Comment by dysoco
6 days ago
Except the most pervasive and deadliest terrorist groups in the history of South America have been the government, in the form of right-wing military dictatorships, often preaching about free market and being backed by the USA. People just forget to refer to them as such.
Necessary read (operation condor):https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
Argentina's military rulers were not free marketeers. Far from it. They were brutal though.
Is there anyone who both understands what the term free market term entails and still argues for it? Somehow no proponent of free markets has managed both success and influence
How is your reply relevant to my comment? I said the Argentine military rulers were far from free marketeers, and indeed, so they were. Their ideas in economics were very much of the protectionist / populist sort, and not just as to international trade, but in every way. It's almost as though the only difference between them and Perón et. al. was really about who shall govern, not what shall they do, except perhaps that the military rulers were a bit more subtle in their populism in that they were explicitly against cults of personality. Oh, and let's not forget that Perón was a military ruler... Basically it was a turf war -- a brutal one, yes, but let's not pretend that any of them were free marketeers doing what laissez faire American gringo yankee capitalists wanted. They did take training help from the U.S. at various times (don't forget that Argentina had several distinct post-war periods of military rule), and Pinochet in Chile in particular had the support of Nixon and Kissinger and the U.S. government, but the Argentine junta of 1976-1983 did not have Carter's support.
Only teenagers think they know what it is and that it is the solution to all problems
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