Re South America: Guatemala had incredible, almost miraculous success when Jacobo Árbenz did his landmark land reforms. The idea was simple: (1) unused land over X ha was expropriated (and the owners compensated), and distributed to previously landless peasants, and (2) credit lines were made available for those peasants to buy farm equipment, do renovations, etc.
The success was astounding. We're talking child mortality being halved and poverty rates dropping off a cliff, in only a few years. Of course, US businesses did not like it very much and US imperialism shut it down in violent fashion, and Guatemala has been an unstable and violent place ever since, with a long string of brutal dictators.
What is "funny" in a deeply grim and sad sense is that this was at once socialism (i.e. means of production to the people who work, rather than a separation between those who work and those who own), but also very much the American Dream: a plot of land which was your own, for you to work, and where you own the fruits of your labour. You, not a king, not a robber baron, you. That's why the violent stampdown by the US is especially disgusting and hypocritical.
As for Chile, it had a democratically elected left-wing government. Even if Pinochet's economic policy turned out better (which it by most measures did not), NOTHING can justify a violent operation to overthrow that government, to the tune of tens of thousands of tortures and deaths, to implant one that pursues your favoured brand of economics.
The success was astounding. We're talking child mortality being halved and poverty rates dropping off a cliff, in only a few years. Of course, US businesses did not like it very much and US imperialism shut it down in violent fashion, and Guatemala has been an unstable and violent place ever since, with a long string of brutal dictators.
What is "funny" in a deeply grim and sad sense is that this was at once socialism (i.e. means of production to the people who work, rather than a separation between those who work and those who own), but also very much the American Dream: a plot of land which was your own, for you to work, and where you own the fruits of your labour. You, not a king, not a robber baron, you. That's why the violent stampdown by the US is especially disgusting and hypocritical.
As for Chile, it had a democratically elected left-wing government. Even if Pinochet's economic policy turned out better (which it by most measures did not), NOTHING can justify a violent operation to overthrow that government, to the tune of tens of thousands of tortures and deaths, to implant one that pursues your favoured brand of economics.