         D.11 Can politics and economics be separated from each other?

   A key aspect of anarchism is the idea that the political and economic
   aspects of society cannot be separated. [1]Section D has been an
   attempt to show how these two aspects of society interact and influence
   each other. This means that economic liberty cannot be separated from
   political liberty and vice versa. If working class people are subject
   to authoritarian political organisations then their economic liberty
   will likewise be restricted and, conversely, if their economic freedoms
   are limited then so, too, will their political freedoms. As Proudhon
   put it, "industrial liberty is inseparable from political liberty."
   [quoted by Alan Ritter, The Political Thought of Pierre-Joseph
   Proudhon, p. 188]

   Some disagree, arguing that economic liberty is of primary importance.
   When Milton Friedman died in 2006, for example, many of his supporters
   parroted his defence of working with the Pinochet regime and noted that
   Chile had (eventually) become a democracy. For Friedman, this justified
   his praise for the "economic liberty" the regime had introduced and
   rationalised the advice he gave it. For him, Chile provided his earlier
   assertion that "economic freedom is an indispensable means toward the
   achievement of political freedom." For while Friedman stated that there
   was "an intimate connection between economics and politics," he meant
   simply that capitalism was required to produce democracy (to use his
   words, "capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom").
   [Capitalism and Freedom, p. 8 and p. 10]

   So it should first be stressed that by "economic liberty" Friedman
   meant capitalism and by "political liberty" he meant representative
   government and a democratic state. Anarchists would disagree that
   either of those institutions have much to do with genuine liberty.
   However, we will ignore this for the moment and take his general point.
   Sadly, such a position makes little sense. In fact, Friedman's
   separation of "economic" and "political" liberties is simply wrong as
   well as having authoritarian implications and lacking empirical basis.

   The easiest way of showing that statism and capitalism cannot be
   separated is to look at a country where "economic liberty" (i.e. free
   market capitalism) existed but "political liberty" (i.e. a democratic
   government with basic human rights) did not. The most obvious example
   is Pinochet's Chile, an experiment which Friedman praised as an
   "economic miracle" shortly before it collapsed. In [2]section C.11 we
   discussed the Chilean "economic miracle" at face value, refusing to
   discuss the issue of whether describing the regime as one of "economic
   liberty" could be justified. Rather, we exposed the results of applying
   what leading ideologues of capitalism have called "free market"
   policies on the country. As would be expected, the results were hardly
   an "economic miracle" if you were working class. Which shows how little
   our lives are valued by the elite and their "experts."

   As to be expected with Friedman, the actual experience of implementing
   his economic dogmas in Chile refuted them. Much the same can be said of
   his distinction of "economic" and "political" liberty. Friedman
   discussed the Chilean regime in 1991, arguing that "Pinochet and the
   military in Chile were led to adopt free market principles after they
   took over only because they did not have any other choice." [Economic
   Freedom, Human Freedom, Political Freedom] This is an interesting
   definition of "free market principles." It seems to be compatible with
   a regime in which the secret police can seize uppity workers, torture
   them and dump their bodies in a ditch as a warning to others.

   For Friedman, the economic and political regimes could be separated. As
   he put it, "I have nothing good to say about the political regime that
   Pinochet imposed. It was a terrible political regime. The real miracle
   of Chile is not how well it has done economically; the real miracle of
   Chile is that a military junta was willing to go against its principles
   and support a free market regime designed by principled believers in a
   free market." [Op. Cit.] How, exactly, could the political regime not
   impact on the economic one? How is a "free market" possible if people
   who make up the labour market are repressed and in fear of their lives?
   True, the Chilean workers could, as workers in Tsarist Russia, "change
   their jobs without getting permission from political authorities" (as
   Friedman put it [Capitalism and Freedom, p. 10]), however this is only
   a small part of what anarchists consider to be genuine economic
   liberty.

   To see why, it is useful to show a snapshot of what life was like under
   Friedman's "economic liberty" for working class people. Once this is
   done, it is easy to see how incredulous Friedman was being. Peter Winn
   gives a good description of what Chile's "economic liberty" was based
   on:

     "In the wake of the coup, most of the 'revolutionary' leaders of the
     textile workers disappeared, some to unmarked graves, jails, or
     concentration camps, others to exile or the underground resistance.
     Moreover, when the textile factories resumed production, it was
     under military administration and with soldiers patrolling the
     plants. Authoritarian management and industrial discipline were
     reimposed at the point of a bayonet, and few workers dared to
     protest. Some feared for their lives or liberty; many more feared
     for their jobs. Military intelligence officers interrogated the
     workers one by one, pressing them to inform on each other and then
     firing those considered to be leftist activists. The dismissals
     often continued after the mills were returned to their former
     owners, at first for political reasons or for personal revenge, but,
     with the recession of 1975, for economic motives as well. The
     unions, decimated by their leadership losses, intimidated by the
     repression, and proscribed by military decree from collective
     bargaining, strikes, or other militant actions, were incapable of
     defending their members' jobs, wages, or working conditions. With
     wages frozen and prices rising rapidly, living standards fell
     precipitously, even for those fortunate enough to keep their jobs."
     ["No Miracle for Us", Peter Winn (ed.), Victims of the Chilean
     Miracle: Workers and Neoliberalism in the Pinochet Era, 1973-2002,
     p. 131]

   In the copper mines, "[h]undreds of leftist activists were fired, and
   many were arrested and tortured . . . the military exercised a firm
   control over union leaders and activity within the unions remained
   dormant until the 1980s." The "decade following the military coup was
   defined by intense repression and a generalised climate of terror and
   fear." Workers recalled that people who spoke at union meetings were
   detained and until 1980 police permission was required to hold a
   meeting, which was held under police supervision. At work, "supervisors
   and foremen ruled with an authoritarian discipline" while miners
   "reported that spies denounced workers who talked politics or spoke at
   union meetings to the company administration and police." [Thomas
   Miller Klubock, "Class, Community, and Neoliberalism in Chile", Winn
   (ed.), Op. Cit., p. 214 p. 216 and p. 217]

   Over all, Workers "bore the brunt of the repression during the military
   take-over and throughout the Pinochet regime. The armed forces viewed
   workers -- and the level of organisation they had achieved under
   previous governments -- as the greatest threat to traditional power
   structure in Chile . . . Armed troops went after workers in general and
   union members and leaders in particular with a virulence that
   contradicted their claim to be stamping out 'class hatred.'" As for the
   relationship between "economic" and "political" liberty, the latter was
   dependent on the end of the former: "Fear of repression was clearly
   essential to the implementation of free-market labour policies, but far
   more pervasive was the fear of unemployment" generated by the so-called
   "economic miracle." [John Lear and Joseph Collins, "Working in Chile's
   Free Market", pp. 10-29, Latin American Perspectives, vol. 22, No. 1,
   pp. 12-3 and p. 14]

   Thus the ready police repression made strikes and other forms of
   protest both impractical and dangerous. When working class people did
   take to the streets after the economic crash of 1982, they were subject
   to intense state repression as Pinochet "cracked down, sending in army
   troops to curb the demonstrators." According to a report by the Roman
   Catholic Church 113 protesters had been killed during social protest,
   with several thousand detained for political activity and protests
   between May 1983 and mid-1984. Thousands of strikers were also fired
   and union leaders jailed. [Rayack, Op. Cit., p. 70] In fact, the
   "brutal government repression put even the militant copper miners on
   the defensive." [Winn, "The Pinochet Era", Winn (ed.), Op. Cit., p. 43]
   Workers were aware that the regime "was likely to use the full rigour
   of the law against workers who acted in defence of their interests.
   Moreover, even though the arbitrary actions of the secret police
   diminished in the last years of the dictatorship, they did not
   disappear, nor did their internalised legacy. Fear of becoming a target
   of repression still exercised a chilling effect on both workers and
   their leaders." [Winn, "No Miracle for Us", Winn (ed.), Op. Cit., p.
   133]

   All of which puts into stark light Friedman's 1982 comment that "Chile
   is an even more amazing political miracle. A military regime has
   supported reforms that sharply reduce the role of the state and replace
   control from the top with control from the bottom." [quoted by Rayack,
   Not so Free to Choose, p. 37] Clearly Friedman had no idea what he was
   talking about. While the "role of the state" was reduced in terms of
   welfare for the masses, it was obviously massively increased in terms
   of warfare against them (we will address the "control from the bottom"
   nonsense shortly).

   For anarchists, it is simply common-sense that "economic liberty"
   cannot exist within an authoritarian state for the mass of the
   population. In reality, the economic and political regime cannot be so
   easily compartmentalised. As Malatesta noted, "every economic question
   of some importance automatically becomes a political question . . .
   Workers' organisations must therefore, of necessity, adopt a line of
   action in face of present as well as possible future government
   action." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, pp. 130-1] Such
   common-sense is sadly lacking with Friedman who seriously seems to
   believe that "economic liberty" could exist without the freedom of
   workers to take collective action if they so desired. In other words,
   the "economic miracle" Friedman praises was built on the corpses, fears
   and backs of working class people. Unlike Friedman, Chile's workers and
   bosses know that "employers could count on the backing of the military
   in any conflict with workers." [Lear and Collins, Op. Cit., p. 13] As
   can be seen, Malatesta had a much firmer grasp of the question of
   liberty that Friedman, as expected as the latter equals it with
   capitalism and its hierarchies while the former spent much of his live
   in prison and exile trying to increase the freedom of working class
   people by fighting the former and the state which maintains them.

   As we argued in [3]section D.1.4, laissez-faire capitalism does not end
   statism. Rather it focuses it on purely defending economic power (i.e.
   "economic liberty" for the capitalist class). The example of Chile's
   "economic liberty" proves this beyond doubt and shows that the
   separation of economic and political freedom is impossible and,
   consequently, both capitalism and the state need to be fought and,
   ultimately, abolished.

D.11.1 What does Chile tell us about the right and its vision of liberty?

   The key to understanding how Friedman managed to ignore the obvious
   lack of "economic liberty" for the bulk of the population under
   Pinochet lies in remembering that he is a supporter of capitalism. As
   capitalism is a hierarchical system in which workers sell their liberty
   to a boss, it comes as no real surprise that Friedman's concern for
   liberty is selective.

   Pinochet did introduce free-market capitalism, but this meant real
   liberty only for the rich. For the working class, "economic liberty"
   did not exist, as they did not manage their own work nor control their
   workplaces and lived under a fascist state. The liberty to take
   economic (never mind political) action in the forms of forming unions,
   going on strike, organising go-slows and so on was severely curtailed
   by the very likely threat of repression. Of course, the supporters of
   the Chilean "Miracle" and its "economic liberty" did not bother to
   question how the suppression of political liberty effected the economy
   or how people acted within it. They maintained that the repression of
   labour, the death squads, the fear installed in rebel workers could be
   ignored when looking at the economy. But in the real world, people will
   put up with a lot more if they face the barrel of a gun than if they do
   not. So the claim that "economic liberty" existed in Chile makes sense
   only if we take into account that there was only real liberty for one
   class. The bosses may have been "left alone" but the workers were not,
   unless they submitted to authority (capitalist or state). Hardly what
   most people would term as "liberty".

   Beyond the ideologues of capitalism who term themselves "economists,"
   it is generally admitted that the "labour market," if it exists, is a
   somewhat unique market. As "labour" cannot be separated from its owner,
   it means that when you "buy" labour you "buy" the time, and so liberty,
   of the individual involved. Rather than be bought on the market all at
   once, as with a slave, the wage slave's life is bought piecemeal. This
   is the key to understanding Friedman's nonsensical claims for never
   forget that by "economic freedom" he means capitalism. To understand
   the difference we need only compare two of Friedman's arguments to the
   reality of capitalism. Once we do that then his blindness to Chile's
   neo-liberal dictatorship's impact on genuine economic liberty becomes
   clear.

   The most obvious fallacy within his argument is this assertion:

     "A characteristic feature of a free private market is that all
     parties to a transaction believe that they are going to be better
     off by that transaction. It is not a zero sum game in which some can
     benefit only at the expense of others. It is a situation in which
     everybody thinks he is going to be better off." [Economic Freedom,
     Human Freedom, Political Freedom]

   Who can deny that the worker who sells her liberty to the autocrat of a
   capitalist firm is "going to be better off" than one starving to death?
   As we noted in [4]section B.4.1, Friedman avoids the obvious fact that
   a capitalist economy is dependent on there being a class of people who
   have no means of supporting themselves except by selling their labour
   (i.e. liberty). While full employment will mitigate this dependency
   (and, as a result, bring the system to crisis), it never goes away. And
   given that Pinochet's "free market regime designed by principled
   believers in a free market" had substantial unemployment, it is
   unsurprising that the capitalist was "better off" than the worker as a
   result. As the experience of the "free private market" in Chile
   suggests, workers need to be free to organise without the fear of death
   squads otherwise they will be oppressed and exploited by their bosses.
   By denying that freedom, Pinochet's regime could only be considered
   "free" by the ideologues and savants of capitalism. The only positive
   thing that can be said is that it provided empirical evidence that the
   ideal neo-classical labour market would increase inequality and
   exploitation (see [5]section C.11.3).

   The problem with Friedman's argument is that he fails to recognise the
   hierarchical nature of capitalism and the limited liberty it produces.
   This can be seen from Friedman's comparison of military dictatorships
   to capitalism:

     "Almost all military juntas are adverse to economic freedom for
     obvious reasons. The military is organised from the top down: the
     general tells the colonel, the colonel tells the captain, the
     captain tells the lieutenant, and so on. A market economy is
     organised from the bottom up: the consumer tells the retailer, the
     retailer tells the wholesaler, the wholesaler tells the producer,
     and the producer delivers. The principles underlying a military
     organisation are precisely the reverse of those underlying a market
     organisation." [Op. Cit.]

   Obviously geometry was not Friedman's strong point. A "market economy"
   is characterised by horizontal links between workplaces and consumers,
   not vertical ones. However, the key issue is that the dominant "market
   organisation" under capitalism is marked by the "principles underlying
   a military organisation." To present a more accurate picture than
   Friedman, in the "market organisation" of a capitalist firm the boss
   tells the worker what to do. It is "organised from the top down" just
   as a military junta is. That Friedman ignores the organisational
   structure which 90% of the population have to operate within for most
   of their waking hours is significant. It shows how little he
   understands of capitalism and "economic freedom."

   In Pinochet's Chile, the workplace did become more like "a military
   organisation." Without effective unions and basic human rights, the
   bosses acted like the autocrats they are. Discussing the textile
   industry, Peter Winn notes that "most mill owners took full advantage
   of the regime's probusiness Labour Code . . . At many mills, sweatshop
   conditions prevailed, wages were low, and management was authoritarian,
   even tyrannical . . . Workers might resent these conditions, but they
   often felt powerless to oppose them. Informers and the threat of
   dismissal kept even alienated and discontented workers in line." ["No
   Miracle for Us", Winn (ed.), Op. Cit., p. 132 and pp. 132-3] John Lear
   and Joseph Collins generalise the picture, noting that "[i]n wake of
   the coup, factory owners suddenly had absolute control over their
   workers and could fire any worker without case. From 1973 through 1978,
   practically every labour right for organised and unorganised workers
   was suspended. All tools of collective bargaining, including of course
   the right to strike, were outlawed." [Op. Cit., p. 13] The Junta
   themselves had no illusions about the military-like regime they desired
   within the workplace, stating in 1974 its intention of "imposing
   authority and discipline in production and labour relations." [quoted
   by Joseph Collins and John Lear, Chile's Free-Market Miracle: A Second
   Look, p. 27]

   The reality of life under Pinochet for working class people should make
   anyone with sense wary of praising the regime in any way, but Friedman
   argued that the "results were spectacular. Inflation came down sharply.
   After a transitory period of recession and low output that is
   unavoidable in the course of reversing a strong inflation, output
   started to expand, and ever since, the Chilean economy has performed
   better than any other South American economy." [Op. Cit.] Of course, by
   downplaying the deep recession caused by applying his recommended
   "shock-treatment" policies, Friedman can confuse the high growth
   resulting from coming out of the boom combined with ready repression on
   labour with sound economic policies. Strangely he failed to mention the
   "spectacular" recession of 1982 which wiped out the gains of 1976 to
   1981. As indicated in [6]section C.11, looking over the whole of the
   Pinochet period the results were hardly "spectacular" (unless you were
   rich) and the moderate gains were paid for by the working class in
   terms of longer hours, lower pay and political and economic oppression.

   In other words, Friedman and the 'Chicago boys' provided an appearance
   of technical respectability to the dreams, greed and power of the
   landlords and capitalists who made up the Chilean oligarchy. The
   military simply applied the brutal force required to achieve those
   goals. As such, there is only an apparent contradiction between
   political tyranny and "economic liberty," not a real one. Repression
   for the working class and "economic liberty" for the elite are two
   sides of the same coin.

   This should be common-sense and, as such, it is nonsensical for the
   likes of Friedman to support an economic policy while pretending to
   reject the system of terror it required to implement. After all,
   economic policies do not occur in a social and political vacuum. They
   are conditioned by, and at the same time modify, the social and
   political situation where they are put into practice. Thus there cannot
   be "economic liberty" for workers if they expect a visit from the
   secret police if they talk back to their boss. Yet for Friedman and
   those like him, there seems to be a lack of awareness of such basic and
   obvious facts. There is a necessary connection between economic policy
   (and its outcome) and the socio-political setting in which it is
   implemented.

   Friedman exposes the utter hypocrisy of the supporters of capitalism.
   His myopia about the reality of the regime was expressed in articles
   which amount to little more than apologetics for the dictatorship. For
   example, in 1982 he noted in response to the economic problems of the
   previous year "the opposition to the free-market policies that had been
   largely silence by success is being given full voice." [quoted by
   Rayack, Op. Cit., p. p. 63] No mention that the real cause of the
   "silence" of the opposition was not the "success" of policies which had
   impoverished the working class and enriched the elite but, rather, the
   expectation of a visit by the secret police. Given that Pinochet had
   sent murder squads to kill prominent dissidents abroad, Friedman's
   comments are incredulous -- particularly as Allende's former foreign
   minister, Orlando Letelier, was assassinated in Washington in 1976 by a
   car bomb.

   The state terror, the violation of human rights and drastic control and
   suppression of every form of meaningful dissent is discussed (and often
   condemned) as something only indirectly linked, or indeed entirely
   unrelated, to the economic policies that the military imposed. To
   publicly praise and support the economic policies adopted by the
   dictatorship while regretting its political regime is simply illogical
   hypocrisy. However, it does expose the limited nature of the right's
   concept of liberty as well as its priorities and values.

D.11.2 But surely Chile proves that "economic freedom" creates political
freedom?

   As noted above, Friedman defended his praise for the Pinochet regime by
   arguing that its "economic liberty" helped produce the end of the
   dictatorship. In the words of Friedman:

     "The economic development and the recovery produced by economic
     freedom in turn promoted the public's desire for a greater degree of
     political freedom . . . In Chile, the drive for political freedom,
     that was generated by economic freedom and the resulting economic
     success, ultimately resulted in a referendum that introduced
     political democracy. Now, at long last, Chile has all three things:
     political freedom, human freedom and economic freedom. Chile will
     continue to be an interesting experiment to watch to see whether it
     can keep all three or whether, now that it has political freedom,
     that political freedom will tend to be used to destroy or reduce
     economic freedom." [Op. Cit.]

   It is hard to find an account so skewed by ideological blindness as
   this. The notion that Chile's "free market" capitalism provided the
   base for eliminating Pinochet's dictatorship is hard to defend. If it
   were true then we would expect Pinochet's rule to be substantially
   shorter than other military dictatorships in the region. However, this
   is not the case. For example, Argentina's Military Junta lasted from
   1976 to 1983, 7 years; Peru's 12 years (1968 to 1980); Uruguay's 12
   years (1973 to 1985); Bolivia's 18 years (1964 to 1982). Pinochet's
   lasted 17 years, exceeded by Brazil's 21 years (1964 to 1985). If
   Friedman's argument were valid then Pinochet would have fallen long
   before the rest. In fact, Chile was one of the last Latin American
   countries to return to democracy.

   Nor can it be said that ending of the Pinochet regime was an automatic
   outcome of economic forces. Rather, it was a product of struggle by
   ordinary people who took to the streets in the early 1980s to protest
   in the face of state repression. The regime was subject to popular
   pressures from below and these, not capitalism, were the key factor.
   After all, it was not "economic liberty" which produced the desire for
   "political freedom." Working class people could remember what political
   freedom was before it was destroyed in order to create Friedman's
   "economic liberty" and tried to recreate it.

   In the face of state terror, political activists and trade unionists
   fought the regime. The 1988 referendum Friedman alludes to was the
   product of this heroic activity, not some abstract economic force. As
   Cathy Schneider points out, the 1983-86 "cycle of protests had set the
   stage for a negotiated transition to democracy in 1990." These
   protests, it should be noted, were subject to extreme state repression
   (one demonstration saw Pinochet send 18,000 troops onto the streets,
   who shot 129 people, 29 fatally, and tortured some of the 1,000
   arrested). [Shantytown protest in Pinochet's Chile, p. 194 and p. 165]
   Peter Winn, for example, notes "the resistance of workers to both the
   dictatorship and its neoliberal policies, often against great odds and
   at great risks." In fact, "during the Pinochet era, with its repression
   and restrictions on union activism, Chile's workers displayed great
   creativity in devising new ways to resist . . . Nor was this resistance
   confined to the workplace or workers' issues . . . it was Chile's
   workers who first raised the flag of political resistance against the
   dictatorship in the 1970s and sustained it during the years when
   political parties were banned. And it was the copper miners who
   mobilised the social protests and political opposition to the military
   regime in the 1980s to demand an end to Pinochet's dictatorship and the
   restoration of democracy and civil liberties." ["Introduction", Winn
   (ed.), Op. Cit., p. 11] This is confirmed by John Lear and Joseph
   Collins, who note that "[d]uring the mid-1980s, unions were fundamental
   to organising the national protests that led eventually to the
   negotiations of the 1988 plebiscite." [Op. Cit., p. 20]

   This, it should be noted, has always been the case. Political freedoms
   have never been given by the powers that be but rather won by long
   struggles by working class people. This has always been the case, as
   Kropotkin stressed basic political liberties were "extorted from
   parliament by force, by agitations that threatened to become
   rebellions. It was by establishing trade unions and practising strike
   action despite the edicts of Parliament and the hangings" that workers
   "won the right to associate and strike" in Britain for example. [Words
   of a Rebel, pp. 123-4] To ignore that often heroic struggle shows an
   ignorance about history which only matches an ignorance about liberty.
   The history of capitalism is important in this regard. It first
   developed under Absolutist states which used its power to bolster the
   position of their capitalist class within both national (against the
   working class) and international markets (against foreign competitors).
   As we discuss in [7]section F.8, they actively intervened to create the
   pre-conditions for generalised wage slavery before becoming a handicap
   to the rising bourgeoisie. These regimes were generally replaced by
   liberal states with limited voting rights which generally lifted the
   burden of state regulation from the capitalist class. The working class
   had to fight long and hard to win basic civil liberties and the vote.
   As Chomsky notes, such progress "didn't just happen; it happened
   through the struggles of the labour movement, and the Civil Rights
   Movement, and the women's movement, and everything else. It's the
   popular movements which expanded the domain of freedom of speech [and
   other liberties] until it began to be meaningful." [Understanding
   Power, pp. 268-9]

   Once these rights were won, the ruling elite has always turned to
   fascism to control them once they started to threaten their power and
   wealth. This obviously applies to Chile. Until the coup of 11 September
   1973, Chile had been seen increasing participation of the working class
   in economic and social decision making. The coup was, simply, a massive
   class revenge of the wealthy against a working class which had dared to
   imagine that another world was possible. Unsurprisingly, given the key
   role of working class people in the struggle for freedom, "Worker
   leaders and activists . . . were central targets of the military
   regime's state terror, whose goal was to intimidate them into
   passivity, in large part so that neoliberal policies could be imposed."
   [Peter Winn, "Introduction", Op. Cit., p. 12] Equally unsurprising,
   those who had taken to the streets aimed for political freedom in order
   to end the "economic liberty" imposed by the regime.

   This means that Friedman's maxim that economic liberty is required to
   produce political liberty is a deeply flawed position to take. Not only
   does it ignore the popular struggles which have always had to be fought
   to end minority government, it also allows its advocates to justify and
   work with authoritarian regimes. At best, this position ensures that
   you will be indifferent to the destruction of political freedom as long
   as "economic liberty" (i.e. capitalism) was secured. At worse, it
   ensures that you would actively support such a destruction as you can
   justify it in terms of a return to "democracy" in the long run.
   Friedman and the "Chicago Boys" express both ends of that spectrum.
   That he can comment on "the paradox that economic freedom produces
   political freedom but political freedom may destroy economic freedom"
   in the context of Chile is staggering, as it was the destruction of
   "political freedom" that allowed "economic freedom" (for the rich) to
   be imposed. [Op. Cit.] In reality, Chile provides evidence to support
   the alternative argument that the introduction of free market
   capitalism requires the elimination or, at best, the reduction of
   "political liberty."

   In other words, fascism was an ideal political environment to introduce
   "economic liberty" because it had destroyed political liberty. Perhaps
   we should conclude that the denial of political liberty is both
   necessary and sufficient in order to create (and preserve) "free
   market" capitalism? After all, the history of capitalism has been
   marked by the ruling class overthrowing "political liberty" when their
   power was threatened by popular movements. In other words, that
   Malatesta was right to argue that the "capitalists can maintain the
   struggle in the economic field so long as workers demand small . . .
   improvements; but as soon as they see their profits seriously
   diminished and the very existence of their privileges threatened, they
   appeal to government and if it is not sufficiently understanding and
   not strong enough to defend them . . . they use their own wealth to
   finance new repressive forces and to set up a new government which will
   serve them better." [Op. Cit., p. 131]

   Friedman's argument implies that "economic liberty" is more important
   than "political liberty," so making people less concerned about
   dictatorships as long as they support the interests of the capitalist
   class. While the long list of capitalists, conservatives and right-wing
   ("classical") liberals who supported fascism or fascist-like regimes
   shows that giving them an ideological prop to justify it is
   unnecessary, it is hardly wise.

   Then there is the question of whether Chile does, in fact, have genuine
   political liberty (i.e. a democratic government). The answer is, not
   quite. Chile's democracy is a "managed" one, constrained both by the
   political legacy of Pinochet's constitution and the threat of military
   intervention. Significantly, Friedman seems unconcerned about the
   quality of the post-Pinochet democracy Chile experiences. Simply put,
   the existence of an electoral regime cannot be confused with democracy
   or "political liberty."

   It is clear that Pinochet went into the 1988 plebiscite expecting to
   win (particularly as he tried to rig it like the 1980 one). According
   to many reports from members of his cabinet and staff, he was
   absolutely furious and wanted to annul the results. The popular
   backlash this would have created ensured he abided by the result.
   Instead, he ensured that the new governments had to accept his
   authoritarian constitution and decree-laws. In other words, knowing he
   would be replaced he immediately took steps to limit the subsequent
   democratically elected governments as well as remaining as the head of
   the armed forces (as we discuss below, this obviously ensures the
   threat of a coup hung over the new governments).

   This means that post-Pinochet Chile is not your typical "democracy."
   Pinochet became an unelected senator for life after his retirement as
   armed forces commander in March 1998 and 28% of the Senate is
   "designated," including four retired military officers named by the
   National Security Council. Pinochet also imposed a "unique binomial
   electoral law, [in] which to elect two deputies or senators from the
   same district, a party or electoral alliance needed to double its
   opponent's vote -- a difficult feat -- or else the opponent received an
   equal number of seats in congress." This ensured rightist control of
   the Senate despite a decade of majority victories by the centre-left in
   elections and so "Pinochet's 'designated senators' and undemocratic
   electoral law continued to frustrate the popular will and limit Chile's
   restored democracy." The majority could not "pass laws without the
   consent of its rightist opponents." Pinochet used "final months as
   president to decree laws that would hamstring his opponents, even if a
   majority of the electorate supported them." In addition, any new
   government was "confronted by a judiciary and government bureaucracy
   packed by Pinochet with his own adherents. Moreover, the Right enjoyed
   a near monopoly of the press and media that grew as the decade
   advanced." [Winn, "The Pinochet Era", Op. Cit., p. 64 and p. 49]

   Thus Chile is lumbered with Pinochet's legacy, "the authoritarian
   constitution of 1980, which sought to create a 'protected democracy'
   under military tutelage. It was written so as to be difficult to amend
   and designed to handcuff a future opposition government and frustrate
   popular will." It "removed the military from civilian control, while
   submitting future elected governments to a military-dominated National
   Security Council with a vague but broad purview." It also "banned
   measures against private property." With some "relative minor
   modifications of some of its most egregious features during the
   transition to democracy" it remained "in effect for the rest of the
   century" and in 2004 was "still Chile's fundamental charter." [Winn,
   Op. Cit., p. 30] This constitution built upon the work of
   right-"libertarian" Friedrich von Hayek and, unsurprisingly aimed to
   insulate "economic liberty" from popular pressures, i.e. to limit and
   reduce democracy to secure the freedom of capitalism (and, of course,
   the capitalist class).

   In addition, the threat of military intervention is always at the
   forefront of political discussions. For example, on 11 September 1990,
   Pinochet "warned that he would lead another coup is conditions
   warranted it. In 1993, when investigations into an arms procurement
   scandal implicated his son, Pinochet ordered combat-ready troops and
   tanks onto the streets for an 'exercise' . . . Throughout the Aylwin
   presidency, Pinochet maintained an army 'shadow cabinet' that acted as
   a political pressure group." Unsurprisingly, the first post-Pinochet
   government "often backed down in practice for the sake of social peace
   -- or out of fear of endangering the transition to democracy. As a
   result, Aylwin was unable to fulfil his promises of constitutional and
   institutional reforms that would reverse Pinochet's authoritarian
   legacy." This was because the new government thought that the coup and
   dictatorship "reflected the decision of business elites to call in the
   military, because they could not protect their core interests under
   Chile's radicalised democracy. The lesson that . . . [they] drew . . .
   was that to avoid its repetition in the 1990s it was necessary to
   reassure business that its interests would be protected." [Winn, Op.
   Cit., p. 50 and p. 53]

   The limited nature of Chile's democracy was seen in 1998, when Pinochet
   was arrested in Britain in regard of a warrant issued by a Spanish
   Judge for the murders of Spanish citizens during his regime.
   Commentators, particularly those on the right, stressed that Pinochet's
   arrest could undermine Chile's "fragile democracy" by provoking the
   military. In other words, Chile is only a democracy in-so-far as the
   military let it be. Of course, few commentators acknowledged the fact
   that this meant that Chile was not, in fact, a democracy after all.

   All of which explains why subsequent governments have only tinkered
   with the free-market policies introduced by Pinochet. They have dared
   not reverse them not due to their popular nature but to the obvious
   fact that recent Chilean history shows that progressive politicians and
   their supporters have something to fear besides losing an election.
   Unsurprisingly, workers "socio-economic aspirations were postponed in
   the interest of not jeopardising the transition and their expectations
   of labour law reform were sacrificed on the same alter." [Winn,
   "Introduction", Winn (ed.), Op. Cit., p. 10] While 2002 saw the
   election of the first socialist president since Allende, it is unlikely
   that Chile will experience anything beyond minor reforms -- the legacy
   of fear and political restrictions will ensure that the ruling class
   will have little to fear from "political liberty" being used by
   politicians to curb their power and wealth.

   Then there is the social legacy of 17 years of dictatorship. As one
   expert on Latin America, Cathy Scheider, noted in 1993, "the
   transformation of the economic and political system" under Pinochet
   "has had a profound impact on the world view of the typical Chilean,"
   with most having "little contact with other workers or with their
   neighbours, and only limited time with their family. Their exposure to
   political or labour organisations is minimal. . . they lack either the
   political resources or the disposition to confront the state. The
   fragmentation of opposition communities has accomplished what brute
   military repression could not. It has transformed Chile, both
   culturally and politically, from a country of active participatory
   grassroots communities, to a land of disconnected, apolitical
   individuals. The cumulative impact of this change is such that we are
   unlikely to see any concerted challenge to the current ideology in the
   near future." [quoted by Noam Chomsky, World Orders, Old and New, p.
   184]

   In such circumstances, political liberty can be re-introduced, as no
   one is in a position to effectively use it. In addition, Chileans live
   with the memory that challenging the state in the near past resulted in
   a fascist dictatorship murdering thousands of people as well as
   repeated and persistent violations of human rights by the junta, not to
   mention the existence of "anti-Marxist" death squads -- for example in
   1986 "Amnesty International accused the Chilean government of employing
   death squads." [P. Gunson, A. Thompson, G. Chamberlain, Op. Cit., p.
   86] According to one Human Rights group, the Pinochet regime was
   responsible for 11,536 human rights violations between 1984 and 1988
   alone. [Calculation of "Comite Nacional de Defensa do los Derechos del
   Pueblo," reported in Fortin, September 23, 1988]

   These facts that would have a strongly deterrent effect on people
   contemplating the use of political liberty to actually change the
   status quo in ways that the military and economic elites did not
   approve of. This does not mean, of course, that the Chilean people are
   not resisting oppression and exploitation and rebuilding their
   organisations, simply that using free speech, striking and other forms
   of social action is more difficult. That is protects and increases the
   power, wealth and authority of the employer and state over their wage
   slaves goes without sating -- it was what was intended. As Kropotkin
   pointed out years ago, "freedom of press . . . and all the rest, are
   only respected if the people do not make use of them against the
   privileged classes. But the day the people begin to take advantage of
   them to undermine those privileges, then the so-called liberties will
   be cast overboard." [Op. Cit., p. 42] Chile is a classic example of
   this, a bloody example which helps deter genuine democracy in that
   country decades later.

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secDcon.html
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secC11.html
   3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secD1.html#secd14
   4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB4.html#secb41
   5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secC11.html#secc113
   6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secC11.html
   7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF8.html
