet with Pinochet to give him advice about how to maintain his dictatorship. He gave advice about the legal regime (as pertains to the economy) that would make the average Chilean best off (and, as it happens, assist in the demise of the dictatorship itself).
Which situation is best for the average citizen:
1) live in a dictatorship which employs a (relatively) enlightened economic policy of (relatively) free markets, the inherent openness of which would enhance the social pressures for a freer government
2) live in a dictatorship which employs an unenlightened controlled economy which enhances the pressures for the dictator to hang onto power until his last dying breath (see Mugabe, Robert)?
All this debate is silly. The sole question is whether it was ethical for Friedman to meet with Pinochet. Not whether Friedman's advice to Pinochet had positive or negative effects.
Whether or not you believe Friedman's views were correct, the fact is that he believed that pro-market reforms would lead to political freedoms. Whether that belief was accurate or not is irrelevant to the question of whether meeting with a dictator is ethical given that belief.
Given Friedman's stated views on the effects of market reforms, his meeting with Pinochet could only be unethical if Friedman's stated views were lies in which he did not honestly believe.
ScentofViolets,
Regardless of the strength of your arguments, please, please, please stop typing "er" and "sigh" in your comments. It gives your posts an unbelievably obnoxious tone.
Well, since I will die one day, it is time that revealed my darkest secret so that I don't suffer Milton Friedman's fate.
On a November day in 1975, I and some of my colleagues made a large map of South America. My task was to find out who the presidents of each of these countries was. I am the one that wrote Pinochet in the border of Chile.
Even though my group did win the third grade world geography prize of free chocolate milk after recess, I can't help but feel we should have done more to rid Chile of Pinochet. That black mark on my reputation was foreshadowed by the chocolate stain on my Fonzie teeshirt.
rick,
I'm impressed. You really make up for your inability to read by lavishly dealing out insults.
If you want to be taken seriously try something else.
"He helped pinochet take advantage of the country when it couldn't have its say."
He spoke with him for an hour and sent him a letter on economic policy.
This whole thing is just silly. The amount of real advise that Friedman gave Pinochet was trivial.
Personally, I don't think it would have been wrong for Friedman to have given him more extensive advise if he thought that it was in the best interest of the Chilean people, but Friedman's personal involvment with Pinochet was trivial. Especially compared with advise he gave to China and others that no one seems to care about.
Gene - Friedman was very anti-union, but I'm almost certain he didn't call for them being banned. Making statements about their negative consequences, or arguing against closed shops, and other union restraint of trade (or even arguing that those specific things be banned) isn't arguing that unions should be illegal.
Let's just see where I applied this 'unbelievably obnoxious' grunt, "er":
Looks to me like I was exasperated with someone behaving like a jackass. Do you agree he was being obnoxious, deliberately so? The only way this conversation is going to progress is if you admit that he was, indeed, behaving like a jerk. Then we can go on to the proper way to handle these situations.
If, otoh, you're going to try to say that John (who has something of a reputation on some other blogs) was perfectly proper, that his behaviour was not obnoxious in the slightest, then we really don't have that much to talk about, do we?
So, do you want to have a real conversation about the proper way to deal with snarky posters? I'm definitely up for that. Or do you just want to engage in a little extra bashing in the guise of judicious critic? I can do that too - and I can guarantee you won't much care for the 'tone'.
The ball is in your court.
Scent,
I was also referring to your comments in the last post. "Er" is the equivalent of an eye-roll. It indicates an unnecessary level of arrogance and not taking the other person seriously.
As for John's comment, it seemed unnecessarily sarcastic, but Stefan, on the other thread seemed like he was quite reasonable, while I found your tone to indicate unearned disdain for having to suffer such fools. "Unbelievable obnoxious" was unnecessary, however, I want to sincerely apologize.
Gene, your original statement was "Yes, well Uncle Miltie had a rather less charitible view about unions, which he argued should be illegal. No doubt Pinochet found that particular chesnut quite agreeable, given his regime's very strenuous repression of any free union movement."
In _Free to Choose_, in a summing-up paragraph of a section of the "Who Protects the Worker?" chapter, the Friedmans write "Unions can and often do provide useful services for their members --- negotiating the terms of their employment, representing them with respect to grievances, giving them a feeling of belonging and participating in a group activity, among others. As believers in freedom, we favor the fullest opportunity of labor unions to performan whatever services their unions wish, and are willing to pay for, provided they respect the rights of others and do not use force." This is consistent with what I remember of (Milton) Friedman's positions elsewhere, so I'll be surprised if you come up with something vastly different.
This position does freak out union supporters. In principle they tend to be angry when the right of outsiders going peacefully to work in their place is treated as more important than the union's right to their jobs. (Someday I'd love to see some scholar trace the intellectual history of how the left built its firewall between inheriting nationality and owning jobs, on one side, and the classic criticisms of property rights on the other. The law in its august majesty allows non-union members as well as union members to support the squatters rights of the union members? When Adam delved and Eve span, who then was the union man?) But I think it's like a critic of current political parties saying that there shouldn't be special rights for established parties: someone who says Democrats shouldn't get on the ballot for free while Green candidates have to file petitions could be summarized as "a less charitable view about parties" without being absolutely dishonest. But I don't see any honest way to get from there to "he argued [parties] should be illegal" or "no doubt Deng found that very convenient, given his regime's very strenuous repression of any free party movement."
I advise that you stick to something like "Friedman wanted to gut unions by allowing unions no other way to shut down companies and scabs other than by absolutely peacefully withholding their own labor." For extra credit: "And with his extreme views on freedom of contract he would even allow the companies not just to fire the strikers, but to maintain a blacklist to try to avoid hiring union people." (That one's an semi-informed guess, I don't have a cite.) Those accusations should be more than sufficient for whipping the choir into a frenzy of hate. And when your words leak out of the wonderful echo chamber acoustics of your church, they won't instantly identify you as one of the "the nuts with a shaky knowledge" to those of us who are tone-deaf to the special beauty of unions.
Tim "Triple Post" Connor wrote: Glad to see McArdle's penchant for ideology over empiricism remains shared by the majority of her looney posters, while a frantic few foolishly attempt to inject facts.
Well then, let's see how your attempt goes:
Chile was a democracy before Pinochet's coup,
Oooh...ouch! Allende was running amuck, having wrecked the economy and placed himself on the verge of taking undemocratic power for himself at the moment when Pinochet intervened. Chile had been democratic, but was actually teetering on the edge of a political no-man's land. So while it is technically correct that "Chile was a democracy before Pinochet's coup", it is not factually correct, since facts tend to have critical context.
A policy can be considered "good" from a utilitarian perspective even if it is not popular at the time it is enacted (e.g., if the advocates of the policy believe that, sometime after the policy is enacted, it will lead to the greatest happiness for the greatest number of citizens -- even if most of those citizens don't realize that now).
Precisely. Stalin's apologists made exactly this argument for the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture. I find it bizarre that ostensible libertarians would use the same justification.
rick,
You're right that the Christian Democrats were a leftist party - sort of. It had a "right wing" and a "left wing" though at the time of the 1970 election the "left wing", led by Tomic (who ran against Allende) was dominant. However, even the leftist Christian Democrats were far less "radical" than Allende (whom they ended up supporting in 1970, after the election). Even the Popular Front included many "moderate" elements, such as some ex-CD's, and left-center democrats.
So while the majority of Chileans DID vote for leftist policies in 1970's, they were most likely voting for moderate leftist policies (except perhaps on the issue of land reform, but that had already begun previously under Frei and was more or less scheduled to continue regardless of who won the election). To use a very imperfect analogy with US politics, they thought they were voting for a JFK or a Jimmy Carter. Instead they got a wanna be Castro.
Between 1970 and 1973 Allende and the more extreme portion of the Popular Front radicalized quickly (so quickly and extremely in fact that Soviet advisers to Allende were telling him to cool it down) which in turn alienated the moderates. The Christian Democrats withdrew their support. Even groups within the Socialist left became wary of Allende. By 1973 most of Allende's popular support was gone (though this obviously doesn't imply that people were cheering for the military coup), the whole country was destabilized, there was a policy induced economic crisis and the Christian Democrats allied with the (right wing) National Party in condemning Allende. The Chilean Chamber of Deputies (like the US House of Reps) passed a resolution accusing ALLENDE of undermining democracy and subverting the constitution. And the Chilean constitution nominates the Chilean military as a guaranteer of democracy (for historical reasons). So by 1973, the Christian Democrats, along with other elements of society, were calling - formally, politically, legally - for a military ouster of Allende. Of course, that doesn't mean they wanted a dictatorship to replace him.
In 1970 moderate leftist policies would have probably been beneficial for Chile, particularly, again, in the area of land reform. They probably would not have been disastrous. But Allende's policies were not moderate, were not beneficial, were disastrous and laid the foundations for the coup that followed.
"Allende was running amuck, having wrecked the economy and placed himself on the verge of taking undemocratic power for himself at the moment when Pinochet intervened. Chile had been democratic, but was actually teetering on the edge of a political no-man's land."
For one, copper prices had more to do with the tanking economy than any policy. And two, the rest is a blatant lie.
Josh,
Give it up with SoV. *Sigh*-ing, eye rolling and other forms of passive aggressive condescension are her/his forte, as are accusations of "arrogance" directed at others - all of which are there to mask the fact that s/he's usually got nothing of substance to say.
Allende was like the mobsters killed by Michael Corleone at the end of The Godfather. He killed them before they could kill him. Allende was in process of stockpiling weapons and training death-squads. That commies-stooges today claim he was "democratic" only shows how much of stooges they are!
James is either very confused or deliberately misrepresenting himself.
"It is a little difficult to make the claim that Friedman by his ideas helped turned Chile into a free country via the free market when it was a democracy before Pinochet stole power."
Really.
Suppose that George Bush had won the 2000 election with only 36% of the popular vote.
Suppose that in the aftermath of the 2000 election, the Supreme Court issued a statement that George Bush was in violation of the Constitution but that it was unable to enforce the law because the executive branch was ignoring. Suppose in responce the Congress passed a decree declaring that Bush was in violation of the law and directed the Defence Department to remove Bush from office?
Under those circumstances, who would you claim had 'stole' power?
May I draw your attention to this document:
Declaration of the Breakdown of Chilean Democracy
Allende was in the process of taking over the government and installing a socialist dictatorship. With the backing of the Supreme Court, the Legislature, the Army, the Navy, and a significant fraction of the Chilean people Pinochet moved to oust Allende. It was a bloody nasty affair, but as civil wars go it could have been alot worse. Pinochet did alot of nasty things, but unlike Castro he's no longer in office and his country isn't in ruins.
The US role in Chile was very minor. The documents show that Pinochet had largely completed preparations for a coup before contacting the US to determine what the American responce would be. The US basically told him that they'd stay the heck out of his way. There is absolutely no doubt that the US wanted Allende gone, and in my opinion there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that that was the correct stand. Whether we could or should have done something to mitigate the terror of the Pinochet period is an entirely different question, but we certainly didn't create the mess.
The Friedman/Pinochet stuff has been floating around for decades, but got it's most recent boost from Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" book.
Johan Norberg does a fine takedown of Klein's book here:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9384
On the Bizarro Planet that collectivists live on inside their heads, free markets equate to fascism, while government intervention in the economy equates to anti-fascism. Go figure.
I know people who buy into the whole BDS party-line of Bush being fascist (a case only a libertarian would be qualified to make), yet criticize Bush for not stepping in and lowering the price of gas by presidential fiat. The irony of their position is lost to them.
"For one, copper prices had more to do with the tanking economy than any policy. And two, the rest is a blatant lie."
No. Falling export prices can slow down growth and in some cases even contribute to a recession. But they usually cannot generate the kind of economic crisis that was present in Chile in 1972/73. They certainly were not responsible for 500%+ inflation and did not account for the majority of the (negative) 5%+ decline in personal incomes.
Compare the performance of other copper exporting/dependent countries (say, Peru) during this time. Yes, some economic woes, but unlike Chile, no crisis.
And it's trivial to accuse others of lying without offering any kind of factual evidence or argument to back it up. 3rd grade elementary school trivial.
So meeting with dictators is out of the question? Somebody should tell Obama. :)
Given the smiley, I assume that's just a joke, so we'll leave that.
Wow.... so we cannot bring up his directly stated policies either?
Wow, we cannot mention anyon3e he has ever met, has said, his family, his statements...
Holy crap, this guy really is the il Duce of the Left, sin't he? The leader can do no wrong; if the leader is wrong - claim racism
Stating that Chile was a democracy right before Allende was deposed is no different than claiming Germany was a democracy after the Nazis started the Reichstag fire, or claiming that Cuba and Zimbabwe are democracies. Most of the people attacking you are displaying a profound ignorance of history. Meanwile, Milton Friedman, Gary Becker and the rest of the Chicago Boys are the only reason anybody even knows that the University of Chicago is still in business. Your critics obviously never read Capitalism and Freedom, or even watched Free to Choose when it was on PBS during one of that newtork's rare trips off the liberal plantation. It obviously also would be pointless to refer your critics to the numerous reports that show just how well Chile's personally owned pensions do in comparison with what we will get for our Social Security taxes.
Gene wrote:
"Precisely. Stalin's apologists made exactly this argument for the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture. I find it bizarre that ostensible libertarians would use the same justification."
This seems to be an argument that attempts to defy the will of the majority or to implement policies opposed by the majority are inherently immoral and totalitarian. This ignores the fact that the "tyranny of the majority" can be every bit as problematic as the tyranny of one. I can most certainly point to plenty of instances where this has been the case- beginning of course with the popularity of slavery prior to the Civil War. By your logic it would have been inherently immoral to lobby the federal government to abolish slavery prior to the Civil War, and, moreover, would have been an unwise decision; indeed, your logic would suggest that Lincoln was wrong to issue the Emancipation Proclamation since a majority of Northerners even opposed that at the time. Other examples: until relatively recently, Robert Mugabe was quite popular in Zimbabwe and didn't need to worry about rigging elections; would it have been immoral to lobby against his land "reforms" - and unwise to prevent their implementation - even though they were supported by a majority of the people at the time? Were the majority of American correct that implementing Prohibition would make them better off?
The fact is that the majority (aka, popular will) doesn't always know what's best. This isn't to say that it's always wrong - far from it - just that there is absolutely nothing wrong from a moral standpoint with lobbying a political leader to defy the popular will on the grounds that the majority doesn't know what's best.
There's are good reasons why 20 faculty members of U of Chicago's history department signed the petition in protest of the Milton Friedman Institute. These might be a couple of them:
1) Milton Friedman, speaking in 1991:
"Chile, as you know, was first taken over by Salvador Allende and a socialist group...The important thing for my purpose is what happened after Allende's policies provoked the military to overthrow him and set up a military junta led by General Pinochet to run the country."
That's an interesting take on history, to put it mildly. The guy who was elected democratically (Allende) is the one who Friedman says "took over", while the guy who really did "take over" (Pinochet), did so because he was "provoked".
2) Friedman on why it wasn't so bad that Pinochet overthrew Allende:
Because if Allende had remained in office, Chile would have suffered "the elimination of thousands and perhaps mass starvation . . . torture and unjust imprisonment."
That's funny. Such a scenario never occurred under Allende's leadership...but it sure as hell did occur under Pinochet's regime.
Is it any wonder why the history professors especially don't want to be embarrassed by an "institute" named after a guy who would flunk any high school history class?
The reason leftists attack Pinochet is not because he was a dictator, or because he was right wing. Any nation that does the opposite of what leftists advise and achieves great success must be attacked, lest people learn from history.
If the world was full of Pinochet's in 1970 and they all listened to the Chicago Boys, the world would be far more prosperous and peaceful.
"On a more despearte level, making nice with Stalin, to the point that he starts to be referred to as "Uncle Joe" by some in the United States, is about as revolting as it gets. I'm damned glad it was done, however."
What good came out of the supporters of Stalin (or Mao, for that matter), in the United States? Are you referring to Friedman? It's one thing to give solid economic advice that will also generally tend to encourage greater democracy, along with added prosperity. But the Stalin supporters were trying to get the US to adopt economic policies that would hurt us, as opposed to trying to get the Soviet Union to adopt policies that would help them, weren't they?
Scent of Violets:
Despite the weakness of the Chilean retirement program,
1. the country did extremely well economically by LATIN AMERICAN STANDARDS through the 1980s and 1990s and
2. the country was doing very poorly economically right before Pinochet took power.
If you want to argue that the economic policies enacted by Pinochet did nothing to help the Chilean economy, your going to have to explain what changed after Pinochet took power, that was not connected to his economic policies, that affected the Chilean economy is a VERY SIGNIFICANT way. Simply pointing out that the retirement program is unpopular and ineffective at inducing Chileans to save their money for retirement is not enough.
Your best bet is to argue that it was the removal of the Allende’s extreme left wing policies (not the implementation of Pinochet’s policies) that rebalanced and re-energized an economy that had traditionally done well in the first place. I’m not sure this is true and I would be very careful before I asserted that policies that were followed by 2 decades of prosperity for the middle and upper classes didn’t do any significant good for the Chilean economy.
Eric,
Sorry but this is not true:
"THE PROBLEM IS THAT A MAJORITY IN CHILE DIDN'T WANT THESE POLICIES! That's why the country had democratically elected a hard left-wing president."
Allende was *not* elected by a majority of Chileans. He won slightly more than 30 percent of the vote in a multi-way election. He won a small plurality. He was able to push many policies through because Chilean law allowed the President to override the Congress unless the opposition had over 50 percent of the Congress. Since the opposition was divided several ways, no one party held a majority.
Again, Allende was not elected by a majority, and neither was he popular with many protests, and demonstrations and even general strikes taking place under his watch.
In a turf war, Gangster A kills Gangster B.
However, Gangster B had all sorts of terrible plans for the hood, way worse than Gangster A, plans which would have led to more deaths and destruction.
Mini-gangsters who supported B's plans make up stories that Gangster B was democratic, and that A was "worse" than B. Anyone who was associated with A, including avowed non-gangsters, are smeared. Somehow these little gangsters are not tainted by their association with Gangster B.
Life goes on.
Ann, there was a certain fellow to the west of Stalin who, without Stalin's alliance with the U.S., may have proven to be bit more troublesome than he already was, which was considerable.
I think there were a few Americans getting their feet wet in France, during the the first week of June, 1944, who were rather happy that the fellow's forces were contending with Stalin's, with the huge assistance of American industry, far to the east.
For several years prior to Allende's election and thereafter I was reading El Tiempo of Bogata, Colombia (it carried __Roldan el Temerrio__ --Flash Gordon -- on its comics page) and had a pretty good almost ringside seat of what was happening to the south. I was also working with a number of Chilean refugees (pre-Allende -- their parents had sent them out of the country because of fears of a civil war that would probably have killed twenty or thirty times the number Pinochet murdered.) Allende was a minority president chosen by the Chilean congress as a compromise candidate after he promised he would not act like a dictator. Eduardo Frey and the other politicians thought Chile was strong enough to survive a would be Castro. Allende then started to nationalize the economy, inflate the currency, have mobs take over land and factories. Thousands of foreign leftists hustled to Santiago to take part in the happening. One British computer specialist devised a program to run the Chilean economy along the lines of Gosplan, but forgot to remember that the Chilean, like the Soviet managers, would lie about their production achievements. The Chilean truckers went on strike when he tried to nationalize their trucks.
And yes, in the end, it was the politicians who had put Allende in place who asked the Army to take over. Afterwards, Pinochet saw no reason to give power back to the people whose stupidity put Allende in power in the first place. No doubt
Frey and the others were dissapointed in not being named the new president, but the Pinochet period allowed most of those idiots to pass from the scene before the next round of elections.
Are the class and caste distinctions in Chile still rankling and a sore point. Certainly. It's still part of South America and it has a long way to go, but compared to the hell hole of Cuba or the hell hole to come Chavez is making its livable.
goof chewy: Where as you trade in myths, I'm willing to provide documented historical evidence.
Once again, Pinochet moved to overthrow Allende at the request of Chile's supreme court and legislature. Read the freaking documents.
At the time Allende was removed, he was no more a supporter of democracy than Adolf Hitler and the whole 'Democraticly Elected' bit is nothing more than a sham. Saddam Hussein was democratically elected, but that doesn't make him a friend of democracy. Mugabe was democractically elected, but that doesn't make his rule legitimate. If Allende was allowed to remain in office, there was a very good chance he would have been the last democratically elected President of Chile.
Pinochet deserves censure for not moving to restore democracy soon after the coup, as many of his then supporters had hoped he would. And its certainly true that Pinochet cracked down hard on former supporters of Allende in a way that can in no manner be called 'the rule of law' or in accordance with human rights.
But none of that makes Allende look any better, nor the coup any less necessary.
rickm wrote: For one, copper prices had more to do with the tanking economy than any policy. And two, the rest is a blatant lie.
Your leprauchan picked a bad day to quit smoking, I see.
"So meeting with dictators is out of the question? Somebody should tell Obama. :)"
Dan, I think Friedman's (Friemdan's?) detractors believe that meeting with right-wing dictators is objectionable. They are off-limits and beyond unspeakable. Meetings with left-wing despots are negotiations to increase understanding.
josh,
ScentOfViolets has the same problem the rest of us do. People find disagreement disagreeable. I hope you did not find this disagreement with you to be so disagreeable as to be obnoxious, but if so, so be it.
I frequently find people who disagree with me to be obnoxious. Sometimes it comes down to the disagreement. Often tone makes it worse. Rarely tone makes it better. Some people adopt a tone so disagreeable I don't even like it when they agree with me.
Yours,
Wince
"Dan, I think Friedman's (Friemdan's?) detractors believe that meeting with right-wing dictators is objectionable. They are off-limits and beyond unspeakable. Meetings with left-wing despots are negotiations to increase understanding."
Craig - Wait, we're now calling a theocracy that executes homosexuals left-wing?
Although I suppose they get brownie points for fuel price controls and state-backed enterprises.
Which other post are you talking about? I've only made two before in this thread as far as I can tell. And as for John V, you're right in part: I don't take him seriously. I don't think that means that I'm being arrogant however. It means that he made a gratuitously snarky comment that added nothing to the conversation. Why be unpleasant just for the sake of being unpleasant? No, I don't think it's arrogance to spurn folks who behave like that. When John wants to grow up, behave himself, and actually make substantive contributions without the nastiness, I'll treat him civilly.
How do you propose then, to handle folks who behave like John? I don't think ignoring them is the right the thing to do. Serious suggestions would be greatly appreciated. As for Stefan, it seemed to me like he was being evasive and playing word games. If you think he wasn't, I'll go back and check to be sure. I'm certainly willing to concede that it was just miscommunication.
This is easy, I get to recycle my old Semi-Daily Journal stuff:
From one of Friedman's Newsweek columns in 1976:
" I am not now, and never have been an economic adviser to the Pinochet Chilean junta....
"...despite my sharp disagreement with the authoritarian political system in Chile, I do not regard it as evil for an economist to render technical economic advice to the Chilean government to help end the plague of inflation, any more than I would regard it as evil for a physician to give technical medical advice to the Chilean government to help end a medical plague."
And a few facts for those usual suspects who are parroting quarter century old Soviet disinformation:
Allende--elected president with less than 37% of the popular vote--immediately upon being inaugurated began to institute a communist regime like his hero Fidel Castro. When asked point blank by Georgy Ann Geyer if there would be elections in 1974, he replied that she didn't understand; that everything would be "completely different" then. Similar statements were given to other journalists.
Allende nearly destroyed the Chilean economy. He instituted tarriffs of over 100% on thousands of of imports. He fixed retail prices. He nationalized hundreds of businesses, and ran them at huge losses. He printed money to cover his deficits--there was an inflation rate approaching 1000% in 1973.
The Chilean army finally put a stop to the insanity, and freed the Chilean people from a Cuban style nightmare. In a plebiscite in 1980, Pinochet won a vote of confidence from the country. Probably because by then inflation was under control.
By the middle 1990s Chile's real per capita income was nearly triple what it had been in 1973 (Allende's last year). And Chile was again a democracy--Pinochet stepped down when he lost an election in 1988.
How do you propose then, to handle folks who behave like John? I don't think ignoring them is the right the thing to do. Serious suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Ignoring them is perfectly fine, but humor is the best, if you can swing it. If you can't do either, then just pretend they weren't snarky, and reply calmly and rationally to them as though they were serious intellectually respectable commenters. It's clear enough to the audience who's winning, and your occasional volcanic outbursts of bile--as amusing as I find them--is hardly a good vehicle for persuasion.
The fundamental thing is to not take yourself so seriously that you regard random internet rudeness as a deep affront to your dignity. Gentlemen fond of dueling often turned petty slights ignored by those of better judgment into deadly contests; I sense that you would have been quite comfortable in that era.
Really, what's the point of calling people out as rude, or snarky, or unserious? The rest of us can already see if they have been any of those things. If you're right (in the view of the audience), you're pointing out the obvious, and if you're wrong, you look silly. But in neither case does meta-commentary on improper commentary actually advance the discussion at all. And given your hatred of hypocrisy, you set yourself up admirably for poking from the rude unserious snarkers like me or the mouse should you ever deviate from your own line.
"Folks like John" don't require "handling" any more than folks unlike John, and in any case, the only person you can "handle" is yourself.
From this paper on the Chilean economy 1960-2000:
In Looking at the evolution of GDP over the last four decades, we distinguish three periods of continuous growth: 1960-1971, 1975-1981 and 1985-1998. The first period corresponds to a moderately inward oriented economy; the second is the period of the major trade liberalization and market reforms; while the third is the period where many of the reforms from the previous decade were consolidated.
So, I'd encourage anyone not devoured by bitterness at avoidance of the close call with Castroite socialism in Chile, to note that the Allende years of the early 1970s were NOT a period of prosperity, but the six years following the "shock treatment" recommended by Friedman were.
Chile is undoubtedly better off for having been ruled by Pinochet (and for his taking the Chicago Boys advice), because the alternative was not Switzerland, but Allende-Castro socialism.
Incidentally, the new center-left government of Chile nationalized the bus services of Santiago, and had to publicly apologize for doing so, because commute times went up to 2 hours from 40 minutes, and it loses 600 million dollars a year when it was making 60 million when it was in private hands (3,000 companies running minibuses.)
This is an amazing story in Econtalk podcast with Mike Munger. Really worthwhile podcast.
Its also interesting that Allende was trying to form his own "fifth force" of political paramilitary outside the traditional military. Sukarno did the same thing, and also got ousted in a coup.
celebrim: "Once again, Pinochet moved to overthrow Allende at the request of Chile's supreme court and legislature. Read the freaking documents."
Oh, yeah, the documents. The Supreme Court issued a resolution saying that Allende wasn't letting the police to crack down hard enough on people, while the Chamber of Deputies issued a resolution saying that Allende was letting the police and military crack down on people, and abusing his position by doing so (he actually wasn't allowing authorities to become goon squads, but the Chamber was politically against him, and had to come up with some kind of B.S.)
But getting back to your particular B.S., the Chilean Supreme Court did not "request" that the military overthrow Allende; only the Chamber of Deputies did. Also, only one half of Chile's bicameral legislature made such a request; it wasn't approved by Chile's Senate.
Did you bother to read the freaking documents?
celebrim: "At the time Allende was removed, he was no more a supporter of democracy than Adolf Hitler and the whole 'Democraticly Elected' bit is nothing more than a sham....
So it was all just a mirage? Allende wasn't democratically elected after all. Maybe you should inform every history professor in the world about this.
celebrim: "If Allende was allowed to remain in office, there was a very good chance he would have been the last democratically elected President of Chile."
Your evidence and data to support that? (Crystal ball? Pulling a rabbit out of your a$$? Anything?)
celebrim: "Pinochet deserves censure for not moving to restore democracy soon after the coup, as many of his then supporters had hoped he would."
Mr. Chairman, I move for censure! Let us move past the '2,300 murdered, 30,000 tortured, and over 100 expatriates assassinated' thing if you don't mind, and head straight on to the "not moving to restore democracy soon after the coup" part. Allende was, after all, a socialist, and might have prevented Wal-Mart from setting up shop here...
"So you've established that he didn't start the dictatorship (glad we arent debating that), but he was willing to meet and give help to someone who was clearly known by then to be a dictator.
Well done Megan, that's really shined Friedman's reputation."
Would you disparage Keynes for having met with Woodrow Wilson?
There wasn't really that great of a seperation in political repression between the two. Neither of them had large body counts by the standards of 20th century democide. Wilson's body count was probably less than Pinochet's, but his political repression was at least comparable- hint: Palmer Raids, Sedition Act, American Protection League, etc.
"goofy chew": So it was all just a mirage? Allende wasn't democratically elected after all. Maybe you should inform every history professor in the world about this.
As celebrim already pointed out, Saddam Hussein and Mugabe, and I would like to add Castro, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and so on just to name a few, all where according to people like you "democratically elected" at one point or another. And from the nasty noise caused by leftists twits that want Bush impeached or removed from power, I was left with the impression collectivist twits love the idea of taking power by force anyway. I guess the issue is that they only like it when the people taking power by force do so to implement collectivism. The problem with Pinochet was that he was right wing and took power away from Marxists.
The only time leftists seem to champion either a "democratically elected" government or any kind of power grab is when either involves a drastic turn to the left. If Allende had not been removed and had proceeded to turn Chile into another Cuba, we would have the left enamored with him and the meatheads in the DNC, Hollywood, or the MSM lining up to kiss his backside. Heck, most of these collectivists believe the wrong side won the Cold War.
Let's take a quick trip in the way-back machine about economists playing with math they don't understand. Here's notsneaky commenting on a paper:
And when somebody explains why It Just Ain't So, he replies with:
He replies with:
At which point I stepped in explained that really, you shouldn't be doing this. Poor guy's had a chip on his shoulder ever since. As someone else once said:
The point, in case you didn't get it, is to either make a contribution or stay silent. You want to argue that I've got some facts wrong, fine. That my analysis is wrong, fine. But these noxious little drive-bys reflect (or should reflect) very poorly on you. And as the above quotes show, you're about the last person to be criticizing other people's behaviour.
_I'm_ not trying to defend anything. I'm pointing out that trying to slip the joker into the deck, that, somehow, 'everyone knows' that Friedman's prescriptives 'fixed' Chiles economy just won't wash. You want to assert that? Fine. Prove it. I'm simply pointing out that by a variety of metrics, things _didn't_ get better for most people. You would have to argue why your measurements are the correct ones, why they outweigh other considerations, and then explain the causal connection between 'things getting better' and the adoption of those policies, and why other factors don't explain 'things getting better' equally effectively.
Now, as to the pension plan . . . as I understand it, it serves a purpose similar to our Social Security. One objection to privatization in our system is that people would not save effectively, or invest effectively, and someone would still be on the hook for these individuals. The answer to that has been in part that the number of people this happens to would not be that large, proportionally speaking, and that in any event, the onus would be on them to take care of themselves. The Chilean debacle shows that the reply . . . lacks force.
Again, _I_ don't have to argue anything. If you (or anyone else) wants to make that claim, fine. But I'm not going to take the opposite side. No. I'm just sitting back and being skeptical.
So . . . whattaya got?
Megan, I think it's time. I really do.
"Which other post are you talking about?"
Sorry, I meant your comments on the previous thread, not post. I counted at least five, "er"s and it irked me.
Er, pardon me, but when did prefacing a comment with "er" escalate into 'volcanic outbursts of bile' :-) That's some deep reading you're doing there!
But this brings up your point about that it's 'clear enough to the audience'. From what I've seen here, it is not at all clear to the audience who is 'winning' (and yes, using that word is jarring.) It seems more to me that all to often that it's a case of a group of people who identify ideologically supporting each other no matter how pathetic the case. Or take something that happened here last year when I first stumbled across this blog - several posters complained that I was being rude and mean. When I actually posted a string of abuse that actually predated my appearance (I was just commenting on it, actually), the tack changed to 'just because they're being nasty is no excuse for you to be nasty. And we're talking about you right now, and the fact that we are all ideologically on the same side has nothing, _nothing_ to do with anything.'
So, no, it's a nice thought. But that doesn't seem to happen too often. What else do you have?
Well, if you think that "er" constitutes a 'volcanic outburst of bile', maybe. You seem to neglect the stuff coming the other way. In fact, I could name several people here far, far more pugnacious; they wouldn't bring a single-shot dueling pistol, they'd show up with a sten. Agreed? In fact, some of them are here on this thread right now.
Uh-huh. Your snark is merely rude and unserious. My "er" is a 'volcanic outburst of bile'. What's funny is that mousey really is one of those nasty people, as any of a number of posts using the word 'leftist' as an epithet show. Or is that just funnin' around? See what I mean? Far from people 'really able to see it', it's really a very, very subjective call.
Per your suggestions, Rob, I'll let this one pass :-)
SoV, allow me to demonstrate my suggestion by way of response to you:
I apologize if I was unclear. I did not mean to suggest that "Er" constitutes a volcanic outburst of bile, although I'm sure that reasonable people could have drawn that conclusion from what I wrote. Rather, I was referring to, for instance, your behavior in this thread, and others like it, such as when you have tangled with Mixner.
To your credit--and to my disappointment--this sort of thing has been greatly moderated of late.
I would point out, in addition, that the fundamental problem with your version of "snark"--as opposed to that generated by Freddie, or even the, ah, robust commentary of rickm (genuine "liberals" to whom the locals ought to be more hostile than they are to you) is that they don't take themselves seriously and are therefore capable of self-deprication. Your snark comes across as self-righteous and arrogant. This is not to say that you, yourself, are necessarily either one, but tone is tricky with text alone and you haven't mastered it.
Finally, you almost always assume bad faith on the part of those who disagree. That is not a way to win friends or influence people.
"And when somebody explains why It Just Ain't So"
Yeah, except that explanation never took place. Instead you said something like "*sigh*. You're wrong but I'm way too smart too bother explaining to you why". When I asked for, well, a bit of further explanation, more of the same followed with some implicit eye-rolling. At no point in the discussion did you like, you know, actually, SAY anything.
For the sake of record/background my responses which SoV quotes above are not to her/him but rather to dsquared. Who, despite probably not being the most popular person among the readers of this blog, is always worth reading and who on specifics of many issues is more often correct than not. Hence, the detailed response to daniel, who I still think overstepped himself on this particular occasion - by commenting on an abstract of a paper without actually reading the paper and its detail. Which also puts my "I don’t know the specific paper you’re talking about" in context.
SoV was just plain ol' confused in that discussion for some reason - basically not really aware of what an "instrument" is (and what conditions should be satisfied for it to be valid) and, relatedly, under the mistaken impression that the paper in question was arguing that the realization of a political coup was a random event - whereas what the paper was assuming was that the SUCCESS or a FAILURE of a political coup involved a substantial random component.
As to the last sentence quoted by SoV, yeah, sure, I'm sure somebody somewhere at some point said that. I sincerely hope that it made them - and SoV - feel better about themselves.
It occurs to me, SoV, that you may wish to asses your priorities. If you wish to persuade others to your point of view, then meta-commentary is ineffective, even if correct and justified. Reasoned, on-topic replies are often effective even if they fail to persuade an unreasonable interlocutor. Far more people are lurkers than commenters.
If you have some other priority, you can consider whether meta-commentary advances those goals, as well. Don't bother "handling" anyone unless it does.
It occurs to me, SoV, that you may wish to asses your priorities. If you wish to persuade others to your point of view, then meta-commentary is ineffective, even if correct and justified. Reasoned, on-topic replies are often effective even if they fail to persuade an unreasonable interlocutor. Far more people are lurkers than commenters.
If you have some other priority, you can consider whether meta-commentary advances those goals, as well. Don't bother "handling" anyone unless it does.
Also, I wanna apologize for that bit of thread jacking. It's just, you know, I've made some enemies. In a way it makes me feel good about my self. But then I remember that old maxim - "By the quality of their enemies you should know them" - and I wind up feeling depressed.
But you see, Rob, _you_ seem to be under the impression that you're accurately conveying 'light-hearted rudeness'. And you give the same pass for other people on your side of ideological divide. But, in fact, that is _not_ how you were/are perceived. Yes, I know, spare me, you _really_are_ trying to give that impression. But if so, and if that's the excuse other people want to go with, then they're not doing a very good job communicating this at all.
Since you say that I haven't 'mastered it', are you willing to concede that others haven't as well?
Your other observation is interesting however; I think the number of people being just plain rude and wanting to start flame wars has been declining. Surely you've noticed this place has become marginally more civil over the last six months or so? I credit this in part by certain people taking some of the more egregious offenders to task. Now if only I can get people to fly on something other than unsupported assertions, something more substantial like scholarship, cites, links, etc. But that's a bigger job.
A few comments:
1) Allende was elected by a plurality of voters in 1970--about 36% if I recall correctly--not a majority. Both of his opponents were well to the right of him. No majority ever favored Allende's policies and, although the Chilean Congress confirmed his election, he generally faced a hostile legislature.
2) Prior to the coup, the Chilean Supreme Court rebuked Allende at least twice for ignoring the law and judicial decisions. Allende had ended any rule-of-law or democracy before the coup.
3) The coup was very popular at the time it happened because the country was in crisis. There could easily have been civil war.
4) Although every leftist here will do somersaults when he/she reads this: The CIA did not organize the coup. It was a strictly Chilean affair. See the (Senator Frank) Church Committee reports or the CIA's own declassified files. The CIA did organize dirty tricks against Allende when he was elected but it did NOT organize the coup or install Pinochet in power. It did not have to do so. The Chilean military has a hell of a lot more power in Chile than the CIA.
(By the way, if you are upset about the CIA's dirty tricks, you might wish to know that the KGB and the Cuban DGI were far more heavily involved in influencing Chilean politics. Up to their hips. See the Mitrokhin Archives.)
5) When Friedman himself was asked about the advice he gave to the Chilean govt, he compared his role to that of an MD advising a govt on public health and sanitation. Giving advice that helps the public is not supporting the govt. In fact, it would be unethical to do otherwise.
Sorry to burst any bubbles of conventional wisdom. Feel free to just cover your eyes and forget that you ever read this.
Will Allen -
Thanks for explaining what you were referring to about Stalin. I was thinking about the apologists in the 1950s and 1960s who were talking about the superiority of communism (for example, about how wonderful it was that Mao had ended famine in China, even during the Great Leap).
Since Stalin died in 1953, I probably should have guessed that you meant earlier. Still, I appreciate your explaining.
And you give the same pass for other people on your side of ideological divide.
Actually, you will note that I give the same pass--the pass I'm recommending to you--to people on the opposite side as well. Rare is the comment from me which upbraids anyone at all for rudeness, and it's not like I lack for targets if I wanted to go hunting. The most recent time I remember doing it (and my memory may be faulty) I was complaining about somebody (daveinboca) with whom I substantively agreed, at least on the particular point under discusison.
And while I concede I and others may be less than perfect in conveying tone, I have managed to exchange good-natured mockery with any number of unabashed liberals. Among them are brooksfoe, liberalrob, Freddie, and again, even rickm, who has on several occassions toned down his usual ascerbic style to engage me substantively. I don't think my tone is all that difficult to understand.
Do what you like, whenever you like. But seriously consider just ignoring trolls or acting as though they weren't trolls at all. It's much more convincing when you present links than when you complaint about mistreatment.
Jim Glass wrote:
"As I noted in the other thread, Friemdan spent a lot more time advising the Chinese Communists of the Deng Era than he ever did Pinochet.
The Chinese Communists! Killers of 65 million people and impoverishers of a billion."
Jim you hit the nail right on the head! Deng Xiaoping was the successor to Mao & the Gang of Four who were responsible for so many of those 65 million lives. Deng Xiaoping's rise to power saw China change policies to Scientific Development and Market-Oriented Economic Policy with Chinese Characteristics. This shift to a freer market and stronger embrace of Friedman style economics is at the very root of China's phenomenal growth and prosperity since Deng took over the country.
Thus, Milton Friedman's extensive advising of Deng Chinese Communists has ensured that the horrors of the previous Chinese Communists has not been repeated.
The choice isn't between an interventionist state and no government at all. Another option is a laissez-faire state--one with the power to enforce a monopoly on coercion (and prevent corporations from imposing their own regulatory schemes), but constitutionally restrained from economic intervention.
Given that no such state has ever existed, I think that we're entitled to be skeptical that this is in fact an option.
Where has a "regulating government" been absent, then created by "capitalists?"
America and Britain.
It seems to imply--and correct me if I've misunderstood--that all, or at least a majority of, regulations came about as a result of one or another business interest. Do you think this is the case?
Yes. As to why I think it's the case - because I know history.
Mark
there is absolutely nothing wrong from a moral standpoint with lobbying a political leader to defy the popular will on the grounds that the majority doesn't know what's best.
There is everything wrong with it from a moral standpoint. This country was founded on the principle of self-government. If you want rule by a wise elite then you need to move to Russia. The majority may be wrong from time to to time. That does not morally entitle a minority to stage a coup.
goof chewy: "Your evidence and data to support that?"
Allende's own words, for example:
"Our objective is total, scientific, Marxist socialism...As for the bourgeois State at the present moment, we are seeking to overcome it. To overthrow it!" Salvador Allende, 1970
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Allende's methodology upon taking power is familiar from a long list of socialist leaders that promise to rule democraticly: declare an economic emergency, invoke emergency powers to nationalize farms, factories, mines, and banks then turn them over to your cronies, begin arming your political party and transforming it into a parallel military institution in the name of creating a civilian militia to defend against some imagined enemy, take steps to ammend the constitution to give the executive office greater and greater authority, introduce legislation to abolish the legislature, use the police to intimidate your political opponents while granting your own party members virtual and eventually actual legal immunity, and so forth.
"So it was all just a mirage? Allende wasn't democratically elected after all. Maybe you should inform every history professor in the world about this."
There was a vote. Allende won it. That makes him democratically elected. No doubt about that. Other than that, yes, it was a mirage.
A single election doesn't gaurantee perpetual legitimacy, nor that thier actions are moral, nor does it mean that the person so elected maintains the democracy or serves the people - whatever they may say. By the time 1973 rolled around, the phrase 'democratically elected' had no more meaning applied to Allende than it would have had applied to Adolf Hilter in 1934 - except that Hitler was far more popular. As others have pointed out, Allende was already talking about suspending the 1974 elections and as I have pointed out, he'd already introduced legislation to abolish the legislature. He was certainly acting as if it was already abolished, as the complaints of both the Supreme Court and Chamber of Deputies show.
And incidently, there is nothing at all contridictory in the Supreme Courts claim that Allende was not applying the law against his own supporters, and the Chamber of Deputies claim that he was using the police to oppress his opposition. It's goofy to claim that the two statements are inconsistant.
And in any event, none of this has the slightest bearing on the morality of Friedman giving economic advice to the Pinochet government.
"There is everything wrong with it from a moral standpoint. This country was founded on the principle of self-government."
Yes, that's why we are a Republic.
Hmmm.
"The majority may be wrong from time to to time. That does not morally entitle a minority to stage a coup."
No, not necessarily. I think it depends greatly on how wrong the majority is, and how much chance the minority has in seeing its rights upheld through a legal process. If the minority has no real legal recourse, then I don't think the minority is required to follow the law.
Let's make this simple. Allende collapsed the Chilean economy when he set upon Marxist policies with the assumption that United States would fund a socialist revolution by continuing to provide economic assistance, when he asked banks for loans after admitting he had no intention of paying them back, and when he tried to sell copper back to the very countries whose mining interests he'd just nationalized. Then Allende lost the support of the Chilean people when he stopped limiting himself to nationalizing unpopular 'big business' and started going after Catholic schools, small farmers with under 100 acres of land, family businesses, and independent truck drivers. Then Allende got himself killed by threatening to replace the officer corp of the Chilean military with socialist party members, and then tear gassing the wives of the officers when they went out in the street to protest.
Everything else is just abstraction.
JohnO:
So, from your standpoint, it was immoral for the abolitionists to lobby Congress and Presidents to abolish slavery, since a majority of people nationally supported it?
I'm sorry, but "self-government" is not the same as "pure democracy," which does not exist anywhere on the planet Earth. When leaders are democratically elected, they are not elected to simply do what is popular - if they were, then there would be no need to have elections for political office at all. "Leadership" would simply amount to no more and no less than polling the people on every single issue and then uncritically accepting and implementing the majority position on every single issue without any regard for minority rights. I am aware of no moral code under which "popular" = "right."
Rob Lyman wrote:
"even rickm"
HAH!
rickm, surely you don't deny that you're one of the more...forthright...commenters here?
Sigh. Rob, you'd have just a touch more credibility here if you would actually name some of the more egregious offenders on your side of the fence. A couple have posted on this thread already, and I see no move on your part to remonstrate with them.
So, how about this: why don't you name at least two names from your side of the aisle. They must be current posters, not someone who quit appearing months ago. Do that, and I'll consider your words. Don't do that and . . . well, you did say you were concerned about how you come across, didn't you? Believe me, the supposed venom coming from my side is _nothing_ compared to what we moderates and liberals have to put up with from your camp.
I see no move on your part to remonstrate with them.
That's true, SoV, because my entire point and recommendation is that one should, as a rule, not remonstrate with offenders, egregious or not. You asked how to "handle" them, and my reply is: don't "handle" them at all. Either ignore them completely or pretend in your posts that they were sensible, honest, and decent to you all along.
I believe this method to be effective in promoting civil debate, if less emotionally satisfying than remonstration. I have often said--and you once agreed with me--that the best way to lead is by example.
You should only remonstrate boorish commenters if they otherwise have something to offer to the debate. If they are boorish and clueless, ignoring them is the proper response- anything else is a waste of time and effort.
You should only remonstrate boorish commenters if they otherwise have something to offer to the debate.
I'd still recommend pretending they aren't being boorish, because a conversation about who's meaner to whom is worthless, but one about the topic at hand is useful.
Sticks and stones, &cetera.
Contrasting these two statements:
You should only remonstrate boorish commenters if they otherwise have something to offer to the debate.
and
I'd still recommend pretending they aren't being boorish, because a conversation about who's meaner to whom is worthless, but one about the topic at hand is useful.
It seems that the meaningful distinction is between a debate and a conversation. If you believe you're having a debate (with a winner and a loser), it makes sense to remonstrate the boorish, because that scores points. If you believe you're having a conversation, than remonstration is simply sinking to the boor's level.
Given how infrequently someone changes their minds based on internet postings (approximately never), I don't think it's appropriate to view the activity as a debate. No one is going to win and no one loses. Hopefully you come out learning something, even if it's just a bit more clarity on your own thought process via the act of writing.
Obviously not everyone shares that point of view, though. But neither viewpoint is invalid - they're just different.
Rob,
Your approach is perfectly valid and likely the best one, and it is one I usually try to follow myself, but not always successfully. This is perhaps a failing on my part.
Yancy,
I make no claim at all to be a perfect practitioner of my preachings. I will, say, however, that I make every effort to make my mockery of the boorish light-hearted and entertaining. If abuse is inevitable, you might as well have some fun with it.
I'm not sure that pointing out boorishness actual scores debating points, either--readers can already judge for themselves, and if you point it out when it isn't there, you look thin-skinned and annoying.
celebrim: "there is nothing at all contridictory in the Supreme Courts claim that Allende was not applying the law against his own supporters, and the Chamber of Deputies claim that he was using the police to oppress his opposition. It's goofy to claim that the two statements are inconsistant."
No, rather it would be disingenuous in the extreme to claim that the two entities were saying the same thing. And it would also be disingenuous to claim that Allende was "using the police to oppress his opposition", as Allende was well-known for not calling upon the Carabineros de Chile to restore law-and-order; he didn't trust them (and was right not to do so, as they later helped to overthrow and kill him). So who exactly was Allende using to oppress his opposition? It must have been a pretty weak "oppression", because the rebels had absolutely zero difficulty in carrying out the coup d'etat.
celebrim: "As others have pointed out, Allende was already talking about suspending the 1974 elections..."
He wasn't.
celebrim: "By the time 1973 rolled around, the phrase 'democratically elected' had no more meaning applied to Allende than it would have had applied to Adolf Hilter in 1934"
Do you really want to continue to embarrassing yourself like this? Here's a quiz for you: What event occurred in March, 1973 in Chile?
celebrim: "And in any event, none of this has the slightest bearing on the morality of Friedman giving economic advice to the Pinochet government."
True, but it does show that Friedman didn't know much about history (nor, apparently, do some of his followers)
Hitler's Nazis came to power through free elections
And the military tried to pull a coup against them. But failed, fortunately for the cause of legally elected governments everywhere.
Rob, you mentioned someone by name who wasn't even here as an example of someone who was not the most civil of people. And - why am I not surprised - he just happened to on the side opposite you.
If you felt the need to mention someone, why did you did this? Why didn't you mention someone on _your_ side of the fence? Don't you realize what this makes you look like?
You said that I thought that I was quick to think that posters are arguing in bad faith. Guess what? It looks an awful lot like you're arguing in bad faith now. So, since you had no problem mentioning rickm by name, you should have no problem mentioning someone on your side by name. Otherwise, I'll just put you down as concern trolling. Or is this something you're going to try to pass off as 'light-hearted rudeness'?
If you were trying to have a sincere discussion, you stumbled - badly.
It's most likely that Friedman would not reasonably refuse to give monetary advice to anyone who asked him. And I'm sure it was the same advice he gave the US and everyone else. Freidman above all understood that a nation can do literally everything else exactly right, including democracy. but if their money is bad then it won't matter; they will fail anyway.
Rob, you mentioned someone by name who wasn't even here as an example of someone who was not the most civil of people.
I mentioned rickm as someone 1) I with whom disagree on most issues, 2) who does not comply with your standards of earnest civility (which he has never denied, even when confronted directly) and 3) with whom I have had substantive civil discussions. I was hoping to convince you that responding to snarkiness with civility could promote civility by providing a real-life example.
Why didn't you mention someone on _your_ side of the fence?
Because it makes no sense to do so. I don't argue with people on "my" side of the fence, because I agree with them, so they aren't usually rude to me. More to the point, you didn't ask for input on what to do about people you agree with being rude; presumably it's not a problem because you feel no need to argue with their posts and because they don't choose to be rude to you. You asked what to do about your opponents being rude.
In any case, I've already offered an example of someone with whom I agreed, at least on the point under discussion, but nonetheless was rude, and indeed someone whom I criticized for rudeness in that very thread: daveinboca.
If you were trying to have a sincere discussion, you stumbled - badly.
You started this by asking a question, which I have tried to answer. Now you apparently wish to turn it into some kind of test of my moral fiber. You are free to think whatever you like about my moral fiber, but it has no relevance to the question of how to handle boorishness. I remain convinced that ignoring it is the most effective choice.
Rob,
You have the patience of a saint.
You are free to think whatever you like about my moral fiber, but it has no relevance to the question of how to handle boorishness. I remain convinced that ignoring it is the most effective choice.
And, as this very thread demonstrates, you practice what you preach.
Rob:
Not only do you have the patience of the saint, but I am left wondering why you insist on limiting your thoughts to the comments section(s) of blogs - you really need to have your own site!
That's very kind of you Mark; I did have a blog of my own about 5 years ago. The fact is, between 2 kids and being a lawyer, I don't have time to do the commenting that I do (and my comments are almost totally restricted to this one location), and I certainly don't have time to run a blog.
If somebody wants to pay me...
No, Rob, that's not what I asked for, I asked for someone _recent_. Yes, I did ask a question, and yes I want sincere replies. When you try to pull stunts like this, such as gratuitously throwing in an inappropriate name (What, there's no one on your side that you've disagreed with who hasn't been rude? Pull the other one.), or try to rephrase my very legitimate question about your sincerity as a question about your 'moral fiber', then I very appropriately question your sincerity. Especially since you've made no attempt to practice what you preach in this little exchange just now - you could have established your cred by admitting your choice wasn't very appropriate, apologizing for your blunder, and finding a contemporary example. You didn't. So, what I've got in essence here is a missive that says other people, people on your side are free to behave as obnoxiously as they wish, and you won't say anything - no lecture about effectiveness, no missives about nice is the best policy, nothing. But you'll have no problem labeling me as rude and 'inappropriate'. Iow, the deck is stacked, and there's nothing I can do about it. Shrug.[1]
[1]I might mention for the record that thread you linked to for supposed rude behaviour was rather a flop. Do you realize just how obnoxious and rude you came across? Environmentalism is just like a religion, so yes, liberals are fascist in the classic sense? Spare me the 'I was just being irreverent' commentary. You don't know the cues well enough, and you didn't do a good job conveying this. So - to echo your recent advice, perhaps you should refrain from this style in the future. I am giving you every benefit of the doubt, that you _really_ didn't mean your commentary to be taken that way, of course.
So, what I've got in essence here is a missive that says other people, people on your side are free to behave as obnoxiously as they wish, and you won't say anything - no lecture about effectiveness, no missives about nice is the best policy, nothing.
Should one of them pose the question: "How shall I handle boorish people?" my reply will be the same to anyone, regardless of ideology, as it is to you. I'm not sure I understand the insincerity charge--I really do mean it.
I linked to that old thread not as an example of my own upright behavior--I could probably have done better--but as an example of your "volcanic outburts of bile," which--no doubt through an innocent misunderstanding--you had equated with saying "er." Even if you think me rather rude, I think it hard for you to deny that you went farther than saying "er" there.
no one on your side that you've disagreed with who hasn't been rude?
It occurs to me that there was a thread a little while back in which I urged the generally "conservative" pro-military commenters to be nice to liberalrob, who I rather like. I don't recall exactly when that was, so I'm not sure if its "recent" enough for you.
In any case, my advice remains the same, which is to simply ignore rudeness most of the time, regardless of which direction it comes from. To the extent that I have at times failed to do so I'm a hypocrite, but that's not the same as being wrong.
SoV -
My impression was that Rob used examples of two liberal commenters because you had earlier claimed that your reception was due to your ideology (being on 'the other side of the fence'). He gave two examples of people whose outlook is similar to yours, but who get a different reception because they don't personalize everything.
I realize what I risk by daring to make this comment, but I often stop reading a thread once I see your 'name'. You're intelligent and have interesting things to say, but once you show up, the thread often ends up being largely about you - your opinions of others, how others have treated you, what others should be thinking of you, whether others have yet provided the laundry list of cites and information you demanded, and what you think of them if they didn't.
To me this seems like a good example:
"Surely you've noticed this place has become marginally more civil over the last six months or so? I credit this in part by certain people taking some of the more egregious offenders to task. Now if only I can get people to fly on something other than unsupported assertions..."
Why is it up to you, personally, to change everyone else and control the discussion? I would find it more interesting if you followed Rob's suggestion and simply commented on the subject at hand.
SoV -
My impression was that Rob used examples of two liberal commenters because you had earlier claimed that your reception was due to your ideology (being on 'the other side of the fence'). He gave two examples of people whose outlook is similar to yours, but who get a different reception because they don't personalize everything.
I realize what I risk by daring to make this comment, but I often stop reading a thread once I see your 'name'. You're intelligent and have interesting things to say, but once you show up, the thread often ends up being largely about you - your opinions of others, how others have treated you, what others should be thinking of you, whether others have yet provided the laundry list of cites and information you demanded, and what you think of them if they didn't.
To me this seems like a good example:
"Surely you've noticed this place has become marginally more civil over the last six months or so? I credit this in part by certain people taking some of the more egregious offenders to task. Now if only I can get people to fly on something other than unsupported assertions..."
Why is it up to you, personally, to change everyone else and control the discussion? I would find it more interesting if you followed Rob's suggestion and simply commented on the subject at hand.
Sorry for the double post!