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May Day — socialists’ paean to class warfare — evokes memories of Soviet tanks in Red Square and leftist radicals rioting. But Chile celebrates the actual empowerment of workers.
May 1 marks the 30 years since Chile became the first nation to privatize its social security system. By turning workers into investors, the move solved an entitlement crisis much like the one America faces today.
5 comments
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Bill Nye: People Magazine 'Sexiest Man Alive' Sat, May 7, 2011 1:01:09pm |
Why is this still popular among Libertarians?
Pinochet's Chile, installed by Nixon, praised by Jeanne Kirkpatrick, George Bush, and Paul Johnson. In twenty years, foreign debt quadrupled, natural resources were wasted, universal health care was abandoned (leading to epidemics of typhoid fever and hepatitis), unions were outlawed, military spending rose (for what? who the hell is going to attack Chile?), social security was "privatized" (with predictable results: ever-increasing government bailouts) and the poverty rate doubled, from 20% to 41%. Chile's growth rate from 1974 to 1982 was 1.5%; the Latin American average was 4.3%.Pinochet was a dictator, of course, which makes some libertarians feel that they have nothing to learn here. Somehow Chile's experience (say) privatizing social security can tell us nothing about privatizing social security here, because Pinochet was a dictator. Presumably if you set up a business in Chile, the laws of supply and demand and perhaps those of gravity wouldn't apply, because Pinochet was a dictator.
When it's convenient, libertarians even trumpet their association with Chile's "free market" policies; self-gov.org (originators of that cute quiz) includes a page celebrating Milton Friedman, self-proclaimed libertarian, who helped form and advise the group of University of Chicago professors and graduates who implemented Pinochet's policies. The Cato Institute even named a prize for "Advancing Liberty" after this benefactor of the Chilean dictatorship.
~Mark Rosenfelder
He explains it best, for me, and i didn't want to plagiarize him.
| 2 |
researchok Sat, May 7, 2011 1:17:36pm |
re: #1 Cankles McCellulite
Why is this still popular among Libertarians?
He explains it best, for me, and i didn't want to plagiarize him.
But can anyone argue the payout numbers?
Notwithstanding Chile's less than admirable past, the SS program does seem to work.
| 3 |
(I Stand By What I Said Whatever It Was) Sat, May 7, 2011 1:18:27pm |
Hermann Cain hailed this during the presidential debate. Said he wanted the kind of leadership in the White House to get this thing passed. The audience didn't seem to understand that Cain had just endorsed Pinochet.
| 4 |
Romantic Heretic Sat, May 7, 2011 3:23:44pm |
An my favorite author notes, "Capitalism was reasonably content under Hitler, happy under Mussolini, very happy under Franco and delirious under General Pinochet."
Seriously, was the hideous misery of Pinochet's reign worth a 'working' SS system?
| 5 |
BishopX Sun, May 8, 2011 3:31:28pm |
re: #2 researchok
The payout numbers are a deceptive. Any social security net's usefulness should be measured by it's ability to provide for the poorest members of society.
Under the Chilean system, prior to the reforms in 2008 you were only guaranteed a minimum pension if you had contributed for twenty years as an employee. Of the 60% of the population who contribute for the private pension program, either qualify for the minimum benefits floor or receive what the Chilean system calls sufficient benefits. So roughly 25% of the population gets good benefits from the private plan. That's not very good odds for a social security program.
In 2008 they passed a reform bill that provides a guaranteed income for anyone who has lived in Chile for 20 years and does not have a means tested private pension. So at the end of the day you have the government paying for the people who couldn't afford to contribute to a pension, the people's whose private plans went bankrupt (the government backs the private pension plans) and the people whose investments have failed (and who qualify for minimum benefits). Because the government doesn't have access to the funds from workers who are currently contributing to their plans (they go to the private plans instead of a government fund), the government funds often fall short, leaving people receiving only a fraction of their government benefits.
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