The name of Salvador Allende honors our places. Augusto Pinochet, the felon dictator, is himself dead in his bed. What we do not know is that the terror regime wanted by the United States had another goal than to overthrow an intrusive government: it was to create the laboratory of ultraliberalism.
In Republican Chile, everything was privatized according to the plan of the economist Milton Friedman and his “Chicago boys”. All. Copper and rare metals, roads, schools, health, pensions, glacier water, the sea itself delivered to Japanese or Russian factory trawlers. Everything, absolutely everything.
Friedman’s theory was that of “trickle down” – the enrichment of the few would benefit the many. And Chile became the most prosperous country in Latin America. But the most unequal.
When, in October 2019, an increase in the metro ticket triggered the youth revolt, we said to ourselves that it was a hot stroke. When the dancing crowd invaded the main square of Santiago, we wanted to believe in an emotional jacquerie. When the movement won over the multitude, including the Mapuche Indians, President Piñera, representative of those who share the loot with powerful multinationals, dispatched his tanks and riflemen. There were dozens of deaths, arrests by shovel. And still hundreds of lost people. On the walls, painted eyes, thousands of painted eyes said that the eyelids of the country had nevertheless lifted, that the people finally saw clearly.
It was believed that the dictatorship had paralyzed people. But the memory of popular unity, Allende’s project, covid or not covid, was coming back full force. Revisited by a creative, self-organized, feminist youth.
Piñera, whose popularity does not exceed 6%, had to call an election in order to rewrite Pinochet’s constitution. The ballot swept away the right wing which clung to it, swept away the old parties which accommodated itself to it, chose representative constituents of the assemblies which function on the whole of the territory. The priorities are obvious: a public education service, hospitals for all, pay-as-you-go pensions, etc.
The lab of ultraliberalism, dear to Thatcher and Reagan, risks being that of its deconstruction. Colombia, Argentina follow. The 8 o’clock newspapers are hardly interested.
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