Milton Friedman - Pinochet And Chile

“I was not an adviser to Pinochet. I was not an adviser to the Chilean government, but I am more than willing to share in the credit for the extraordinary job that our students did down there.” Professor Milton Friedman clears up controversy about his relation with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Source: LibertyPen YouTube channel.

Transcript

Trebach: This question says you supported Pinochet or advised Pinochet.

Friedman: I never advised Pinochet. I never supported Pinochet.

Trebach: We'll throw that one away.

Friedman: But hold on. No, I don't want to evade the question.

Trebach: All right.

Friedman: 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 in the Department of Economics, who came to be called the Chicago Boys, played a major role in designing and implementing the economic reforms. The real miracle in Chile was not that those economic reforms worked so well, because that's what Adam Smith said they would do. 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. As I said to begin with, the principle of the military is from the top down. The principle of a market is from the bottom up. It's a real miracle that a military group was willing to let a bottom-up approach take over. I did make a trip to Chile and I gave talks in Chile. 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. But I will say that that process led to a situation in which you were able to get an election which ended the military junta. You now have a democratic government in Chile. There is as yet no similar example from the world of entirely socialist states.

So, I was not an adviser to Pinochet. I was not an adviser to the Chilean government, but I am more than willing to share in the credit for the extraordinary job that our students did down there.