Wolfensohn indictment

["Michael Keaney" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Jim D. asks of Sebastian Edwards:

Isn't Edwards an apologist for Pinochet?

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His homepage at http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/sebastian.edwards/
gives a flavour of what to expect. He's a Chicago economist, a former
World Bank Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean (93-96),
and an op-ed regular for WSJ, Time and others, writing mostly on Chile.
He supported the presidential campaign of Joaquin Lavin last year. Not
included in his list of recent publications is this title:

Edwards, Sebastian and Alejandra Cox Edwards. Monetarism and
Liberalization:
The Chilean Experiment. Cambridge: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1987.

He does, however, hint in some of his op-eds that the regrettable
excesses of the Pinochet regime should not overly distract us from the
real economic progress that was achieved. In fact, the period 1987-1997
he characterises as "magic" as regards growth.

In what I believe is from the Area Handbook of the US Library of
Congress, there is an extended discussion of Chilean history, including,
of course, the overthrow of Allende and various analyses of this.
Edwards and Edwards have contributed to this, as follows:

"During the ill-fated Popular Unity (Unidad Popular) government of its
Marxist president, Salvador Allende Gossens (1970-73), Chile experienced
uncharacteristic economic and political turbulence. As economic and
political conditions deteriorated rapidly in August 1973, the Chilean
Armed Forces and even the moderate Christian Democratic Party (Partido
Demócrata Cristiano--PDC), Chile's largest single party, began to view
the Allende government's socialist economic policies as a threat to the
constitutional order that the armed forces felt duty-bound to uphold, at
whatever cost. On September 11, 1973, the armed forces shocked the world
by attacking the lightly defended presidential palace, La Moneda, with
army troops and aerial bombardment ... In the "Historical Setting"
chapter, historian Paul W. Drake summarizes various explanations for
Allende's downfall and the coup as posited by analysts of the different
political tendencies. Drake takes a similarly egalitarian approach to
assessing blame by noting that "there was ample blame to go around," and
that "groups at all points on the political spectrum helped destroy the
democratic order by being too ideological and too intransigent." Prior
to the coup, Chilean society became polarized between Allende's
supporters and the growing opposition, particularly during the
culmination of the constitutional crisis in August 1973. In political
terms, society was dividedinto three hostile camps--the Marxist left,
the Christian Democratic center, and the conservative right. In "The
Economy" chapter, economists Sebastian Edwards and Alejandra Cox Edwards
blame the Allende government's downfall to a large extent on its
disregard of "many of the key principles of traditional economic
theory." In their analysis, Allende's UP government did this not only in
its monetary policies but also in its lack of attention to the role that
the real exchange rate plays in a country's international competition
and balance of payments."

See http://motherearthtravel.com/chile/history.htm

Whew! Just as well Pinochet and the boys intervened to restore the
sanctity of traditional economic theory. This, of course, is exactly the
sort of criticism being levelled at Wolfensohn by that selfless exponent
of scientific integrity, Larry Summers.

Michael K.