Territory in southwest South America, ruled since 1980 by the República de Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile (Spanish: República de Chile), is a country in western South American. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean. Chile had a population of 17.5 million as of the latest census in 2017 and has a territorial area of 756,102 square kilometers, sharing borders with Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east and the Drake Passage to the south. The country also controls several Pacific islands, including Juan Fernández, Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas and Easter Island, and claims about 1,250,000 square kilometers of Antarctica as the Chilean Antarctic Territory. The capital and largest city of Chile is Santiago and the national language is Spanish.
Geographical type: Territory
Latitude: 30° S — Longitude: 71° W
Area: 756,096 km²
ISO 3166-2 code: CL
Home To
Libertad y Desarrollo, Las Condes
Measures of Freedom
Chile: Freedom in the World 2024 Country Report, Freedom in the World 2024
2024: Status: Free, Aggregate Score: 94/100, Political Rights: 38/40, Civil Liberties: 56/60
2024: Status: Free, Aggregate Score: 94/100, Political Rights: 38/40, Civil Liberties: 56/60
Chile is a stable democracy that has experienced a significant expansion of political rights and civil liberties since the return of civilian rule in 1990. Ongoing concerns include corruption and unrest linked to land disputes with Indigenous Mapuche people.
Economic Freedom Summary Index, Economic Freedom of the World, 19 Sep 2023
2021: 7.66, Rank: 30
2021: 7.66, Rank: 30
Human Freedom Index [PDF], The Human Freedom Index 2023: A Global Measurement of Personal, Civil, and Economic Freedom
2021: 8.16, Rank: 26, Personal freedom: 8.52, Economic freedom: 7.66
2021: 8.16, Rank: 26, Personal freedom: 8.52, Economic freedom: 7.66
Articles
Capitalism and Statism in Latin America, by Manuel Ayau, 4 Oct 1997
Speech given to The Philadelphia Society, San Antonio, Texas regional meeting
Speech given to The Philadelphia Society, San Antonio, Texas regional meeting
[A]ll of that assistance ... contributed to the postponement of the corrections ... now taking place, following the successful example that Chile began in the middle seventies without AID, World Bank etc. Please note that Chile did it while it was considered a pariah by the community of developed nations who did their best to sabotage their successful efforts. Incidentally, this tells us a lot about how unimportant are the effects of displeasing the community of nations, for, in spite of their hostility, Chile stuck to its free market policies and became an example to the rest of the world.
The Drug War as a Socialist Enterprise, by Milton Friedman, Friedman & Szasz on Liberty and Drugs, 16 Nov 1991
Chapter adapted from keynote address at Fifth International Conference on Drug Policy Reform; examines why, 20 years after his admonition against the drug war, the government continues its attempts at enforcement, in spite of the predicted results
Chapter adapted from keynote address at Fifth International Conference on Drug Policy Reform; examines why, 20 years after his admonition against the drug war, the government continues its attempts at enforcement, in spite of the predicted results
Chile was a case in which a military regime, headed by Pinochet, was willing to switch the organization of the economy from a top-down to a bottom-up mode. In that process, a group of people who had been trained at the University of Chicago ... played a major role in designing and implementing the economic reforms ... Chile is by all odds the best economic success story in Latin America today. The real miracle is that a military junta was willing to let them do it ... In fact, I did meet with Mr. Pinochet, but I never was an adviser to him, and I never got a penny from the Chilean government.
Related Topics: War on Drugs, Compulsory Education, Free Market, Government, Health Care, Richard Nixon, No Free Lunch, Ronald Reagan, Socialism, United States
How We Privatized Social Security in Chile, by José Piñera, The Freeman, Jul 1997
Explains how the Chilean private pension system works and how the previous government-controlled system was transformed into the current one (the author was the Secretary of Labor and Social Security under Pinochet and designed the new system)
Explains how the Chilean private pension system works and how the previous government-controlled system was transformed into the current one (the author was the Secretary of Labor and Social Security under Pinochet and designed the new system)
Going to pension savings accounts helped boost the economy, because it has raised the saving rate ... and people's contributions became available for private capital markets. Since pension savings accounts got started, they have generated capital equivalent to 40 percent of Chilean GNP. During the past dozen years, annual growth has been about 7 percent, double our historic growth rate. Faster economic growth made it easier to handle the transition gap ... Chile has eliminated the payroll tax, which, by making it more expensive for employers to create jobs, put a damper on employment.
Improve the CIA? Better to abolish it, by Chalmers Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 Feb 2004
Lists some of the countries where the CIA conducted subversive operations and recommends abolishing the agency
Lists some of the countries where the CIA conducted subversive operations and recommends abolishing the agency
Since the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953, the CIA has engaged in similar disguised assaults on the governments of Guatemala (1954); the Congo (1960); Cuba (1961); Brazil (1964); Indonesia (1965); Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (1961-73); Greece (1967); Chile (1973); Afghanistan (1979 to the present); El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua (1980s); and Iraq (1991 to the present)—to name only the most obvious cases. [emphasis added]
Related Topics: Afghanistan, Attacks of 11 September 2001, Brazil, Cambodia, Cuba, El Salvador, Foreign entanglements, Greece, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Nicaragua, United States, Vietnam
The Power of Propaganda, by Paul Craig Roberts, 27 Dec 2006
Discusses the history of Chile from 1970 to 1990, covering Salvador Allende's election and the military coup d'état that resulted in the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, comparing the latter's actions to George W. Bush "war on terror"
Discusses the history of Chile from 1970 to 1990, covering Salvador Allende's election and the military coup d'état that resulted in the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, comparing the latter's actions to George W. Bush "war on terror"
Pinochet was confronted with an indigenous terrorist movement. Chilean terrorists engaged in assassinations and bombings of public infrastructure ... The left hates Pinochet for overthrowing Allende and for turning Chile's economy over to economists ... who privatized Chile's social security system and put in place the institutional basis for Chile's successful market economy ... In truth, Allende overthrew himself. He disregarded the constitution, permitted private property to be seized by communist organizations, ... and disorganized the economy to the extent that there were food shortages.
Related Topic: Terrorism
The Secret State, by Carl Oglesby, 19 Dec 1991
Details various events from the dismantling of the Office of Strategic Services after World War II to the 1991 death of Danny Casolaro, which Oglesby said are reason to be worried about "a secret and invisible state within the public state"
Details various events from the dismantling of the Office of Strategic Services after World War II to the 1991 death of Danny Casolaro, which Oglesby said are reason to be worried about "a secret and invisible state within the public state"
1973: Allende Murdered
Frustrated in its 1970 efforts to control the Chilean election, the CIA resorted to murder once again in the elimination of Salvador Allende. Allende government official Orlando Letelier along with an American supporter, Ronnie Moffit, were also killed, not far away in Chile, but in Dupont Circle in our nation's capital.
Frustrated in its 1970 efforts to control the Chilean election, the CIA resorted to murder once again in the elimination of Salvador Allende. Allende government official Orlando Letelier along with an American supporter, Ronnie Moffit, were also killed, not far away in Chile, but in Dupont Circle in our nation's capital.
Trump’s Support and Praise of Despots Is Central to the U.S. Tradition, Not a Deviation From It, by Glenn Greenwald, 2 May 2017
Discusses recent criticism of Donald Trump that claims that his foreign policy towards known dictators and tyrants constitutes a major shift, when in fact that has been standard U.S. policy since at least the end of World War II
Discusses recent criticism of Donald Trump that claims that his foreign policy towards known dictators and tyrants constitutes a major shift, when in fact that has been standard U.S. policy since at least the end of World War II
Upon the 2006 death of Augusto Pinochet—the military dictator imposed on Chile by the U.S. after it overthrew that country's democratically elected left-wing president—the Washington Post editorial page heaped praise on both Kirkpatrick and Pinochet. While conceding that the Chilean tyrant was "brutal: more than 3,000 people were killed by his government and tens of thousands tortured," the Post hailed "the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle," concluding that like Pinochet, "Kirkpatrick, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right."
Related Topics: Jimmy Carter, Democracy, Egypt, Honduras, Barack Obama, Saudi Arabia, United States, Venezuela
U.S. Regime Change, Torture, and Murder in Chile, by Jacob G. Hornberger, 24 Nov 2004
Discusses the unwelcome reception given to George W. Bush on a visit to Chile and various reasons for Chilean animosity towards the U.S. government, contrasting it with general opinion about these matters in the U.S. and the lack of action by Congress
Discusses the unwelcome reception given to George W. Bush on a visit to Chile and various reasons for Chilean animosity towards the U.S. government, contrasting it with general opinion about these matters in the U.S. and the lack of action by Congress
Chileans still remember that in the 1973 "regime change" in their country, the U.S. government played an active role in ousting their democratically elected president because he was a communist and replacing him with a brutal military dictator, Augustin Pinochet, who ended up ruling Chile for almost two decades ... Chileans remember the decades of military rule ..., characterized by middle-of-the-night arrests, obliterations of civil liberties, torture, executions, disappearances of suspected terrorists, and other human-rights abuses that eerily bring to mind the U.S. military's ... policies ...
The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "Chile" as of 29 May 2024, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.