Friedman Facts.com » Chile

How Milton Friedman Saved Chile

catallaxia — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:12:03 +0000

In the wake of Chile’s 8.8 earthquake, Bret Stephens writes in the Wall Street Journal about how “Milton Friedman gave Chileans the intellectual wherewithal first to survive the quake, and now to build their lives anew.”

It is a short and sweet piece addressing the Pinochet regime, the Chicago boys, and Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” myth. Stephens suggests that the implementation of Friedman’s economic ideas in Chile led to better building codes and fewer fatalities than January’s 7.0 Haitian earthquake:

In “The Shock Doctrine,” Ms. Klein titles one of her sub-chapters “The Myth of the Chilean Miracle.” In her reading, the only thing Friedman and the Chicago Boys accomplished was to “hoover wealth up to the top and shock much of the middle class out of existence.” Actual Chileans of all classes—living in the aftermath of an actual shock—may take a different view of Friedman, who helped give them the wherewithal first to survive the quake, and now to build their lives anew.

Friedman & Chile

catallaxia — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:07:11 +0000

I just came across an excellent, even-handed article in reason discussing the pros and cons of Friedman’s interaction with Chile. An excerpt:

It may have been more morally satisfying to have no relationship with Pinochet, merely condemn him from afar. But in choosing to let his economic advice rise above political revulsion, Friedman almost certainly helped Chile in the long term–though it’s important to remember that the “Chicago boys” were more responsible than Friedman himself, and that they were not following his prescriptions relentlessly or in any way under his direct instruction.

Please check out the entire article here.

Friedman on Chile

catallaxia — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:14:53 +0000

Although Swedish writer Johan Norberg has done an excellent job of discrediting the idea that Milton Friedman and his scholarship were responsible for Chilean violence, both in print and video, we can also see what Friedman himself said about Chile in this PBS interview:

INTERVIEWER: So you envisaged, therefore, that the free markets ultimately would undermine Pinochet?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Oh, absolutely. The emphasis of that talk was that free markets would undermine political centralization and political control. And incidentally, I should say that I was not in Chile as a guest of the government. I was in Chile as the guest of a private organization.

…

INTERVIEWER: In the end, the Chilean [economy] did quite well, didn’t it?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Oh, very well. Extremely well. The Chilean economy did very well, but more important, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society.

Read the entire interview here.