[rad-green] Neoliberalism’s Children Rise Up to Demand Justice in Chile and the World

*https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/11/06/neoliberalisms-children-rise-demand-justice-chile-and-world
<https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/11/06/neoliberalisms-children-rise-demand-justice-chile-and-world>Common
Dreams          November 06, 2019*





*Neoliberalism’s Children Rise Up to Demand Justice in Chile and the
WorldIt is entirely fitting that Chile should be in the vanguard of the
protests sweeping the world in this Autumn of Discontent, since Chile
served as the laboratory for the neoliberal transformation of economics and
politics that has swept the world since the 1970s. by Medea Benjamin,
Nicolas J S Davies*


[image: 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.
(Photo: RODRIGO ARANGUA/AFP via Getty Images)]

*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. (Photo:
RODRIGO ARANGUA/AFP via Getty Images)*

Uprisings against the corrupt, generation-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
country after country all over 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 U.S. invasions, coups and other brutal
uses of force. The repression against activists has been savage, with more
than 250 protesters killed
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/29/iraqi-protesters-demonstrations-month-of-violence>
in
Iraq in October alone, but the protests have continued and grown. 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 of them 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.

The people of Chile appear to have validated Erica Chenoweth’s research
<https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world>
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 entirely fitting that Chile should be in the vanguard of the protests
sweeping the world in this Autumn of Discontent, since Chile served as the
laboratory for the neoliberal transformation of economics and politics that
has swept the world since the 1970s.

When Chile’s socialist leader Salvador Allende was elected in 1970, after a
6-year-long covert CIA operation
<https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94chile.pdf> to
prevent his election, President Nixon ordered U.S. sanctions to “make the
economy scream.”
<https://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/10/40_years_after_chiles_9_11>

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 he started to nationalize copper mines and other major industries. But
growth slowed in 1972 and 1973 under the pressure of brutal U.S. sanctions,
as in Venezuela and Iran
<https://www.codepink.org/us_sanctions_economic_sabotage_that_is_deadly_illegal_ineffective>
 today.

U.S. sabotage of the new government intensified, and on September 11th,
1973, Allende was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup. The new leader, General
Augusto Pinochet, executed or disappeared at least 3,200 people, held
80,000 political prisoners in his jails and ruled Chile as a brutal
dictator until 1990, with the full support of the U.S. and other Western
governments.

Under Pinochet, Chile’s economy was submitted to radical “free market”
restructuring by the “Chicago Boys,”
<https://www.thenation.com/article/40-years-ago-this-chilean-exile-warned-us-about-the-shock-doctrine-then-he-was-assassinated/>a
team of Chilean economics students trained at the University of Chicago
under the supervision of Milton Friedman for the express purpose of
conducting this brutal experiment on their country. U.S. sanctions were
lifted and Pinochet sold off Chile’s public assets to U.S. corporations and
wealthy investors. Their program of tax cuts for the wealthy and
corporations, together with privatization and cuts in pensions, healthcare,
education and other public services, has since been duplicated across the
world.

The Chicago Boys pointed to rising economic growth rates in Chile as
evidence of the success of their neoliberal program, but by 1988, 48% of
Chileans were living below the poverty line. Chile was and still is the
wealthiest country in Latin America, but it is also the country with the
largest gulf between rich and poor.

The governments elected after Pinochet stepped down in 1990 have followed
the neoliberal model of alternating pro-corporate “center-right” and
“center-left” governments, as in the U.S. and other developed countries.
Neither respond to the needs of the poor or working class, who 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. Voter turnout has
predictably declined from 95% in 1989 to 47% in the most 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.

Medea Benjamin <http://www.commondreams.org/author/medea-benjamin>,
co-founder of Global Exchange <http://www.globalexchange.org/> and CODEPINK:
Women for Peace <http://www.codepinkalert.org/>, is the author of the new
book, *Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic
of Iran <http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/inside-iran-medea-benjamin/>*. Her
previous books include: *Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi
Connection*
<http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/kingdom-of-the-unjust-by-medea-benjamin/>;
*Drone
Warfare: Killing by Remote Control
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1935928813?ie=UTF8&tag=commondreams-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1935928813>*
; *Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/006097205X?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim>*, and
(with Jodie Evans) *Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide)
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004D4Y3A2?ie=UTF8&tag=commondreams-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B004D4Y3A2>*.
Follow her on Twitter: @medeabenjamin <https://twitter.com/medeabenjamin>

Nicolas J S Davies
<https://www.commondreams.org/author/nicolas-j-s-davies-0> is the
author of *Blood
On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq* and of the
chapter on "Obama At War" in *Grading the 44th President: A Report Card on
Barack Obama's First Term as a Progressive Leader*.

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