DANCING WITH THE DICTATOR :

In bed with Chile's torturers : a REVIEW : of Pinochet in Piccadilly: Britain and Chile's Hidden History by Andy Beckett (Edward Marriott, This is London)

Pinochet's brand of freemarket capitalism--whatever the human cost--would prove particularly alluring to Margaret Thatcher. By the mid-1970s, with Britain looking increasingly fragile, admiring Right- wingers looked towards Chile as an example of how to revive a moribund economy. Thatcher's election in May 1979 introduced Britain, Beckett writes, "to the harsh Chilean formula of economic shock treatment, cuts in the welfare state, privatisation and anti-trade union legislation". And, come the Falklands War, the relationship was so robust that Chile gave support to Britain in the form of communications, information and refuge for its armed forces, a fact publicly acknowledged by Thatcher during Pinochet's arrest.

If I'm reading this review correctly, both its author and the book's author think that these were bad things. One might suppose that the fact the Chileans had a superior economic model to the Brits of the 1970s and that they were a steadfast ally during Britain's only serious military engagement of the last half century would count for something. Curiously though, when the Left complains of the "human rights" records of Rightist governments they never give them credit for elevating the standard of living of their citizens. Liberals apparently labor under the delusion that the average person would rather be starving under a "People's" government than well-fed under a conservative authoritarian regime.

Not to mention that though the Left may promise freedom it invariably delivers even greater oppression than the Right nor that, as Jeane Kirkpatrick explained twenty years ago in Dictatorships and Double Standards : Rationalism and Reason in Politics (1982) (Jeane J. Kirkpatrick 1926- ), Right wing regimes tend to evolve towards greater democracy on their own, because they leave in place the traditional institutions that democracy requires :

Traditional autocrats leave in place existing allocations of wealth, power, status, and other resources, which in most traditional societies favor an affluent few and maintain masses in poverty. But they worship traditional gods and observe traditional taboos. They do not disturb the habitual rhythms of work and leisure, habitual places of residence, habitual patterns of family and personal relations.

The Left on the other hand typically has to be removed by force, as we may (hopefully) be about to witness in Venezuela.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 17, 2002 10:33 PM