From Chile to Lebanon, mass mobilizations are
calling for a political and economic revolution
against the neoliberal consensus.
By Medea Benjamin Nicolas J S Davies
November 09, 2019 "Information
Clearing House" -
Uprisings against the decades long dominance of
neoliberal “center-right” and “center-left”
governments that benefit the wealthy and
multinational corporations at the expense of working
people are sweeping the world.
In this Autumn of Discontent, people from Chile,
Haiti and Honduras to Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon are
rising up against neoliberalism, which has in many
cases been imposed on them by US invasions, coups
and other brutal uses of force. While the severe
repression against these activists have led to more
than
250 protesters killed in Iraq in October alone,
the protests have continued to grow. Some movements,
such as in Algeria and Sudan, have already forced
the downfall of long-entrenched, corrupt
governments.
A country that is emblematic of the uprisings
against neoliberalism is Chile. On October 25, 2019,
a million Chileans – out of a population of about 18
million – took to the streets across the country,
unbowed by government repression that has killed at
least 20 and injured hundreds more. Two days later,
Chile's billionaire president Sebastian Piñera fired
his entire cabinet and declared, “We are in a new
reality. Chile is different from what it was a week
ago.”
The people of Chile appear to have validated
Erica Chenoweth’s research on non-violent
protest movements, in which she found that once over
3.5% of a population rise up to non-violently demand
political and economic change, no government can
resist their demands. It remains to be seen whether
Piñera’s response will be enough to save his own
job, or whether he will be the next casualty of the
3.5% rule.
It is fitting that Chile should be in the
vanguard of protests sweeping the world in this
Autumn of Discontent, since Chile served as the
original neoliberal laboratory.
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When Chile’s socialist leader
Salvador Allende was elected in 1970,
after a six year
covert CIA operation to prevent his
election, President Nixon ordered U.S.
sanctions to
“make the economy scream.”
In his first year in office, Allende’s
progressive economic policies led to a 22% increase
in real wages, as work began on 120,000 new housing
units and the nationalization of copper mines and
other industrial sectors. But growth slowed in 1972
and 1973 under the pressure of brutal US sanctions,
as in
Venezuela and Iran today.
Allende was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup on
September 11, 1973. The new US and Western backed
leader, General Augusto Pinochet, executed or
‘disappeared’ at least 3,200 people, held 80,000
political prisoners in jail, and ruled as a brutal
dictator until 1990.
Under Pinochet, Chile’s economy was radically
restructured by the “Chicago
Boys”, a team of Chilean economics students
trained at the University of Chicago under the
supervision of Milton Friedman. US sanctions were
quickly lifted and Pinochet sold off Chile’s public
assets to US corporations and wealthy investors. The
neoliberal program: tax cuts for the wealthy and
corporations, together with mass privatization and
cuts to pensions, healthcare, education and other
public services, was soon duplicated across the
world.
While the Chicago Boys pointed to rising economic
growth rates in Chile as evidence of the success of
their neoliberal program, by 1988, 48% of Chileans
were living below the poverty line. Chile is
currently one of the wealthiest countries in Latin
America, and one of the most unequal.
The governments elected after Pinochet, from
“center-right” to “center-left”, have abided by the
neoliberal model. The needs of the poor and working
class continue to be exploited, as they pay higher
taxes than their tax-evading bosses, on top of
ever-rising living costs, stagnant wages and limited
access to voucherized education and a stratified
public-private healthcare system. Indigenous
communities are at the very bottom of this corrupt
social and economic order.
The neoliberal consensus following Pinochet has
triggered a disillusionment with the traditional
political process, as voter turnout declined from
95% in 1989 to 47% in the recent presidential
election in 2017.
If Chenoweth is right and the million Chileans in
the street have breached the tipping point for
successful non-violent popular democracy, Chile may
be leading the way to a global political and
economic revolution.
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