2023-09-12 10:16:57
On September 11, Americans remember the events of 2001, in which terrorist attacks toppled the twin towers and destroyed part of the Pentagon. The American people unanimously condemned these attacks as an affront to the nation.
Also, the Chilean people remember the death of Salvador Allende as an undeniable blow to democracy. With the enormous indignation that the popular will is being curtailed through the use of force and violence, ideologically, there is nothing more to do than condemn this coup d’état.
However, the Chilean reality of several generations since 1973, in its standard of living and its development as a nation, has been an example in Latin America. In that year, Chile’s GDP per capita was around $700, Peru’s was $1,100, and Colombia’s was $560. Today a Chilean has an average income 2.5 times higher than that of a Peruvian or a Colombian. Since 2013, when the Santos peace process began to take shape, the per capita GDP of Colombians has fallen from 8,200 to 6,100 dollars.
A people like the Chilean and Colombian people require the freedom to choose their rulers in a democratic process. However, between being able to vote and earning 2.5 times more money, there is no doubt that the economic improvement of living conditions is preferred by voters: if it were not, votes would not be sold in Colombia.
The management of the coup leader Pinochet was negative in terms of individual freedoms, but positive in economic terms. Inflation, which under Allende was around 1000%, was already at 10% under the military regime in the early 1980s. Poverty decreased and Chileans began to stand out for their economic performance in Latin America.
The Chilean problem arises from its political vision. In the exercise of their profession, those who choose that career were cut off from power for more than a decade. But the economic foundations that remained were so solid that both right-wing governments like Piñera’s and left-wing governments like Bachelet’s maintained the good performance of the economy.
The previous comparisons of Chilean economic development with Peru and Colombia are with countries that until 2012 had a thriving economy. A comparison with the Argentine or Venezuelan disaster, countries that go from economic crisis to economic crisis, does not make sense. The question that arises is whether the enormous cost that Chilean democracy paid is compensated by the increase in the well-being of its population: it seems that from the point of view of those who prefer to conceptualize no, but of those who think of a better day to day life for They and their children do.
Obviously, economic growth with democracy is a preferable scenario to the Chilean model. However, in the early 90s the country returned to that model strengthened by a vigorous economy. Few countries in Latin America, with the exception of Uruguay, can demonstrate success in this chapter.
The emphasis on economic growth is not exclusive to the so-called right. A country like China, with a left-wing political regime, has shown that economic growth with a concentration on free markets is not only possible but very powerful. The problem is when governments try to inhibit the capture of efficiencies with state intervention, in most cases at the expense of the country’s competitiveness.
The theory of economic degrowth ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy. As our president says, it is not that we then stop eating or clothing, but that the economy must slow down its most predatory branches, the one with the greatest entropic acceleration, and adapt the times of growth to the balance of life on the planet. The problem with this vision is that, in a globalized world, in which there is competition to provide services and goods, the one that decreases loses, and as a consequence its inhabitants do not have access to improvements in their standard of living.
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