At 10:07 AM 3/10/98 -0500, Louis P wrote:
>The Nation Magazine Digital Edition (www.thenation.com) has an article by
>Mark Cooper on Chile today that includes the following passage:
what's the URL (web page address)? I am getting sick of being in the NATION
time machine, where I read columns and articles concerning matters which
the mainstream media consider to be ancient history (like the abortive war
against Iraq) because it takes the NATION so long to get to the Left Coast...
>Cooper points out that the very first experiment in Reagan-Thatcher
>economics was Chile in 1973. Although the article focuses on Chile itself,
>there certainly can be an argument that the Pinochet coup was the opening
>salvo against both Social Democracy and Soviet style Communism, two of the
>pillars of Allende's Popular Front government.
the Right has been attacking the Left since the French Revolution of 1789.
I wouldn't call the Pinochet coup an opening salvo as much as a response to
the Left's temporary success, like the Reaganoid attack on Nicaragua in the
1980s.
>The architects of the economic "reforms" in Chile were the "Chicago Boys",
>including Milton Friedman who personally directed the changes. His disciple
>Jeffrey Sachs has adapted this austerity program for Bolivia, the USSR,
>Poland, etc.
the MF denies that he "personally directed" the campaign (or maybe it
should be spelled "campain"). His ideas were important in inspiring Los
Chicago Boys, however. Of course, it was the US/Pinochet forces that needed
someone like Friedman for inspiration. If he hadn't existed, he would have
been invented. Financial austerity is not really new. It used to be called
"adherence to the gold standard" back when that standard existed.
I don't think Sachs is one of the MF's disciples. Rather, he comes from a
profession infected by the MF's ideas. Again, if he hadn't existed, he
would have been invented.
in pen-l solidarity,
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
"Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let
people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
