Is Pinochet the Model?

Angelo M. Codevilla

From Foreign Affairs, November/December 1993

Summary:  The "Pinochet model," a potent mixture of authoritarianism and liberal economic reform, is sold as the elixir to nearly any country ailing under socialist transition. But the years of improvisation by Chile's reformers actually leave scant recipe to follow. The secret of Chile's turnabout, if any can be found, was simply the inspiration to shrink the state. Any country can do it, without a caudillo in charge.

CHILE'S RECIPE WILL NOT WORK

Chileans are bemused by the attention paid the robust economy bequeathed them by General Augusto Pinochet. Reformers as far afield as Europe and America have taken special note of his reform of health care, education and social security. President Carlos Saul Menem pinned a medal on Pinochet, wishing aloud that he had received Argentina from his own democratically elected predecessor in as good political and economic condition. Most ironically, the one-time Soviet Communist Party organ Pravda-which had led a worldwide campaign against the Chilean leader-interviewed Pinochet to ask how Russia might follow the Chilean example.

Indeed, the "Pinochet model" is one of the standard cures touted for nearly any country seeking to make the transition from socialist poverty. This model, as it is widely understood, calls for some combination of political repression and economic liberalism: a strong-armed leader imposes a period of economic austerity and political stasis, after which the country emerges with a lean free-market economy, a vigorous civil society and a political class that is once again ready to assume the reins of government.

The closer one looks, however, the more difficult it is to construe a model from Chile's experience. Chile's reforms are indeed admirable. But the path by which they were achieved is less so. Beyond its repressive, undemocratic nature, the military government did not follow a clear blueprint or schedule for reform, and it made many inconsistent, counterproductive and nearly disastrous decisions along the way. Moreover, the accidents of time, place and fortune make it impossible for other countries to tread the same path. Between 1970 and 1973, Salvador Allende's avowedly Marxist government inflicted the full logic of statism on the Chilean people. By doing so, it created a demand for a radical about-face. The military thus took power with the simple idea of reversing Chile's long history of statist government. It was that vision, rather than the acrimonious 16-year political-military war between the armed forces and the country's traditional parties, that changed the country to the point where few Chileans long for the old days.

CHILE'S GREAT LEAP FORWARD

Between 1970 and 1990 Chile changed dramatically. In 1970, when Eduardo Frei transferred the presidency to Salvador Allende, Chile had enjoyed six years as the beneficiary of worldwide prosperity and record prices for its copper exports. Chile was the world's second largest recipient of foreign aid per capita. Yet only half the homes in the country had inside bathrooms. In 1990, after Pinochet-despite 16 years as an international pariah and the target of trade boycotts, disinvestment and foreign aid cutoffs-about nine out of ten Chilean homes had them. Only a half million homes had televisions or refrigerators after Frei. After Pinochet, two million did, about two thirds of homes. In 1990, although per capita GDP stood at a relatively low $2,000 per year, it had increased in constant pesos by 50 percent. Since the 1982-83 recession it had grown by seven percent a year.

But Chile's advances were more than material. The country also saw vast social changes as well as a stark transformation of the role of government. After Frei, 82.2 babies per thousand died in infancy. After Pinochet, that figure fell to 17. Reduced infant mortality plus better nutrition and sanitation increased life expectancy from 63.6 years in 1970 to 71.8 in 1990. In 1973 the Chilean government had 650,000 employees. By 1989 the Chilean people had only 157,871 central government employees to support and to obey. By 1992 polls showed that people of all classes rated their satisfaction with the bureaucracy as 5.2 out of 7.

Before 1973 the middle and lower-middle classes had regarded the government as a major source of employment and as the fount of entitlements. The military government, however, cut all but the very poor out of most social expenditures. In 1970 one out of ten Chilean voters was also a dues-paying member of a political party-and no wonder, since the government controlled perhaps 75 percent of GDP. By 1990, party membership drives yielded only four percent of voters: the value of partisan connections had fallen because government now controlled only about one fourth of GDP.

The psychological changes that took place among Chileans were dramatic. By 1990 a plurality identified neither with the political left, right nor center. Rather, they saw themselves as independents or as apolitical. Prior to 1973 political parties had been able to count on followers tightly bound by direct material interest and ideology. By 1990, opinion polls showed that large percentages of voters had become both unattached and skeptical and could now shift easily among parties and candidates. In the intervening years Chileans had been convinced to prefer moderate politics or to remove themselves from politics altogether. They had been taught the limits of government and to look to themselves rather than to the state. Today Chile remarkably resembles the kind of state that some of the military regime's leading personages had wanted. But how this transformation came about does not necessarily serve as a recipe for other countries.

THE FORCE OF IDEAS