What is 'Neo-Liberalism'

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Jun 22 15:06:43 PDT 2001


Yoshie Furuhashi quoted:


>=================================================
>TABLE 1
>CHILE - GDP GROWTH FROM 1941
>
>PERIOD TOTAL GROWTH IN PERIOD (16 YEARS)
>
>1941 - 1956 74.14%
>1957 - 1972 74.57%
>1974 - 1989 61.35%
>
>SOURCE: ECLA, IMF, World Bank, several years and table A in the
>statistical appendix
>==================================================

You can play lots of games with this sort of thing - and you get a different picture after 1989 (i.e., when Pinochet stimulated growth as part of his plebescite campaign and after his departure).

====================================================== CHILE - CUMULATIVE GROWTH IN GNP PER CAPITA PER PERIOD (1995 US$ basis)

1960-75 -3.9% 1970-85 -10.7% 1973-88 +11.0% 1973-90 +26.3% 1984-99 +128.5%

computed from World Bank, World Development Indicators ======================================================

Chilean GDP per capita peaked at $2,784 in 1971, fell through the Allende and early Pinochet years, rose a bit, then fell again, bottoming out at $2,162 in 1983, and then rose strongly from then onwards, to $5,159 in 1999.

If you compute the per capita GNP figures as a percent of U.S. levels, you get yet another picture (one not terribly flattering to the recent growth spurt, either, since it's just getting back to 1960 levels):

1960 16.3% 1970 15.3% 1972 14.9% 1973 13.2% 1983 10.1% 1990 12.1% 1999 16.8%

Doug



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