Customer Reviews

Pinochet's Economists: The Chicago School of Economics in Chile (Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics)

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is an explanation about the "work" of the Chicago School in Chile. You can read about the origin the Chicago School into the Departement of Economics of the U. of Chicago (USA), the transfer of knowledge to the chilean students during the 60' s and 70's and how this school and the "Chicago Boys" supported General Augusto Pinochet

There is some real meat in this text addressing the nature of the Chicago School economics imported to Chile by the Chicago Boys. Most interesting is the author's analysis of how Pinochet's authoritarian governance fit hand in glove with the political views of classic free marketers, ie, democracy too often leads to the protection of special interest groups to the deteriment of truly free markets.

For my purposes, there was far too much informaton of how the Catholic University and the Universty of Chicago managed their exchange program and how the Chilean Chicago Boys operated in obscurity until Pinochet's coup.

Overall, this is a very helpful book, with plenty of back ground information about the Chicago School of Economics. It all rang true to my ears based on my three years of graduate school indoctrination from the true believers, including Milton Friedman who gave his "Free to Choose" lectures while I was a student.

I rarely give a book 1 star, but this book merits it.

Except for literally the first and last chapters, precious little is said about Chile or the economy of Chile.

The entire book is about how the economics department of the University of Chicago allied with Universidad Catolica de Chile to place Chilean foreign exchange students in positions of authority in Pinochet's government.

I guess that the title of the book should have been a clue, but I had no idea the entire book would be on this one limited theme, spelled out in nausiating detail, blow-by-blow, year-by-year. And yes, the author is leftist and does seem to strain to see a conspiracy behind every tree.

A terrible book. Perhaps good as a Ph.D thesis, but not a book.

I was interested in the whole take on Chile. It seemed to be the perfect model of American foreign policy. It seemed hard to argue against Chile. It seemed that dictatorships and extreme poverty were necessary evils in building industrialized democracies.

Then I read Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. He brings to light something that economists cannot ignore. Even though most industries were privatized, one industry was regulated stricter than democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende ever meant to. The copper industry, Chile's leading industry was that industry. Those other industries that were privatized that are noted even by pro-Pinochet economists for causing poverty and social decadence all round.

If you care to look into the Chicago boys, just take a look at Milton Friedman's work with a critical eye. Rather than seeing to promote libertarian thought, he seemingly hurts it more. The Chicago boys built the same economy paradigm that was followed by the Russian Communist Party (yes, the Communists; 60% of the population opposed free market economics) that led to further economic chaos and social decay in post-communist Russia.

I've met many libertarians that have nothing nice to say about the Chicago boys and the Friedman line of thought. Nice way of defending Pinochet's rule. Too bad it's far from the truth.

This book focus on a fascinating subject: the story of how a bunch of Chilean free market economists transformed a dictatorship into a model democracy and a prosperous economy. Valdes describes the team and its origin with skill and knowledge. But then his partisan socialist background betrays him and he begins to see conspiracies and imperialist designs. A wasted opportunity.