>Nope, capitalism is an economic system, not to be confounded with other types of Freedom. Capitalism is the ability of freely trade private property, among other things. In the West we tend to think it goes hand in hand with Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press and other liberties, but it does not have to.
Exactly -- and all this obscures how those things came to be: with fierce struggle from the lower classes (workers, women, blacks, etc.) in most cases, handed over to the patricians of the state in others (e.g. US Declaration of Independence and so on) and spread more widely later. Not from the system for running the economy.
Heck, Hayek, for one, a champion of capitalism, was in bed with Pinochet.
And one of the things western countries did when they entered capitalism, was to conquer and enslave 2/3rds of the world in their colonies. So much for democracy.
Hayek was practically senile by 1973. It does not make sense to critique the legacy of someone who is mostly known for his work in the 1920s-40s with some of his more outlandish ideas many decades later.
That sounds dubious that he was senile in 1973 when he wrote this in 1980:
> Well, I would say that, as long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. As you will understand, it is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression — and this is valid for South America — is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government. And during this transition it may be necessary to maintain certain dictatorial powers, not as something permanent, but as a temporary arrangement.
It seems to me, that what happens (and not only in Chile) is this:
A few political parties alternate in government without big changes. More or less, they have the same program, with minor differences. They, both, are part of the Establishment and the owners of everything, normally a few families, can live with them. Democracy it's good. Nevermind the conditions of the rest of society.
For some reason, despise the media being owned by "reasonable" hands, somebody outside of the establishment it's elected. Then, democracy it's not so good, and a dictatorship is needed to restore the power to the correct people, sorry, to "protect the freedom".
When the situation it's stabilized we can go back to the democracy simulacrum.
I would like to see how long would take for a new dictatorship appear if the people in power since always feel their position threaded.
>- Slavery was the norm before western countries got involved with it as well.
Not in the scale of enslaving 2/3rd of the world. In fact many nations had put an end to the practice way before colonialism.
And of course those countries didn't pride themselves on their christian or englitenment values, or beings democratic, and having some "white man's burden" of civilizing the world.
>- Democracy didn't exist when the west was also active in the slavery market.
Colonization was how slavery was justified, commercialized and gone global, and colonial subjects were treated as an abundant work force for their colonial masters (when they were not hunted for fun, treated as animals, or displayed on "human zoos").
But even if I was "conflating" the too, that would at best a mistake in the use of words, not a "horribly" (sic) thing to do. Slavery and/or colonization themselves would be actual examples of horrible things to do.
> Heck, Hayek, for one, a champion of capitalism, was in bed with Pinochet.
Where? Hayek said basically that there was more freedom under Pinochet than under Allende, which is not the same thing as being a supporter of Pinochet.
> Hayek: More recently I have not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende.
>Where? Hayek said basically that there was more freedom under Pinochet than under Allende, which is not the same thing as being a supporter of Pinochet.
Even if he had just said that, it would have been enough to make him a supporter -- considering that he said that for a fascist junta leader that overthrew a democratically elected leader, and is responsible for thousands of executions, and tons of torture and violence. There was just no redeeming quality.
> In 1970, Allende won 36.2 percent of the popular vote, less than the 38.6 percent he had taken in 1964 and only 1.3 percent more than the runner-up. According to the constitution, the legislature could have given the presidency to either of the top two candidates. It chose Allende only after he pledged explicitly to abide by the constitution. “A few months later,” Whelan reports, “Allende told fellow leftist Regis Debray that he never actually intended to abide by those commitments but signed just to finally become president.” In legislative and other elections over the next three years, Allende and his Popular Unity (UP) coalition, dominated by the Communist and Socialist parties, never won a majority, much less a mandate, in any election. Still Allende tried to “transition” (his term) Chile into a Marxist-Leninist economic, social, and political system.
and
> Many on the left had long believed that capitalism and democracy were incompatible. In a brazen demonstration of its contempt for majority wishes, and for the institutions of what it called “bourgeois democracy,” the pro-Allende newspaper Puro Chile reported the results of the March 1973 legislative elections with this headline: “The People, 43%. The Mummies, 55%.” This attitude and the actions that followed from it galvanized the center-left and right, whose candidates had received almost two-thirds of the votes in the 1970 election, against Allende. On August 22, 1973, the Chamber of Deputies, whose members had been elected just five months earlier, voted 81–47 that Allende’s regime had systematically “destroyed essential elements of institutionality and of the state of law.” (The Supreme Court had earlier condemned the Allende government’s repeated violations of court orders and judicial procedures.) Less than three weeks later, the military, led by newly appointed army commander in chief Pinochet, overthrew the government. The coup was supported by Allende’s presidential predecessor, Eduardo Frei Montalva; by Patricio Aylwin, the first democratically elected president after democracy was restored in 1990; and by an overwhelming majority of the Chilean people. Cuba and the United States were actively involved on opposite sides, but the main players were always Chilean.
So what? Winning with just a plurality is not uncommon in democracies all over, since when does that make him not democratically elected? Hell, even the US - whose system is designed to only have two candidates - managed to have two Presidents elected without an absolute majority in the the past twenty years.
> On August 22, 1973, the Chamber of Deputies, whose members had been elected just five months earlier, voted 81–47 that Allende’s regime had systematically “destroyed essential elements of institutionality and of the state of law.”
The actual democratic representation was against him by 1973, That's what's important.
So was Congress against Obama (they even sued him!), does that make him not democratically elected? Democratic bodies in conflict are common, and mean nothing.
It's telling that the text you quoted has zero actual facts against him, only reports of vague accusations. The name for that is "character assassination".
The point is that at the time of the coup d'etat most of his former allies were against him. That's far from the picture usually painted in books and the mass media of a popular leader loved by his people suddenly betrayed by an evil military force.
> only reports of vague accusations.
Where vague accusations? The economic situation of Chile during his regime went from bad to worse and his directives were directly responsible for it (as proven countless times in countries where the same policies were adopted). Check out the wikipedia page on the economy of Chile during his years.
The point is that at the time of the coup d'etat most of his former allies were against him.
You contested the claim that he was democratically elected. I don't see how this is relevant to that claim.
In any case, I don't see evidence that his former allies were against him. Congress wasn't his ally, and besides - as the text you quoted says - there was an election in between, so they weren't all the same people. His allies were the UP, and as far as I can tell, they still supported him.
Finally, losing support from your allies means nothing. That happen just five years ago in my Western European country, and it might happen again soon. It's an expected development in a country with a diverse polity.
Where vague accusations?
"destroyed essential elements of institutionality" and such.
The economic situation of Chile
Which might make him a bad President, but still a democratically-elected one, which was the point being argued.
He wasn't, still, he got a 64,1% approval rate in 1972, which is much more than the actual president (Michelle Bachelet) on her whole second government.
> Main players were always Chilean
Not true, there is evidence that proves US intervention in both elections and government.
>Even if he had just said that, it would have been enough to make him a supporter
That is absurd. He supports who he supports. He never claimed to support Pinochet, so he didn't. If I say that Krushchev was better than Stalin, does that make me a Krushchev supporter? Of course not!
>There was just no redeeming quality
Pinochet's reign, brutal though it was, led Chile to become the most prosperous country in South America. If that is not a redeeming quality, I really don't know what is. Hayek also correctly predicted Chile's transition to democracy ten years before it happened. I think most of Hayek's work post-1950 is nonsense, but a correct prediction is the highest standard of scientific demonstration, and this was a big one.
Allende was a socialist, who believed in nationalization of means of production and central planning. We know very well where that leads in other countries. When you stand for central planning, you do not stand only against economic freedom but against Freedom at large, because central planning does not limit itself to the economy.
Allende was choose in democratic election in a sovereign country.
If you believe in democratic freedom, you believe in the right of the people of a country to choose whatever they want even if, in your opinion, it's a mistake or too radical for your taste.
Compare that to Pinochet who was choose by the CIA and the Chile oligarchy. Defense of freedom certainly.
> Allende was a socialist, who believed in nationalization of means of production and central planning. We know very well where that leads in other countries.
Well, that's how Stalin's Soviet became an industrial power that could fend off Germany, and basically how South Korea rose economically under the dictatorship of Park Chung Hee (except that "nationalization of means of production" was changed to "give means of production to subservient businessmen who are rolling in the same bed as the government").
You can't predict a country's future by a few soundbites like "Is it central planning?": you immediately run into problems, like how do you even define central planning?
Hayek is not a capitalist, he's a Social Darwinist who also believes - without a shred of evidence, given the shortness of the time spans under consideration - that free market capitalism gives groups an evolutionary advantage. That's a huge difference.
Exactly -- and all this obscures how those things came to be: with fierce struggle from the lower classes (workers, women, blacks, etc.) in most cases, handed over to the patricians of the state in others (e.g. US Declaration of Independence and so on) and spread more widely later. Not from the system for running the economy.
Heck, Hayek, for one, a champion of capitalism, was in bed with Pinochet.
And one of the things western countries did when they entered capitalism, was to conquer and enslave 2/3rds of the world in their colonies. So much for democracy.
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