Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I understand that all you are interested in discussing is the success of Pinochet's economic policies, and that the torture and murders and rapes were an acceptable price to pay for Chile's economic miracle. I find that a little frightening. OK, a lot frightening. Frankly, I think most liberals were more concerned with principles about human rights and civil rights and democracy -- you know the sorts of things our foreign policy is currently oriented around paying lip service to -- than they were with discrediting Friedman's markets. Liberals and socialists didn't have to make shit up to establish that Pinochet was evil -- they only had to tell people what he'd done.
As Sachs says, other countries -- Bolivia, in particular -- found a way to adopt the economic policies without the brutal repression. So don't pretend that the torture and rape and murder was somehow necessary to Chile's current economic standing.
And we support democracy -- I mean, pay lip service to democracy -- as an end in itself, not because it's a good platform for free markets. If you really believe in that principle -- something I suspect many conservatives are having a hard time incorporating fully into their world view -- then you have to condemn our support for a coup that replaced a democratically elected government with a military junta.
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If you really believe in Democracy, you believe in Free markets. I don't support the nasty stuff that Pinochet did but I think it has been exaggerated. But like I said before Free markets are a prerequisite for a stable democracy. Poor democracies don't tend to last. Socialist governments destroy democracys creating long term dictatorships. Free markets create great affluence and strong middle classes, which create stable democracies. Because of Chile's strong economic growth, democracy - and a stable one at that - was inevitable. The problem I have with many liberals is that they still believe and support the idea that socialist policies are good, when all they do is destroy democracies.
