The Allende government displaced market allocation to remedy material inequalities

Evidence

Allende’s first speech as president, in November 1970, exemplified the ‘romanticism’ Harberger believed blighted Chile’s economy. Allende urged his fellow Chileans to rebuild their country ‘according to our dreams’ – to rebuild a country in which ‘all children begin life equally, with equal medical care, education and nutrition’. His government sought to ameliorate existing inequalities in wealth and power by displacing the market as the key allocator of basic commodities. It significantly expanded spending on health, education and housing, distributed free powdered milk to young children, heavily subsidised public transport, mandated pay rises, introduced price controls, and established popular resorts (balnearios populares) devoted to socialised leisure. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 317

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The balnearios populares and the whole redistributive program are concrete counterexamples to the market-imaging that underpin ‘Grafting & Growth’ or the sacrifice essay’s claims about stratified provision; more naturally, this connects to the reader’s austerity/neoliberalism debate as the pre-coup baseline that Chicago-school reforms erased.
• XREF: connects to: Allende’s excess-profits deduction inverted the US compensation rule for expropriation — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 318; Subordinating politics to markets failed to produce either freedom or equality — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 457; Chilean business associations organized economic sabotage to overthrow Allende — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1560 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal intellectuals helped overthrow Allende before codifying any new-liberalism doctrine. #responds-to (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1545
• Chile’s inflation under Allende stemmed from political commitment to the poor, not economic ignorance #complicates (0.78) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 340
• Chilean business associations organized economic sabotage to overthrow Allende #responds-to (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1560
• US regional hegemony drove Washington to sabotage Allende’s Chilean government #responds-to (0.75) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 321
• Pinochet’s junta reversed Allende’s nationalizations within its first weeks #responds-to (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1570
• Subordinating politics to markets failed to produce either freedom or equality #corroborates (0.70) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 457