Thursday, July 19, 2012

Hayek e Pinochet (again)

Preventing the “Abuses” of Democracy: Hayek, the “Military Usurper” and Transitional Dictatorship in Chile? [pdf], por Andrew Farrant, Edward McPhail, e Sebastian Berger (American Journal of Economics and Sociology):

ABSTRACT. Hayek famously claimed that he would prefer a “liberal” dictator to “democratic government lacking in liberalism.” While Hayek’s views of the Pinochet regime have generated much controversy, surprisingly little has been written about Hayek’s defense of transitional dictatorship. Making use of previously un-translated foreign language archival material, this paper helps shed light on Hayek’s views of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, transitional dictatorship, and the Pinochet regime as well as helping to separate Hayekian ‘fact’ from Hayekian ‘fiction’.

The Mad Dream of a Libertarian Dictatorship, por Jesse Walker (Reason):
[A] state that tortured its opponents, censored the press, and imprisoned and murdered people for their political views. Hayek may have "prefer[red] to sacrifice democracy" if the alternative was "to do without liberty," but Pinochet restricted liberty in intolerable ways. The general wasn't even consistent in his commitment to economic freedom: He helped bring on a recession by fixing the peso's exchange rates; his regime's record is littered with bailouts, corruption, and other forms of crony capitalism; and he regulated labor tightly. (Pinochet initially banned unions altogether, and after they were legalized he still outlawed sympathy strikes, prohibited voluntary closed-shop contracts, and restricted what issues could be covered when unions negotiated with employers. And then there was his tendency to lock up labor leaders.) Hayek didn't defend those incursions on freedom, but there's no sign he expressed any concern about them either.

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