BLOG: How Pinochet Turned Chile Into a Globally Admired Model of Authoritarian Capitalism [Imperial & Global Forum]

Home , Augusto Pinochet

H-Empire BLOG: How Pinochet turned Chile into a globally admired model of authoritarian capitalism [Imperial & Global Forum]

Discussion published by Marc-William Palen on Thursday, May 16, 2019

Anti-Soviet, authoritarian, pro-market. The self-professed ‘father of the Chilean model’ as official guest in Deng Xiaoping’s China.

Tobias Rupprecht University of Exeter Follow on Twitter @Tobepastpresent

Augusto Pinochet was an avid global traveller throughout the 1990s. A potent symbol of Cold War anti-Soviet authoritarianism and market radicalism, the former military ruler of Chile usually made a great stir during his trips across Latin America, East Asia, Southern Africa, continental Europe, and to the United Kingdom. In a recent article in Global Society, I assess the public reactions, political

Citation: Marc-William Palen. BLOG: How Pinochet turned Chile into a globally admired model of authoritarian capitalism [Imperial & Global Forum]. H-Empire. 05-16-2019. https://networks.h-net.org/node/5293/discussions/4122910/blog-how-pinochet-turned-chile-globally-admired-model Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Empire debates, and legal consequences that Pinochet’s appearances caused. Scholars of Pinochet’s international perception have for the most part focussed on his criminal reputation among human rights activists and the victims of military rule in Chile. Yet, many pro-market reformers and anti- Communists in countries transitioning from socialism to capitalism did not see Pinochet as a criminal dictator of the Cold War. Margaret Thatcher also had a soft spot for him. For them, his economically successful ‘Chilean model’ had become a source of legitimacy for an authoritarian path of modernisation.

Pinochet in Prague, invited to lunch by former dissidents in 1994: ‘the only democrat who was not weak is Pinochet’.

In several post-socialist countries, Pinochet triggered national public debates on the legacies of Communist rule. More than a few former dissidents spoke out in favour of Pinochet, who according to them had put Chile on a successful track of development by finishing off a Marxist government (that of Salvador Allende, who had been toppled in a military coup in 1973) and deregulating the economy. “If we had had a Pinochet in 1948”, a prominent Czech politician declared on TV, “everything would have developed for the better.” [continue reading at the Imperial & Global Forum]