https://quillette.com/2022/07/08/crunch-time-for-chiles-revo…
A right-left confrontation continues to disrupt Chile a nation that has has Allende & Pinochet as presidents.
The proposal for a radical identitarian constitution has set off a popular counterrevolution in the run-up to a fateful referendum on September 4th.
“Chile woke up!” This mantra rang from the throats of those who found something to admire about a wave of riots ignited on October 18th, 2019, gutting one city after another. Metro stations in the capital Santiago were first to be set alight, resulting in over 20 fatalities. The spark was a fare increase of 30 pesos (about four cents), but as another slogan explained, “It’s not just 30 pesos, it’s 30 years!” As the protestors and their intellectual supporters would have it, Chilean society had dozed into a neoliberal slumber since the restoration of democracy in 1990. Finally, gushed progressive media around the globe, the people had regained consciousness and decided to confront the market fundamentalism they’d inherited from the military regime.
Then-president Sebastián Piñera soon found himself looking at an approval rating of six percent. Just a week before the violence was unleashed, he had called his country “a true oasis in a Latin America in turmoil.” Center-Right politicians like him liked to think that, just as Pinochet’s brutal 1973–90 regime had inoculated the population against authoritarianism, so the disastrous Allende government of 1970–73 had inoculated them against socialism. But the explosion of popular discontent challenged the narrative of Chile as “Latin America’s South Korea”—a growth miracle, fueled by economic liberty and foreign investment.
To the far-Left, by contrast, Chile had become “Latin America’s Israel” (no compliment intended). Around the globe, progressives celebrated the uprising as if it were the homecoming of a prodigal son.
Commerce was plundered and shops were razed to the ground. Attempts to enforce the law were met with a hail of missiles. Police stations were firebombed at night.
What does above have to do with economics?
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-11-26/extrem…
Chile’s Economic Miracle Is At Risk
After three decades of democracy, the political center has collapsed. Ahead lies a bitterly polarized presidential runoff. A notable economic success is in danger of falling apart.
Is there a lesson for the USA in Chile?
Are not political opposition becoming more vehement & violent in the states. Has not income inequality increased in the USA first affecting the working but now moving upward diminishing the number of Americans in the middle class? Interesting days ahead. Ah well my time is short. Likely only another decade of enduring the mortal coil.
A side musing- We have now learn McKinsey was behind the strategizing of the opioid crisis that affect many in the working classes but was being recognized as a problem as early as 2002-2004.
So was the opioid crisis a case of rampant out of control capitalism or a program to keep the working class who have been thrown out of their jobs by globalization/automation befuddled & passive via opioid use? After all them gobblers are armed & more than a bit PO’s about their economic situation. And it was working. At least until they were stirred up in 2016 in aid of a political campaign of a non establishment candidate.
Nah just the ravings of a conspiracy minded lunatic.LOL
McKinsey appear to be one of those corporate special interests our nation bends a knee. Though as time passes it becoming more difficult for me on determining who actually is running our nation.
https://www.promarket.org/2020/01/10/why-the-us-government-b…
Why the US Government Buys Overpriced Services From McKinsey
The Industrial Funding Fee pays $3 million a year for a 23-year old McKinsey employee instead of hiring an experienced person directly to do IT management. The government agency in charge of bulk buying isn’t paid for saving money, but for spending too much of it.
But let’s start with what McKinsey is really about, which is getting organizational leaders to pay a large amount of money for fairly pedestrian advice.
More at the link.