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CHILE: A LESSON IN NEO-LIBERALISM
By Ardis Harriman
(This article is from the March 16-31/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
CHILLAN IS A small town in the south of Chile, about a 6-hour train ride from the capital city of Santiago. It's an agricultural town of about 150,000, attracting people from the surrounding countryside who come to go to the market or do business.
Chillan is also quite a modern city. Recently a new mini Eaton Centre-style mall opened, complete with food court and cinemas where many Chillanejos now gather to drink coffee or meet their friends.
It's August 1999, in the midst of a Presidential election campaign. The weather is rainy and cold, and the news reports tell us that the streets of Santiago are flooded. The people of Chillan breathe a sigh of relief that they don't have flooding, but they are hoping for some good news about an economic upturn.
So far it hasn't happened. Chile is in a recession, and construction has virtually stopped in Chillan. Many people are out of work. On the nightly news, a reporter interviews a woman caught in the floods in Santiago: "It's never going to change," she says, "It's the same way every year, and the government never does anything about it!"
The Presidential campaign is about "change." The right wing Alliance for Chile candidate Joaquin Lavin's slogan is "Viva el Cambio" (Long live change). The slogan of Ricardo Lagos, candidate of the centre Concertacion government, is "Crecer con iqualdad" (To grow with equality).
The candidate for the Left, Gladys Marin, doesn't use "change" in her propaganda, but her campaign is about real, revolutionary change. Her campaign office has published a document which outlines her platform. Her campaign workers and supporters are asking for input from the community at large to improve on the program, to expand it and make it more inclusive.
On December 12, the country goes to the polls. None of the candidates gets a majority to form a government. Lavin receives 48%, Lagos 49% and Marin a devastating 3.9% of the vote. The Green Party's Sara Larrain and the Humanist Party's Tomas Hirsch get less than 1% between them. Now there must be a run-off election between the top two candidates for the next President of Chile.
The left and progressive forces are gripped by indecision. Should they vote for Lagos, the "el mal menor" (the lesser of two evils)? Lagos is a member of the Socialist Party, but supports the current neoliberal economic model. Voting for him will mean a continuation of the policies of the Concertacion government.
Many people are gripped by panic that Lavin may win. His campaign was an extraordinary success, selling Lavin to the voters with his youthful appearance, his beautiful wife and his permanent smile.
Shades of the dictatorship fall over Chile. Although the old man is still virtually a prisoner in London, news of his health is reported daily, and the government continues negotiating for his release, so that he can be tried in Chile. Everyone knows this is a farce and that he will never be tried.
Gladys Marin's campaign office holds a country-wide conference, and a slim majority of her supporters vote to spoil the ballot in the run-off election. The debate is hot, and some well-known Communist Party personalities side with the group who want to vote for Lagos to stop Lavin. Jorge Pavez, a Party member and head of the Teachers' Union, goes public before the convention is underway and tells his members to vote for Lagos. His move is a hot topic for people both inside and outside the campaign office.
On January 16, Ricardo Lagos Escobar is elected President with a narrow victory of 51%. Although defeated, Joaquin Lavin Infante's 48% surpasses with flying colours the historic 33% the right normally receives in Presidential elections.
Chile now has a Socialist President, but one who represents continuance, not change. His government will be an alliance of centre parties which espouse the same neoliberal policies as its predecessor.
The neoliberal model now clearly shows its devastating effects. Chile is economically stagnant and unemployment is officially at 12% (closer to 16% if you remove people who sell pencils on the street from the government employment rolls). Public education has deteriorated so badly that even those who can't afford it send their kids to private schools. The health system is almost dead; no one who wants to survive would dream of going to a public hospital. For the poor, of course, there is no other option. The middle class is rapidly sliding into poverty, keeping their heads above water by living off their credit cards. Most Chileans are deeply in debt, and some go to jail for passing bad cheques.
The ugly face of neoliberalism is everywhere. Megastores and malls a la Yankee-style are springing up beside the ugly poblaciones, many of which have been taken over by drug dealers and gang warfare. Kids are held up in the street daily, their watches or school bags stolen, sometimes for fun, sometimes out of necessity. Everyday someone comes to the door asking for food or money. It's not safe to go out after 11 pm, and everyone lives behind barred windows and doors with double or triple locks. But the Concertacion government has vastly helped those who work in the money market, and 10% of the copper profits still go to the military.
Despite all the talk, nothing will change in the near future. The only candidates who argued for real change, the Left under Marin, the Humanist Party and the Greens, failed to get even 5% of the vote. Marin and Hirsch both demanded that the fascist Constitution be replaced, to eliminate the unfair advantage held by the capitalist parties and the practice of appointing senators imposed by Pinochet. Marin called for revamping the health and education systems to give all Chileans equal access. She addressed the issue of human rights, demanding that those responsible for the torture, disappearance and murder of citizens during the dictatorship be brought to justice. Her campaign was based on a vision of a society which embraces fairness, equality, and justice for aboriginal people.
Why didn't the voters respond to such simple, human demands? Some analysts say it was out of fear. Many people still vividly remember the dark days of the military dictatorship, and most families have members or friends who were in some way touched by its evil hand.
Another reason is pure and simple economic power. Both Lagos and Lavin ran multimillion dollar campaigns, although the smaller parties did have equal time in TV advertising. Lavin supporters were paid to come out in force, and he even paid off debts of some people who had had their phones cut off.
First tried out in Chile, the neoliberal economic model is now deeply rooted here. The social, economic and political fabric has been drastically altered, and many traditional Chilean businesses are suffering from the invasion of North American chains. There is a sense that people have turned away from political concerns, more worried about hanging on to what they have rather than risking a struggle for real change. Shopping, soccer and watching Chilean tennis star Marcelo "el Chino" Rios are now the favourite occupations.
Deeply concerned about the direction Chile is going, the Left forces are planning a nationwide conference in the next few months to analyze the elections and to develop strategies as to where they should go from here.
(Ardis Harriman lived in Chillan for five months, teaching English at the Universidad de Concepcion.)
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