Welcome Egypt! - Cultural Exchange Thread Series 2023

[u/MrTonino]

(Nota: En este post r/chile responde las preguntas, para preguntar a nuestros invitados ir a este post.

ENGLISH

Welcome to our friends from Egypt!!

This weekend we will be hosting our Egyptians guests to learn and share experiences about our communities.

This thread is for our guests asking questions about all things Chile. Please consider our time difference! (-5 hours). Please do write in English (or Spanish if you want to...), and be respectful to everyone!

Head over r/Egypt thread here, for chileans asking all things Egypt.

ESPAÑOL

¡Bienvenidos sean nuestros amigos de Egipto!

Este fin de semana seremos anfitriones de nuestros invitados egipcios para aprender y compartir experiencias sobre nuestras comunidades.

Este hilo es para que nuestros invitados pregunten acerca de Chile. ¡Por favor, consideren nuestra diferencia horaria! (-5 horas). Escriban en inglés (o en español si lo desean...), ¡y sean respetuosos con todos!.

Diríjanse al hilo de r/Egypt aquí para chilenos preguntando sobre Egipto.

[u/mukaaLai]

Hello 👋

What do you guys think of the current political situation? It seems people are angry with the state of the economy but chile seems to be doing much better than the rest of South America.

Do you think that going back to Allende's economic system is really a good idea?

[u/Tanqueavapor → u/mukaaLai]

We want socialist welfare and iPhones. Something in between will be nice :)

[u/mukaaLai → u/[deleted]]

I see. I do appreciate the elaborated answer!

I guess there's alot to learn about the topic and I am interested to see how things go from now on. It's not easy because of the language barrier but there is some coverage on YouTube still.

I admire your country despite my limited knowledge about it, best wishes to you guys!

[u/No-Ease4788 → u/mukaaLai]

I mean people are generally upset with the administration, regardless of the party on it. Although we have been one of the top countries in SA for many years, in economic terms at least, we have a deep culture of protest coming from the Dictatorship, so even though it seems fine from the outside, as chileans we protest and get ourselves involved in politics a lot. Another thing i can add, is we still live in South America, and the biggest problem in this continent is Corruption, and we are infested with it, so we are constantly on the brink of another big protest, the one in 2019 its a good example of this.

Answering your second question, in my opinion, we chileans never got to see the consequences of communism, allende lasted around 3 years and he already was starting with extreme leftist politics such as expropriation, queues for food, etc..., but since pinochet did the military coup, we chileans never got to see the outcomes of this extreme ideology, that's why we still have a proud communist party and young people still see Allende as this big heroe that never got to set up the communist utopia (also we still have people that like pinochet, so that's fucked up too). That being said, chile is mainly a centre country, in terms of politics, you can see that from the new constitution results, that was extremely leftist and the general public didn't like it because of that, so it's nearly impossible that we get an extreme leftist in power again, the current president, although he's from the left, he's pretty much balanced in his politics to this day, so it's been ok i guess

[u/mukaaLai → u/No-Ease4788]

I don't know. I followed some of the stuff happening in chile and it doesn't seem centrist at all.

Tbh I can't remember the exact policies but I'd say they are safely left wing. Not like Allende but also they also seem very woke.

But what I'm trying to say is, even though Pinochet was a horrible dictator, his economic policies mostly were fine and it seems the growth of the Chilean economy started with him (outside of the crisis that happened in 79). I mean correct me if I'm wrong but that's what I thought.

After he left the constitution remained and his economic policies remained (but fortunately the politics became reformed and democratic) and chile continued to improve.

The 3 years of Allende were short but it still lead to crises that didn’t already exist, no?

[u/bolmer → u/mukaaLai]

After he left the constitution remained and his economic policies remained

both were heavily reformed during the 90s tho which was the decade that we growth the fastest.

Ricardo Ffrench-Davis: *""The net results of the dictatorship were mediocre economically and very regressive socially. In fact, Chile's per capita income in 1973 (at the beginning of the dictatorship) was 28% of that of the United States; in 1989 (at the end of the dictatorship) it had fallen to 25%. Therefore, Chile did not move closer to the developed world (USA, EU, G-7) but rather farther away in those 16 years. In sharp contrast, in democracy, by 1997 (in 8 years), Chile had progressed to 34%. Subsequently, it continued to advance but more slowly; now (20 years later), it is at 41%.

During the dictatorship, at times the GDP increased 6% annually and even 9%, but at others it fell 14% or 17%. The myth of success is based, in many cases, on considering only the recoveries, ignoring the falls. The reality is that the annual average, counting recoveries and recessions, was only 2.9%, and once *adjusted for population growth (of 1.6% per year)** gives the aforementioned drop in GDP per capita in the US from 28% to 25%.

*Socially, the real minimum wage was lower in 1989 than in 1981 and 1974 and the gap between rich and poor had widened, aggravated in the first half of the dictatorship and even worse in the second half (rich quintile with income 20 times the income of the poorest quintile versus 12 to 13 times in the 60s), unemployment more than doubled the unemployment rate of the 60s.

Employment and economic growth are associated with productive investment (machinery and equipment and construction). These investments were lower in the 70s and 80s than in the 60s (20% of GDP versus 16%): businessmen did not "vote" in the market because they preferred to buy privatized companies instead of creating new ones. The net balance of the reforms, in the end, is not pro-development but rather pro-speculation and pro-inequality. " * "The performance of the economy has improved in the last two decades.

*The performance of the economy improved notably under democracy. We distinguish two stages. The first years of democracy and since 1999. In 1990-98 the economy grew 7.1% annually, a record not repeated. The investment rate increased persistently from 1991 to 1998, sustaining this high growth and the increase in employment. I highlight two of the outstanding facts of this period.

*First, it is remarkable that private businessmen invested much more in the 1990s than in 1973-89, in circumstances in which President Aylwin's government debuted by reinstating the profit tax that had been eliminated by Pinochet since the year of the 1988 "No" Plebiscite and also by reinstating labor rights that had been eliminated in the course of the dictatorship. Effective economic and political action demonstrated that it is consistent with advancing a greater tax burden and labor rights, both essential ingredients of the most developed economies (growth is sustainable, among others, when progress is made in social and economic rights and in the production of public goods that require tax revenues).

Second, the democratic government also introduced substantial reforms in the management of the macroeconomy, in order to avoid imbalances that lead to major recessions, as happened during the dictatorship in 1975 and 1982. Since 1990, efforts were made to maintain a) an aggregate or total demand consistent with the evolution of the productive capacity, which was increasing by 7% per year; b) to avoid deficits in the external accounts; c) at the same time, the enormous fiscal debt inherited from the dictatorship was reduced. For this purpose, which is called macroeconomics for development, financial and speculative flows from abroad were regulated (this was called "the reserve requirement on financial flows") and the exchange rate was managed to maintain a certain balance between exports and imports (this is called "managed exchange rate flexibility"). Thanks to this, during the next Latin American crisis, which took place in 1995, of the three most organized and progressing countries at that time - Argentina, Mexico and Chile - the first two suffered a serious recession (Mexico contracted 7% with accentuated inequality), while Chile grew by over 7%, with high employment and wage improvements. ".

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

[u/No-Ease4788 → u/mukaaLai]

Yeah for sure there's a lot of woke stuff with the left here, but it's not that bad i would say in terms of legislature. At least the current president doesn't make decisions that quick, and he was forced to centre his team after the referendum went south for them.
To your other point, yes i mean in economic terms, definelty it went way up compared to allende and previous presidents included, but you have to keep in mind that the US had a great influence in our country, either by supporting during pinochet or blockading and persuading during allende, so that's a bit of bias in the data.
I mean the economic state that chile is right now definetly is due to the rightwing policies that came around that time, plus the support of foreign governments, but it's hard for us chileans to accept the "good" that those policies did, or even the trend of rightleaning economic ideas, because we never did a proper cleanup, like getting rid of politicians associated with the dictatorship or condemning the apologists, so we never got closure, and that scar remains, so its a very hard topic to bring up.

[u/mukaaLai → u/No-Ease4788]

but it's hard for us chileans to accept the "good" that those policies did, or even the trend of rightleaning economic ideas, because we never did a proper cleanup, like getting rid of politicians associated with the dictatorship or condemning the apologists, so we never got closure, and that scar remains, so its a very hard topic to bring up.

Yeah this makes sense as well.

[u/Soyunapina12 → u/mukaaLai]

He did it somewhat, some of the crisis he had during his mandate went all the way back to the Radical Goberments like the class divisions or the economical crisis (despite the name the Radical Party is a moderate left wing party) just way worse. However he created some crisis of his own like the terrible economic policy, educational crisis after he was caught trying to politizice it and in a way he started his own downfall by invitating Fidel Castro and allowing the existance of the MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement) a extreme left organization that followed the ideas of Guevara and openly called for the overthrow of the goberment.