Capitalism 10

The violation of human rights, the system of institutionalised brutality, the drastic control and suppression of every form of meaningful dissent is discussed (and often condemned) as a phenomenon only indirectly linked, or indeed entirely unrelated, to the classical unrestrained “free market” policies that have been enforced by the military junta, (…) this particularly convenient concept of a social system, in which “economic freedom” and political terror coexist without touching each other, allows these financial spokesmen to support their concept of “freedom” while exercising their verbal muscles in defence of human rights.

Naomi Klein (2007: 99)

Orlando Letelier (1932-1976) was Chile's ambassador to the US under President Salvador Allende. He was assassinated by a car bomb ordered by General Pinochet in 1976.

In the 1970s, many socialist governments in Latin America (e.g. Chile), Asia (e.g. Indonesia) and Africa (e.g. Congo) were overthrown with the support of Western secret services and replaced by dictatorships. In this way, it was made perfectly clear that if a country dared to take an alternative third way, it would have to pay for it with state terror (cf. Klein 2010: 159, German edition). For many, the dictatorship in Chile was a laboratory for neoliberalism. For Letelier, neoliberal economist Milton Friedman was partly responsible for dictator Pinochet's crimes. Western companies benefited directly from Pinochet's military regime: Ford had internment camps for rebellious workers on its factory premises (cf. Klein 2010: 155). Claudia Acuña, a journalist who experienced the dictatorship in neighbouring Argentina, stresses how difficult it was to see that violence was only a means and not the end: the aim was to impose a new economic order. In this, they succeeded: ‘We were able to destroy the secret torture centres, but not the economic system that the military had started’ (quoted in Klein 2010: 178).

*Orlando Letelier (1976): “The Chicago Boys in Chile: Economic Freedom’s Awful Toll.” In: The Nation 223, Nr. 28, p. 137-142. *Naomi Klein (2007): The Shock Doctrine. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Toronto: Knopf Canada.

1976