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A Vista of Catastrophe: the Future of United States-Chilean Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Fredrick B. Pike  and
Donald W. Bray
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Extract

Current United States publications accord fulsome praise to the policies recently adopted by Chile. Under President Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez the “string-bean republic” not only enjoys an administration of honesty and integrity, but is judged by many to be on the road to solving its major problems through the application of two of our most cherished principles: political democracy and free-enterprise capitalism. That Chile has chosen the patterns of the United States and is seeking economic reform within the framework of classically liberal democracy is taken as an indication that United States - Chilean relations are now characterized by firm and fundamental rapport. There is hope also that as Chilean formulas come to prevail in other Latin American republics, a new era of inter-American friendship and understanding will emerge.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , July 1960 , pp. 393 - 418
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1960

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References

1 Reported in El Mercurio, Santiago, September 20, 1931.

2 Ibid. January 8, 1932.

3 For the pre-French Revolution sort of platform that Héctor Rodríguez de la Sotta championed, see his pamphlet Crisis política, económica y moral: discurso al conventión que celebró el Partido Conservador en Santiago, 1932 (Santiago de Chile, 1932)Google Scholar. See also Silva, Bartolomé Palacios, El Partido Conservador y la Democracia Cristiana (Santiago de Chile, 1933: all works mentioned henceforth, unless specifically noted otherwise, are published in Santiago de Chile)Google Scholar. For a description of the Conservative campaign in 1932 see Bascuñán, Alejandro Silva, Una experiencia social cristiana (1949), pp. 28–33Google Scholar.

4 The Atlantic Monthly, November, 1959.

5 A striking and recent example of this was provided in the articles by the prolific Chilean author and Director of the National Library, Raúl Silva Castro, published during the month of March, 1960, in El Metcurio. Irked by a New York Times editorial that described the economic inequalities in Chile, and ignoring the massive evidence against him, Silva Castro implied that there was nothing wrong with the social structure of his country.

Although the fact is not generally recognized in the United States, Chile has a right-wing element as influential and as passionately dedicated to preserving “traditional Hispanic values” and a semi-colonial, feudalistic structure as any to be found in Latin America. This group has produced a massive volume of books justifying the existing social structure.

6 Silva, Jorge Gustavo observes: “… in whatever profession they enter, middle class elements seek to obscure their humble origins and to convert themselves, even at the risk of appearing ridiculous, into aristocrats and oligarchs.” Nuestra evolución político-social (1931), p. 100Google Scholar. The renowned Chilean novelist, Pedro Prado (Un juez rural, Alsino, etc.) is noted for his anti-middle class sentiments, arising from convictions that this class has turned on the humbler elements of Chilean society. Nearly every Chilean author, in fact, who has concerned himself with middle class-upper class relations has detected the same tendency. See Vives, Alberto Edwards and Frei, Eduardo, Historia de los partidos políticos chilenos (1949)Google Scholar. Frei, in the part which he contributed to the book, describing political development from 1891 to 1949, comments at length on the rapport between Chilean middle and upper classes. Although González, Julio Heise, in La Constitución de 1925 y las nuevas tendencias político-sociales (published first in Anates de la Universidad de Chile, No. 80, cuarto trimestre de 1950) states on p. 159Google Scholar that the developing middle class of Chile has withdrawn from the traditional aristocracy and approached the proletariat, he contradicts himself by affirming on p. 161 that the middle classes have caused their own poverty by conspicuous consumption motivated by their desire to be taken for aristocrats.

Works which suggest that the educational system of Chile has the effect of broadening the gulf between lower and middle classes by implanting archaic aristocratic values, include Gauthier, Octavio Azocar, La enseñanza industrial en relación con la economía national (1951)Google Scholar; Eliodoro Domínguez, El problema de nuestra educatión pública (1933); Vives, Alberto Edwards, La fronda aristocrática (1959, fifth edition)Google Scholar; Encina, Francisco Antonio, La educación económica y el liceo (1912)Google Scholar, and Nuestra inferioridad económica (1955, second edition); Villegas, Humberto Fuenzalida, Labarca, Amanda, Pinilla, Norberto, Linares, Francisco Walker, Marshall, Enrique L., Bourgeois, Julio Ruiz, Chile: geografía, educación, literatura, legislación, economía, minería (Buenos Aires, 1946)Google Scholar; Galdames, Luis, Educación económica e intelectual (1912)Google Scholar; von Marées, Jorge González, El mal de Chile (1940)Google Scholar; Keller, Carlos, La eterna crisis chilena (1931)Google Scholar; Labarca, Amanda, Bases para una política educacional (Buenos Aires, 1944)Google Scholar and Realidades y problemas de nuestra enseñanza (1953); Moisés Mussa B., Nuestro problema educational (1932)Google Scholar; Mariano, Navarrete C., Los problemas educacionales (1934)Google Scholar; Claudio, Salas F., Nuestro problema educational (1933)Google Scholar; Salas, Darío E., Nuestra educación y sus deficiencias (1913)Google Scholar; Vega, JulioBosquejo de una política educacional (1938)Google Scholar and La racionalization de nuestra enseñanza (1954).

7 The total failure of Chilean agricultural development to keep pace with the needs of the rising population is seen in two basic studies: the 1952 Informe prepared by a mission of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in cooperation with the FAO of the United Nations, describing the lamentable situation in Chilean agriculture and outlining a reform program which has been almost totally ignored; and the 1955 Censo Agrícola which among other points confirmed the continuing concentration of rural property. 9.7% of agrarian property holders own 86% of the arable land, while 74.6% own 5.2%. In the provinces of Santiago, Valparaíso, and Aconcagua the problem is even more acute, with 7% of the land owners possessing 92% of the land. Another significant study is the 1960 preliminary report of the Comisión de Reestructuración Social y Económica de la Agricultura stressing the need to assimilate agrarian laborers, representing 35% of the population, into a modern economic structure.

Jorge, Ahumada C., in En véz de la miseria (1958)Google Scholar, comments that a basic reason for agricultural stagnation is the fact that most landowners are absentee farmers, with more vital interests in urban capitalistic ventures than in agriculture (p. 53). Vergara, Luis Correa, in La agricultura chileana, 2 vols. (1938)Google Scholar, maintains that Chilean agricultural production has in general declined during the 1910–1938 period. Other valuable studies include: Lane, Felipe Herrera, Manual de política (1957), II, pp. 9–70Google Scholar; Mathei, Adolfo, La agricultura en Chile y la política agraria chilena (1935)Google Scholar; Pinto, Aníbal, Chile, un caso de desarrollo frustrado (1959), esp. pp. 49 ffGoogle Scholar.; Troncoso, Moisés Poblete, La economía agraria de América Latina, y el trabajador campesino (1953)Google Scholar; Huneeus, Francisco Rojas, “Chile en su aspecto agrícola,” University of Chile, Desarrollo de Chile en la primera mitad del siglo XX, vol. IGoogle Scholar; Bassis, Betty Woscobosnik, Inquilinaje en el medio rural de Puente Alto: estudio económico-social (1941)Google Scholar.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America with headquarters in Santiago, is now engaged in preparing a study to be entitled Desarrollo de la agricultura chilena. The Commission's library in Santiago contains a wealth of material on Chilean agriculture.

8 La Libertad, Santiago, 03 26, 1960Google Scholar, and Jorquera, Carlos, “Chilenos pierden su dimensión,” Ercilla, 04 6, 1960Google Scholar. One of the best studies available on undernourishment in Chile is Herrera, Lautaro Ojeda, Esquema del hambre en Chile (1959)Google Scholar, which reviews most of the important material written on the subject in the last thirty years, and points out that in 1945 only 14% of the primary school students in Chile did not show evidences of chronic undernourishment. A similarly bleak picture is presented by DrRiquelme, Alfredo, Panorama de la alimentación en Chile (1958)Google Scholar, who feels that no progress has been made in recent years.

9 Efforts of labor unions to improve the situation have been futile. The organized labor “movement” in Chile is atomized, exhausted, and ineffectively led. In 1956, 227,639 organized wage earners were members of 1,667 sindicatos. Average membership of each guild was therefore 136. In collective bargaining, these tiny groupings confront employers. There is no industry — wide or craft-wide union. Continual struggle to keep wages from falling excessively behind prices has enervated and demoralized union leadership. See Troncoso, Hernán, “Situación sindical de Chile,” Política y Espíritu, Santiago, No. 208 (15 de septiembre, 1958)Google Scholar.

10 One of the best expositions of the fact that broadly democratic practices have seldom, if ever, prevailed in Chile was written by the long-time Rector of the University of Chile, Domingo Amunátegui Solar, La democracia en Chile (1946)Google Scholar. One of the points stressed is the influence of bribery in determining the outcome of all Chilean elections. An attempt to correct this situation was made in the late days of the second Carlos Ibáñez administration (1952–1958) through introduction of a single ballot. For a description of how vote buying was accomplished see Thompson, John, “The Third Congressional District Elections of March 23,” Hispanic American Report, Vol. XI, No. 3 (03, 1958), 160–165Google Scholar. An account of the buying and selling of candidacies for congressional office which took place before the 1958 electoral reform law appears in Vea, Santiago, No. 927 (17 de enero, 1957), 9.

11 Eduardo, Cruz-Coke L., Discursos: política-economía-salubridad-habitación-relaciones exteriores-agricultura (1946), p. 7Google Scholar. A similar view was expressed in Congress by Deputy Hernán Brücher E. who, as a spokesman for the Radical Party, implied that lower classes should not attempt to advance by contending with their superiors. Rather, they should rely on the paternalistic tutelage of the middle class in achieving their “rights,” and realize that everything worthwhile which they enjoy has come to them through the largess of their social betters. See de Diputados, Cámera, Boletín de Sesiones Extraordinarias, 1955–1956, II, Sesion 15, 11 22, 1955, p. 1177Google Scholar.

12 The literature pertaining to discrimination against Indian and mestizo elements in Chile is extensive. Many of the works attack the Indians as being worthless. A greater number refer with disapproval to the overwhelming Chilean attitude of disparagement toward aboriginal elements. See: Cabero, Alberto, Chile y los chilenos (1926)Google Scholar. This popular book makes the point that Chileans are superior to Peruvians because there are few Indians and mixed-bloods in Chile. Francisco Javier Díaz Zalazar in La influencia racial en la actividad económica de los indígenos chilenos (1940, Memoria de Prueba)Google Scholar, affirms that in spite of the common Chilean prejudice, there is nothing in the racial makeup of the Indian or mixed-blood to render him incapable of diligent and efficient labor. Renato Donoso Henriquez in Consideraciones acerca del problema immigratorio (1928), argues that Chile must rely increasingly on foreign immigration as the Indian and mixed races are basically inferior. Bello, Joaquín Edwards in El nacionalismo continental, prólogo por Gabriela Mistral (1935)Google Scholar, advises Chileans to overcome their animus against those of Indian blood, and align with Raül Haya de la Torre and the APRA movement. Tomás Guevara, long an influential professor at the University of Chile, believed firmly in the inferiority of the Indians. Among Guevara's many works on the Indians of Chile are Psicología del pueblo araucano (1908), and Razai chilena (1905). Humberto Gacitüa Vergara's Estudio social y consideraciones legales del problema indígene, en Chile (1916) is an aroused defense of Indian and mixed-blood virtues. Navarro's, José InalafRol económico, social y politico del indígena en Chile (1945, Memoria de Prueba)Google Scholar presents an outspoken objection to the predominant anti-Indian and mixed-blood prejudices of Chilean upper classes. Cf. Latcham, Ricardo, Prehistoria chilena (1936)Google Scholar, and Los primitivos habitantes de Chile (1939). A colorful and passionate defender of Hispanic values, Latcham in these two works comes to the aid of the Indians, affirming that Chilean prejudices against them are unjustified. In Estudios Araucanos (1897), and Estudios sobre los Indios de Chile (1924), Rudolfo Lenz, a famed University educator, defends the Indians and expresses indignation over the anti-Indian bias of Chilean upper classes. In his prologue and notes for Wilhelm de Moesbach, Vida y costumbres de los indígenas araucanas en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, Lenz is at pains to make it clear that the vices often noted by Moesbach in his classic study are the result of poor treatment of Indians, not of inferiority of race. See Lipschutz, Alejandro, La comunidad indlgena en América y en Chile (1956)Google Scholar, and El indoamericanismo y el problema racial en las Amiéicas (1944). In both works the honorary member of the Instituto Indigenista of Chile staunchly defends the Indians against the vilification which they have suffered in Chile. Ibar, E. Maguire in Formación racial chilena y futuras proyecciones (1949, Memoria de Prueba)Google Scholar, argues that in spite of extensive contrary opinion, Chilean Indians and mixedbloods are not racially inferior elements. Enrique Marshall, L. in Los araucanos ante el derecho penal (1917, Memoria de Prueba)Google Scholar, notes that in legislation the Araucanians are regarded as inferiors and that this attitude has retarded the assimilation process. In de Valdivia's, VictorLa europeanización de sudamérica (1923), and El imperio iberoamericano (Paris, 1929)Google Scholar, a one-time University of Chile professor writing under a pseudonym argues that increasing Europeanization of Latin America is the only hope, as Indians are a degenerate race and their blood corrupts those who share it.

The writers are convinced that disparagement of Indians and mixed-bloods in Chile represents one of the main obstacles to political union between middle and lower class sectors. Considering themselves white, the middle classes regard with disdain the lower classes, characterized in general by darkness of skin and other Indian features.

13 These figures are based on the Repüblica de Chile, Servicio Nacional de Estadistica y Censos, XII Censo general de población y I de vivienda, levantado el 24 de abril de 1952 (1955), I, p. 159. The census revealed an over-all illiteracy rate of 25%. Moreover, it must be remembered that thousands of students who have had two or three years of primary education and are therefore considered literate, have long since forgotten how to read and write. The 1952 census showed also that of the approximately 1,100,000 children between ages seven and fourteen, only 718,394 attended school, leaving 321,789 who were receiving no education at all. See also El Mercurio, December 20, 1959, and Ahumada, Jorge, En vez de la miseria, pp. 28–29Google Scholar, who estimates that only 13% of the population above six years of age receives secondary instruction in Chile.

14 Repüblicade Chile, Servicio Nacional de Estadistica y Censos, op. cit.

15 The following works are valuable in gaining an understanding of the housing problem in Chile: Caja de Habitación, El problema de la habitación en Chile (1945) and Memoria de 1950 (1952). Hugo Galdames Avendafño, El problema de la vivienda popular en Chile y Argentina (1949). Instituto de Economía de la Universidad de Chile, Un aspecto de la situación habitacional de Chile en 1952 (1958). See also Repüblica de Chile, Servicio Nacional de Estadistica y Censos, Primer censo nacional de vivienda (1955). This valuable source estimates that 30% of the Chilean population is housed in units which do not meet minimum sanitary standards. Raúl Sáez S., Casas para Chile: Plan Frei (1959), containing the Eduardo Frei plan on housing in Chile, and copious explanatory notes. The book estimates that between 1953 and 1959 the need for housing units has risen from 400,000 to 500,000. With its valuable bibliography, this is one of the richest sources on the current housing situation in Chile. Antigoni Stogianis, Ingreso familiares y gasto en vivienda para el área urbana de Chile (1957), maintains that in Chile rentals take one of the highest percentages of income of any country in the world. One result of this is the prevalence of slum areas, which simply grow spontaneously without planning, authorization, or control.

18 See in particular Gundian, Daniel Camus, Alcoholismo: problema médicosocial (1951)Google Scholar, probably the finest study in Chile published on the subject. See also: Martín, Marmado Maldonado San, La ley de alcoholes y los problemas del alcoholismo (1949)Google Scholar; Moraga, Luis Arturo, Riqueza nacional: alcoholismo y prostitución (1937)Google Scholar; Enrique Rosenblatt, B., El problema de alcoholismo (1958)Google Scholar.

17 The book by medical doctor Allende, Salvador, Realidad médico-social chilena (1939)Google Scholar is interesting and often reliable. Allende, a leading Socialist and twice candidate for the Chilean presidency, missed his goal in 1958 by less than 35,000 votes. See also: Ferrari, Juan Crocco, Ensayos sobre la población chilena (1947, Memoria de Prueba)Google Scholar. Based upon massive documentation, this is one of the finest Memorias ever written in Chile. It deals reliably with the medical as well as most other aspects of the social problem in Chile. Also valuable is the work by Crocco, and B., Flavián Levine, La població;n chilena (1945)Google Scholar. One should also consult: Eduardo Cruz-Coke, L., Medicina preventiva y medicina dirigida (1938)Google Scholar. Senator Cruz-Coke was mainly responsible for the enactment of Chilean public health legislation.

18 Books cited in note 17 contain information on infant mortality.

19 The fact that the middle class of Chile is growing in proportion above the general population rise (see Panorama Económica, Santiago, No. 208, diciembre de 1959, 405Google Scholar) is often taken as an indication of social mobility, the assumption being that lower classes are moving up to middle class positions. This appearance of social mobility may be deceptive. On the basis of figures obtained from Dirección de Estadistica, X Censo de la población efectuado el 27 de noviembre de 1930 (1935), III, v–viiiGoogle Scholar the authors have computed that foreigners, although representing only 2.46% of the Chilean population, actually made up close to 17% of the urban middle class. The proportional increase in the Chilean middle class has probably been caused by immigration from abroad more than by internal shifts in the social structure. That immigrants generally from the very outset enter the Chilean middle class has probably tended to increase the gulf between lower and middle classes. The recently arrived middle class immigrant could logically be expected to gravitate toward upper class values and traditions as a means of safeguarding status in a new society.

20 Two examples of books of this sort are: Hernández, A. Acevedo, La raza fuerte (1922)Google Scholar, a novel on the Chilean rotos, and Roberto Hernández, C., El roto chileno: bosquejo histórico de actualidad (Valparaíso, 1929)Google Scholar, written by a native of Buenos Aires who somehow assimilated all of the consciencesalving attitudes with which Chileans regard their rotos.

21 Even as early as 1887, before the golden era of nitrate wealth, Chile enjoyed the highest per capita income in Latin America, and with a population representing 5.4% of the Latin American total, controlled 13% of the area's trade. See Pinto, Anibal, Chile, un caso de desarrollo frustrado, pp. 44–47, 75Google Scholar.

22 In the period between 1930 and 1952, the illiteracy rate in Chile remained nearly constant, at approximately 25%. For sources on 1952 figures, see note 13. For 1930 figures see Dirección de Estadistica, X Censo de la población efectuado el 27 de noviembre de 1930, II, p. 309Google Scholar.

23 Between 1930 and 1949 those employed in public administration and in rendering personal services increased 109.5% and 128.9% respectively, while the number of those working in industry and construction grew 77.4%. See Comisión Económica para América Latina de las Naciones Unidas, Antecedentes sobre el desarrollo de la economia chilena, 1925–1952 (1954), I, pp. 125–127Google Scholar. This study points out that personnel employed in government agencies and in services has increased far more rapidly than is justified by the country's economic expansion.

24 Enrique Piedrabuena Richard, who has made the most exhaustive studies available of the Chilean tax structure, estimates that over 30% of total percapita income is paid to the government in taxes. See his Compendio de legislación tributaria chilena (1945), and Manual de derecho financiero (1950). The British economist, Nicholas Kaldor, on the basis of Corporación de Fomento and ECLA figures, wrote but did not publish during his stay in Chile Economic Problems of Chile. A mimeographed copy is in the ECLA library in Santiago, and the work was substantially reproduced in Trimestre Económico, Vol. XXVI, (2) (Mexico, abril-junio, 1959)Google Scholar. It is Kaldor's estimate that Chile's upper economic classes pay 14.7% of their income in taxes, while spending an inordinately large 64.3% on consumer goods. The Austrian economist Hudeczek, Carl, Economia chilena: rumbos y metas (1956), p. 157Google Scholar, basing his figures on the 1953 Informe of the International Monetary Fund, states that government revenue based on direct taxes has gone down from 4.3% in 1946 to 4.0% in 1952, while fiscal incomes derived from indirect taxes has in the same period increased from 7.8% to 9.2%.

25 One of the most active reform groups in Chile, and perhaps the fastest rising political group in the country is the Christian Democratic Party. Dedicated not only to reform but to preserving the traditional values of Western liberty, the Christian Democrats exhibit a strong tendency to condemn capitalism, as practiced in the United States and elsewhere in the world. That we have failed to impress upon the Christian Democrats the evolutionary features of our capitalism represents one of our greatest failures in dealing with Chile.

Christian Democratic leader, Eduardo Frei, in the introduction to Máximo Pacheco Gómez, Politico, economia y cristianismo (1947), notes that the world is witnessing the struggle of two titanic forces, capitalism and Communism. The first, he avers, has as its sole objective personal profit and is therefore fundamentally immoral. The basic principle of capitalism, Frei adds, is the possession of the means of production by a group that becomes ever more reduced, and that achieves ever vaster and more uncontrolled power; it “proletarianizes” the masses, and is incapable of resolving the social conflict or achieving economic stability. In the text, Pacheco Gömez, who quotes Hilaire Belloc approvingly, notes on p. 184 that capitalism as practiced throughout the world today is based on the teachings of Adam Smith, Malthus, and David Ricardo; its rise was caused by the substitution of materialism for spiritualism, and by the Protestant Reformation.

Frei reveals the same attitude toward U.S. capitalism in other books: Aün es tiempo (1942); Chile desconocido (1937); Pensamiento y acción (1958); La política y el espiritu (1946); La verdad tiene su hora (1956). Jacques Chonchol and Julio Silva Solar, Hacia un mundo comunitario: condiciones de una política social cristiana (1951) affirm that private capital is the root of nearly every evil, and advocate abolition of the capitalistic life, although they are willing to tolerate private ownership of consumer goods. Another Christian Democratic intellectual as well as a political leader, Bernardo Leighton, in Los conflictos del trabajo y su significado social (1945) and other pamphlets shows an animus against capitalism. The same attitude and the same ignorance of what U.S. capitalism has evolved into is strongly evidenced by Radomiro Tomic in such works as Fundamentos cristianos para una nueva política en Chile (1945), Comunismo, capitalismo y Democracia Cristiana (1948) and in a work which he wrote with Manuel Garretón Walker, Definición de una actitud: tres discursos (1943). The Christian Democratic semimonthly, Politico, y Espiritu, founded in 1944 often evidences a similar bias.

26 Many books in praising United States capitalism damage our cause by creating the impression that our practices have not changed from the days of post Civil War rugged individualism. See Prieto, Luis Correa, Aspectos negativos de la intervención económica: fracasos de una experiencia (1955)Google Scholar, by the laissez-faire minded, short-time Minister of Economy under Carlos Ibañz, during the Klein-Saks mission (1957); and Héctor Rodríguez de la Sotta, O Rusia (1952). The author argues there can be no middle ground between the capitalism of “the good old days” and Communism.

27 An ominous example of this was provided by the December, 1959, elections for the controlling Congress of the important Chilean labor confederation, the Central Unica de Trabajadores. The Socialists lost several seats, leaving the Communists in clear control. See El Mercurio, December 13, 1959. In the March 3, 1960 municipal elections the Communist slate in Santiago received more votes than that of the Socialists. In the country as a whole the Communist vote (113,039) was only 4,204 less than that of the Socialist Party. See ibid., March 5, 1960.

28 Even the largely middle class Radical Party has since 1905 regarded itself as professing a socialist doctrine. In practice, Radical programs have stressed state-intervention policies which benefit the Party's commercial-industrial adherents and furnish jobs to its large bureaucratic sector by the proliferation of federal agencies. The Radicals have not been characterized by those socialist concepts which would raise the standard of living of the entire population by means of a systematic reordering of the social-economic structure of the country.

Chilean works dealing with a more doctrinaire leftist position include: Allende, Salvador, Realidad mddico-socio chilena (1939)Google Scholar. Dr. Allende thinks that socialism offers the only way out for the dismal health and social conditions of Chile. See also the same author's La contradicción de Chile: régimen de izquierda; política económica de derecha (1943); Ampuero, Raül, La juventud socialista en el frente del pueblo (1940)Google Scholar, is an early work by a still young Marxian Socialist, regarded as a political “comer” and a possible future presidential candidate; Carlos Contreras Labarca, one of the leading figures in Chilean Communism since the late 1920's, has written a great number of booklets and pamphlets including Alessandri, portavoz de las fuerzas reaccionarias y profascistas (1945) and La lucha del pueblo pot la reorganización de Chile (1946); Luis Corvalán in Informe del Comit‘eacute; Central al 11° Congreso del Partido Comunista de Chile (1958) provides an up-to-date report on many aspects of Communist activity by the Secretary of the Party; Estudios sobre Comunismo is a quarterly published in Santiago since 1952, anti-Communist in its approach; Jorge Fernández Pradel, S.J., La URSS (1932). The well known Jesuit argues that greater social justice in Chile is the necessary means for avoiding introduction of Russian methods; Sergio Fernández Larrain, Informa sobre el Comunismo rendido a la Convención General del Partido Conservador Unido el 12 de octubre, 1954 (1954). The leading professional anti-Communist of Chile, sometimes referred to as “The McCarthy of Melipilla,” fears that nearly every intellectual in Chile is a Communist, especially those who admire the poetry of Neruda, Pablo; René Frias Ojeda, Consideraciones sobre nuestra política comercial exterior (1934, Memoria de Prueba)Google Scholar, is an early work by a Communist who is a fast rising figure in Chilean politics; González, Julio Heise, La Constitución de 1925 y las nuevas tendencias politico-sociales (1951)Google Scholar. The well known University of Chile professor suggests that increasing socialism is inevitable and desirable; Jobet, Julio César, a leading non-Communist Marxist intellectual, wrote Ensayo critico del desarrollo económico social de Chile (1955)Google Scholar. In a prologue to it the widely admired Chilean historian Guillermo Feliú; Cruz remarks that the relatively simultaneous appearances of this book, of Heise González' work on the 1925 Constitution, and of Hernán Ramirez' volume on the 1891 civil war (see below) established a new precedent in Chilean historiography, with materialistic determinism and the class conflict being used to reinterpret the events of Chile's past. It is particularly significant that Jobet and Ramirez, both Marxists and influential educators, are two of the few historians who concern themselves with the attempt to use scientific methods of investigation. Unfortunately, the non-Marxist historians content themselves largely with the methods of the essayist and the polemicist. Other works by Jobet include Los fundamentos del Marxismo (1943), Los precursores del pensamiento social de Chile, 2 vols. (1955)Google Scholar, El socialismo en Chile (1956); Elias Lafertte, a leading Chilean Communist since 1932 when he ran for the presidency, has written many works including Vida de un comunista; páginas autobiográficas (1957), and Cómo triunfaremos en las elecciones de 1941 (1941); in Salvador P. Ocampo and Elias Lafertte, El cobre de Chile (no date), two leading Communists present the Party Line on U.S. investment in Chile; Hernán Ramirez Necochea, La guerra civil de 1891: antecedentes económicos (1950), Balmaceda y la contrarevolución de 1891 (1958), Historia del movimiento obrero en Chile, siglo XIX (1957)Google Scholar; Sanhueza, Gabriel, Santiago Arcos: communista, millonario y calavera (1956)Google Scholar. Segall, Marcelo, Desarrollo del capitalismo en Chile: cinco ensayos diaécticos (1953)Google Scholar is a vast examination of Chilean economic development especially in the nineteenth century, from an essentially Marxist point of view; Volodia Teitelboim, a leading Communist intellectual, has written the novel Hijo del salitre (1952), and El amanecer de capitalismo y la conquista de América (1943); Linares, Francisco Walker, Doctrinas sociales contemporáneas (1957)Google Scholar is a valuable survey of the present scene.

Two final points which may be significant: (a) literature in Chile on Communism or by Communists is vastly more numerous than that pertaining to capitalism; (b) leftists make much of the fact that Pablo Neruda, the leading literary figure of Chile, is a Communist.

29 See Encina, Francisco Antonio, Nuestra inferioridad ecóndmica (1912, 2nd ed. 1925)Google Scholar. This is one of the most influential and most copied — usually without acknowledgement — books in Chile. It argues that Chileans are losing out to foreigners in the economic development of their country because of their economic inferiority, which they must take steps to rectify, in part through education. Venegas, Alejandro, Sinceridad: Chile íntimo en 1910 (1910)Google Scholar. One of the most widely discussed books ever written in Chile, Sinceridad is a blanket condemnation of the directing classes in 1910, and a lament for the decadence that has allowed the riches of the country to fall into the hands of foreigners. Venegas stands as a hero both to Enrique Molina, perhaps the outstanding twentieth-century Chilean pensador and a sincere admirer of the United States, and to the rabidly anti-United States Marxist, Julio Cesar Jobet. More recent books which regard foreign capital's dominance as a sign of Chilean decadence and which advocate national revitalization as a means of combating economic imperialism are: von Marées, Jorge González, El mal de Chile (1940)Google Scholar; Keller, Carlos, La eterna crisis chilena (1931)Google Scholar; González was the political leader and Keller was the main theoretician and writer of Chilean Nazism; Palma, Horacio Serrano, ¿Por qué somos pobres? (1959)Google Scholar.

30 The authors have readily compiled a long list of Chilean writers favoring a stronger form of economic nationalism than heretofore applied in Chile (Marxists and Communists excluded). There is also a strong current of economic nationalism in Christian Democratic writings: see note 25.

The hope to gain the strength to squeeze out United States capital by Latin American economic union, or by closer ties with Europe, is an old one in Chile, and is undoubtedly one of the forces which is now helping to turn the dream of a common market into a reality. Some of the important books pertaining to the subject follow.Phillips, Arturo Aldunate, Estados Unidos, gran aventura del hombre (1943)Google Scholar. This excellent book impresses the writers as revealing greater understanding of the United States way of life than any ever written in Chile. It concludes with the warning that after World War II the United States will probably ignore its southern neighbors, forcing them as a result to establish closer ties among themselves and with Europe.Colección de ensayos i documentos relativos a la unión i confederación de los pueblos hispano-americanos, 2 vols. (1862 and 1867)Google Scholar. This collection is the necessary point of departure for understanding the strong anti-U.S. currents associated with most manifestations of Chilean desire for Latin American unity. The volumes contain essays by many of the leading Chilean intellectuals of the nineteenth century, all stressing need for Latin American unity as a means of stemming the imperialism practiced by the Colossus of the North.Contreras, Francisco, Uesprit de L'Amerique Espagnole (Paris, 1931)Google Scholar is a principal work by a leading advocate of Hispanic American union as a means of eliminating United States tutelage.Davila, Carlos, We of the Americas (New York, 1949)Google Scholar — a Spanish language second edition of this popular work was published in Chile in 1956. This widely read book is today being interpreted in some circles as the call for the erection of an Ibero-American Third Position to offset United States influence. See the December 12, 1959, El Mercurio report on a lecture at the University of Chile by Carlos Sander. Bello, Joaquin Edwards, El nacionalismo continental (1935)Google Scholar.Nieto, Galvarino Gallardo, Panamericanismo (1941)Google Scholar, a leading Chilean internationalist and writer, voices the hope that Latin America will develop the strength to resist U.S. dominance.Carlos Gréz Pérez, Los intentos de unión hispanoamericana y la guerra de Españ en el Pacifico (1928)Google Scholar; Gana, Antonio Huneeus, Nueva Paz: ¿ imperialismo o democracia? (1945)Google Scholar; Lindsay, Onofre, El problema fundamental: la repoblación de Chile y los Estados Unidos de Sudamérica (1925)Google Scholar; Salas, Mariano Picón, Hispanoamérica: posición critica (1931)Google Scholar. A Venezuelan who came to Chile in 1923, Picón Salas began a crusade for Latin American union and closer ties with Spain, in part to offset United States influence. The monthly Indice (1930–1932) which he helped found preached the same message. Also Trancredo Pinochet Le-Brun, Cómo construir una gran civilización chilena e hispanoamericana (no date), and La conquista de Chile en el siglo XX (1909)Google Scholar; Igualt, Jorge Rios, Hacia una coordinación de la economia sudamericana (Valparaiso, 1941)Google Scholar; Recabarren, Sergio, Latino-américa y imperialismo (1949)Google Scholar,Progreso y destino cultural latinoamericano (1950), and La solidaridad continental (1951, Memoria de Prueba)Google Scholar; Rodriguez, Emilio Tagle, “La union aduanera de sudamérica,” El Mercurio, 04 18, 1932Google Scholar; Vidaurre, Alberto Sayan, Por la cooperación inter-americana (Valparaiso, 1935)Google Scholar; Espejo, René Silva, El futuro económico de Chile y de América Latino, (1957)Google Scholar; Ibáñez, Luis Urrutia, Federación iberoamericana (1942)Google Scholar; Yáñz, Eliodoro, La sociedad de las naciones latinoamericanos (1919)Google Scholar, the important internationalist and leading figure of the Liberal Party urged Latin American unity, in part as a means of counteracting United States hegemony;Concha, Eduardo Yrarrázaval, América Latina en la Guerra Fria (1959)Google Scholar, and El hemisferio postergado (1954). For material development, this Chilean aristocrat recommends closer economic ties with Europe.

31 Nicholas Kaldor, in his previously cited study (see note 24), finds that the real income of all groups in Chile increased 40% between 1940 and 1953. The laborers, representing a fairly constant 57% of the active population throughout this period, won an increased income of 7%, while the real salaries of white collar workers went up 46%, and the income of non-salaried proprietors increased 60%. The decreasing proportional share of laborers in the national income is noted also by Carmona, Helio Varela, Estratificación social de la población trabajadora en Chile y su participación en el ingreso nacional, 1940–1954 (1958)Google Scholar, and in articles of the same author in numbers 199 and 208 of Panorama Economica. Valbuena, Manuel Silva in La especulación en la economía (1939)Google Scholar noted that those being benefited by the gains in the Chilean economy were not the workers, but a parasitical speculating class. The essay by Max Nolff in the book La inflación: naturaleza y problemas (1951, with seven essays contributed by Nolff — the most substantial part of the volume — Jaime Barrios, Eduardo Frei, Felipe Herrera L., Pedro Irantel, Sergio Molina and Anibal Pinto), points out that as of 1951 the Chilean lower classes had failed to benefit in the course of their country's economic development.Ahumada, Jorge in the previously cited En vez de la miseria, pp. 74–75Google Scholar, presents statistics to show that the upper 5% of the wealthy in Chile enjoy a mean income equal to twenty-two times that of the average income of laborers. Put in other terms, this means that 5% of the population (the same group that pays less than 15% of its income in taxes — see note 24) receives slightly more than a third of total national income, and that 59% of the population — laborers and their families — gains one fifth of total national income.Saba, Roberto Jadue, Distribución probable del ingreso de las personas en Chile: periodo 1940–1954 (1960)Google Scholar, in a chapter entitled “La distribución del ingreso de las personas por tramos de renta,” asserts that between 1940 and 1954, an average of 78.3% of the active population received 33.1% of the national income, and adds: “… from 1940 to 1954, there has been a regressive redistribution of total income, achieved at the expense of the lower income groups.”

Basic sources of statistics on this and other economic matters in Chile include: Banco Central de Chile, various publications; Comisión Económica para América Latina de las Naciones Unidas, Antecedentes sobre el desarrollo de la economia chilena, 1925–1952 (1954)Google Scholar; Corporation de Fomento de la Productión, Cuentas nacionales, 1940–1945 (1946)Google Scholar, and Renta nacional, 1940–1945, 2 vols. (1946)Google Scholar; Directión General de Estadistica, Anuario estadistico de la República de Chile, and the monthly Estadistica Chilena; Institute de Economia de la Universidad de Chile, Chile y la inflación (1955)Google Scholar, Desarrollo económico de Chile, 1940–1956 (1956), La migración interna de Chile en el período 1940–1952 (1960), and La situación económica de los empleados particulares (1953); the Institute has also published the useful Research, Publications, and other Activities (1959). See in addition Política y Esplritu, No. 240 (03, 1960)Google Scholar.

32 That our practices now produce this impression was indicated by the letter sent President Eisenhower during his stay in Chile by the University Student Federation (FECH), presently directed by Christian Democrats. One of the letter's cardinal points was that the United States appears to be primarily interested in protecting the wealth of privileged elements within the existing order. For text of letter see El Mercurio, February 29, 1960.

33 A recent attack against this sort of advice is Pinto, Aníbal, Ni estabilidad ni desarrollo: la política del Fondo Monetario (1960)Google Scholar.