1. Create a stable, secure environment.
2. Build up the market economy by getting gov't out of the way and not penalizing the successful
3. Using the proceeds of the growing economy to educate the formerly sand-poundingly ignorant
4. Gradually liberalize the functions and form of gov't
5. Finally, after the ducks are all lined up, have folks vote for their government
Ha! So our own Founders did it the wrong way by introducing the vote instead of appointing Washington as the new King for life? You're neck deep in the bravo sierra. ...Defending Pinochet because of the economic reforms is no different from the leftist scum who defend Castro for his great health care system.
Pay attention to what folks write, not what your indignation tells you what they write.
Augusto Pinochet was no George Washington and 1973's Chile was no reincarnation of the 13 Colonies.
Chile had no history, practice, or culture of decent, liberal representative government. Like the rest of the region, it was all strongmen dictatorships, all the time with some marxism tossed in for chaos' sake. Having the Chileans vote at that time would have been about as effective as having Iraqis vote 1 1/2 years after toppling Saddam's regime. Purple fingers might make goot PR, but does little more than elevate form (the act of voting) over substance (decent governance in a secure, fairly liberal, and market-friendly environment).
Helping the market economy repair and build itself is not the reason Pinochet was a better leader than Castro, it was part of the total package of policies that lead to a relatively prosperous country with a market economy and liberal democracy. It is a real, measureable, thing, whereas Castro's trumpeted health care system pretty much amounts to, "the same crappy care for (most) all Cuban serfs."
What so many folks do not understand is that liberal governance does not transplant well. The customs, attitudes, and loyalties must be learned over time in a secure and economically viable environment. Liberating ignorant, tribalistic campesinos or hajis one day and having them vote the next is a recipie for chaos and faction.
Dictators are dictators, no matter how you wrap them up.
Read a bit about the difference between authoritarian & totalitarian. Similar != Same.
The Beard?
Rabbi, jfruser, richyoung,
Would I be correct in saying that you hold Pinochet accountable for his misdeeds, but you give him credit for what he did right? Or are you saying that Pinochet was probably better than anyone else that, realistically, might have ruled in his place?
11M:
Yes to both. No doubt, Pinochet was an authoritarian at the beginning of his reign and did his level best to butter the bread favorably after he left power. One reason the lefties despise him is that a goodly proportion of the folks he & his regime was responsible for killing were marxist revolutionaries. If Pinochet was a marxist himself who killed Adam Smith & Milton Friedman cloned free-market counter-revolutionaries, the lefties would have haoled him as wonderful a guy as Castro.
Like I stated above, Chile was not ready for the forms of liberal democracy. Not even a spanish-speaking George Washington could have transformed the place instantaneously into a stable, liberal democracy with a stable market economy.
