Chile: Left wing and right, together

Chile is in the news this week due to that disastrous earthquake, and North Americans are realizing how little we know about that country. That's a shame, because Chile today offers us a useful lesson in peaceful coexistence between laissez--faire capitalism and nanny-state socialism.

This congruence has been helpful to its earthquake recovery. It also has given Chile a health care system that works much better than ours, at a time when Americans seem unable to get our health care act together.

Chile's death toll was low compared to the magnitude of its recent quake, thanks to strict government building laws that have been imposed by Chile's right-wing dictators and by its Socialist leaders alike. It's not that the two political extremes worked together. Rather, each wing, for its own reasons, implemented strong governmental control. Socialists imposed rules because they believe they know what's best for the people, while Pinochet people imposed rules because, well, that's what dictators do.

Not long ago I visited Chile when a friend was spending a year there, teaching English at a Chilean school. The visit certainly was informative. Thirty-seven years after the violent overthrow of Chile's Socialist president, Salvadore Allende, repercussions of that event continue, but a great deal has changed, too.

Nixon and the copper mines

As most Americans seem to have forgotten, Allende, a Socialist, was elected president in 1970 with only 36% of the vote in a three-man race. His administration apparently made a mess of Chile's economy— but that, of course, was no excuse for armed rebellion. Among other actions, Allende nationalized Chile's copper mines, most of which were owned by U.S. companies. Therefore he encountered opposition from commercial interests in his country and the U.S.

The 1973 military coup that deposed him was supported by President Nixon and the American CIA. Allende was reported as having shot himself, but it's widely believed that he was executed. General Augusto Pinochet then began a dictatorship that lasted from 1973 to 1990.

Chile has been governed for the last ten years by democratically elected Socialists who are friendly to the U.S. The current president, Michelle Bachelet— Chile's first female president— is a physician who extended medical and dental coverage in Chile's public health system.

Chile's social welfare programs co-exist within a generally privatized economy. The government runs one large bank and one large copper company. They are Chile's version of a "public option." When President Bachelet's second term expires on March 11, her successor will be Sebastián PiÓ±era, a billionaire economist and investor. He's no Socialist, but he has no plan to dismantle Chile's present system, either.

Airport shakedown

Yet some of the old anti-American resentments remain. When my family landed at the capital city of Santiago, officers demanded that we pay $131 cash for each of us. They called it a "reciprocity" fee and told us, frankly, that it's levied because the U.S. requires Chileans buy a visa to travel here. That American tax was imposed by the Nixon administration during the Allende years.

Chileans, I discovered during my visit, have a predilection towards conservative values and obedience to authority. For three centuries, much of Chile's governing class came from Spain, home of autocratic kings and clerics and, later, Generalissimo Franco.

What most people in North America don't realize is that Germans also comprise a substantial Chile's population. Between 1850 and 1900 Chile invited families from Germany to immigrate, offering free land, so the country was infused with immigrants who had been indoctrinated in the values of Otto Bismarck, organizer of the German Empire. Thus German cultural clubs and restaurants, not to mention Viennese waltzes, are almost as ubiquitous as Latin music. On the slopes of the Andes Mountains I saw chalets that resemble what we associate with the German and Austrian Alps. Citizens are conservative and pride themselves on their self-reliance.

Clinging to German culture

On a flight from Santiago to the southern city of Osorno, I sat next to a middle-aged woman named Regina, whose family has lived in Chile since the 1870s. She described herself as German, not as "German-Chilean." Regina lamented that her daughter has turned away from the family's heritage and doesn't read or speak German.

Mind you, this is 140 years since the family arrived. Four generations, and only now is it abandoning the mother tongue! Compare that to the experience of Italian Americans and Jewish Americans who arrived later. How many of them still speak Italian or Yiddish?

Chile's motto is "Liberty Within Order," and in Osorno I saw banners proclaiming that city's credo: "Constancy and Discipline."

The Spanish and German heritage helps explain Chile's emphasis on law and order, and also its acceptance of dictatorial administrations like Pinochet's. A positive result of Chileans' obedience to authority is the cleanliness of city streets and sidewalks.

Bismarck the paternalist

If you are puzzled why a conservative populace would embrace socialized medicine, think back to Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. For all his right-wing credentials, Bismarck made Germany the world's first nation with national health insurance, social security, disability insurance and (later) unemployment compensation.

Bismarck, if he were here today, would no doubt offer Obama some good advice about health care reform. "Go ahead and call it Socialism if you like," Bismarck told his critics in the 1880s. "I don't care."

My family experienced Chile's health care system directly. Our son got a prompt and free office visit from a doctor, and his drug prescription was filled at minimal cost.

(I had an even more dramatic and personal experience in Peru, where the heath care system is similar. Dizzy and feverish from altitude sickness, I asked the clerk at my hotel about the availability of medical help. Ten minutes later, two doctors from the local hospital came to my room. They diagnosed me, gave me an injection and I fell asleep. Four hours later, both doctors returned to check on my condition. My fever had subsided and I felt refreshed. They handed me a bottle of liquid medicine and then, apologetically, said they were sorry but they had to charge me the equivalent of $15 for their services and the drugs.)

My last day in Chile I lay on the beach at ViÓ±a del Mar, sunning myself in summer heat while people back home in Philadelphia shivered. This is my most pleasant memory of Chile and it's what I'm trying to keep in mind now as I watch scenes of destruction on TV.♦


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