MetLife buys Chilean pension fund: the meaning of neoliberalism - Democratic Underground

27.3.13

MetLife buys Chilean pension fund: the meaning of neoliberalism - Democratic Underground: Chile: Laboratory for Neoliberalism:

Between 1973 and 1989, a government team of economists trained at the University of Chicago dismantled or decentralized the Chilean state as far as was humanly possible. Their program included privatizing welfare and social programs, deregulating the market, liberalizing trade, rolling back trade unions, and rewriting its constitution and laws. And they did all this in the absence of the far-right's most hated institution: democracy.

The results were exactly what liberals predicted....The majority of workers actually earned less in 1989 than in 1973 (after adjusting for inflation), while the incomes of the rich skyrocketed...

One of the most trumpeted "successes" of Chile's economic miracle is the privatization of its public social security system. It's most vocal supporter is Chilean economist Jos�Pi�era, who was once Pinochet's Minister of Labor...Pi�era is co-chairman of a $2 million war being waged against U.S. Social Security by the Cato Institute...