Counter-Currents
1,290 words
For years, contemporary Chile was considered a remarkable demonstration of the inevitable triumph of economic and political liberalism. Although not being the whitest country in Latin America, democracy and capitalism seemed to flourish through a white-led republic, even though this political elite was not aware of its racial identity.
Whites (approximately twenty percent of the population) are mostly found in the upper and upper-middle classes in the center and south of the country. The explanation for Chile’s success and position as (probably former) leader of the Southern Cone are largely caused by a) the dominance of Hispanic [the term here is being used to mean “Spanish Creole”] culture; b) high levels of respect for law and order; and c) the economic policies implemented by the Chicago School and upheld by the first three post-Pinochet governments (Patricio Aylwin, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, and Ricardo Lagos – all of the Leftist Concertación coalition).The stability of democratic norms derived from the Chilean elites’ regicidal tradition and general aversion to political absolutism.
The events that occurred in Chile during October 2019 are the ultimate manifestation of a progressive misrule caused by a previous trauma – the experience of a military dictatorship between 1973 and 1990 – which new generations (who did not consciously experience it) tend to reject, whatever their political tendency. The process of progressive misrule is rooted in the sacrosanctification of democracy beyond the merely discursive by the political class (which is widely of white descent), where democracy itself has poisoned the host, just as radioactive material can poison and kill anyone who uses it without taking precautions.
The subway trains are charred. So are the three ATMs in the station where they stopped. The rails of the underground railway destroyed. Everything down there is completely covered in ashes. The smell of smoke and burnt iron is pungent and it is, at times, difficult to breathe without coughing.
In this widespread discontent of the masses, the Marxist agenda has found a perfect niche for its political goals: In Latin America, class struggle also means race struggle, since the upper and upper-middle classes are the most Europeanized elements. Santiago is not just the capital and largest city of Chile, but also the oldest city. Because of its size, riots are concentrated mainly in Santiago, specifically in its center. A particular trait of Santiago is its color/class segregation; the thirty-two counties of Santiago are quite different across a variety of aspects such as geography, demographics, economics, public infrastructure, and average income. The city’s east side (historically called “the high district”) corresponds to the highest average income area, and is the whitest part of the city. In the city center are the middle class counties; in the southern and northwestern areas, the poorest counties. The riots are currently being moved intentionally (against the cuicos, i.e., the whiter and higher income population) to the east side of the city. And incidentally, in this social crisis, crowds perceive themselves as poor – even those who are not at all poo, or at least not as poor as they think.[1]
Across the country, protesters are launching attacks on symbols of Spanish colonial rule and tearing down statues of war heroes, Spanish conquistadors, military aviation pioneers, and so on. For years, all of them have understood as the oppressors of the poor masses and indigenous people. Now, they are under attack and are being replaced by indigenous symbols.
Regarding this, it must be said that there was a “whitening” of a large part of the Indian tribes due to miscegenation, which created what is today the largest population group (mixed race harnizos and mestizos; none of them pass for Europeans, although they have European ancestry). Even though ten percent of the population is relatively pure Indian, they tend to identify as Indians, perceiving themselves as being closer to the Mapuche, Diaguita, and Aymara peoples.
At the moment, between arson and looting, there are groups of Leftist activists vandalizing buildings, public and private property, retail stores, drug stores, banks, political offices, and throwing rocks at police officers (just like a GG Allin song), asking for a new constitution to replace the one from 1980,[2] and calling for the end of neoliberal policies. Essentially, they want to put an end to the so-called miracle.
So, what is wrong with the Chilean miracle? Why would people prefer to tear down the same economic model that drastically reduced the poverty indices and made life easier? Why has Chile gone crazy?
Indeed, Chile has presented an economic model that allows its people more privileges in comparison to other Latin American countries, and still more compared to the average among the countries of the world. According to the World Happiness Report for the years 2016-2018, Chile ranks at number twenty-six. Moreover, Chile is quantitatively and qualitatively better than it was fifty years ago and is gradually still improving its conditions. While this fact can be corroborated by much data and many studies, the public perception about them is subject to the degree that people’s desires are being satisfied. And since desire continues to increase, likewise the sense of dissatisfaction continues to increase: Perfection is the enemy of the good, and plusquamperfekt is the enemy of the perfect. Due the fact that the younger generations have not experienced the problems of past decades, they have no point of comparison by which to moderate their dissatisfaction.
As we know, because of its foundation and shape, democracy is in an eternal tension with the emergence of its own nitrificated nature: that is, the ochlocracy, that government upon which the fickle crowd imposes its desires. Although this fickle crowd – i.e., the mob – means the majority of human beings, the truth is that this crowd fails to form a monolithic will. It is irrational and lacks the capacity for self-governance. Indeed, it is not a people at all because it lacks the characteristics that define one. Chile is a multicultural, heterogeneous country, and democracy requires homogeneity and thus the elimination of heterogeneity. Chile’s heterogeneous nature has doomed the country to entropy since its birth. October 2019 will be recognized as the final stage of the Right’s metapolitical defeat – the liberal Right.
There are many ways to have democracy; at the same time, governing is not in itself a form of democracy. The latter has been the big mistake made by post-dictatorship countries such as Chile: They have ended up making “government” a synonym for “democracy,” and it is this same excess of democracy (now nitrificated in ochlocracy) that has led these post-dictatorship governments to lead their societies into entropy. This positive increase in entropy causes molecular disorder which, coupled with the low sense of satisfaction among the masses, provides dangerous and unstable reagents for the establishment and maintenance of order.
Desires may have no limitations, but if they are equal with the will – that which seeks to make concrete what is desired through action – entropy suffers a positive increase, giving way to mob rule. When that happens, there is a loss of reason and the establishment of a molecular and holographic tyranny of the desire for bottom-up power (from the masses) and the sacrosanctification of democracy as summum bonum, whereas ὕβρις (hubris) – human outrage and the gods’ punishment – pays for its ambition by sacrificing itself.
Notes
[1] Recently, Axel Kaiser, a classical liberal writer and a Chilean of German descent, was assaulted in Switzerland by a Leftist Chilean rabble while he was giving a speech at a university. Axel Kaiser is a diehard supporter of the Chilean free market revolution. That’s why the radical Left hates him.
[2] In the 1980s, this Constitution outlined a regime involving an amalgam of economic neoliberalism (à la von Hayek or Friedman), Catholic and corporatist integralism in the social sphere, and national security in the political realm
8 comments
There is a good reason for that.
It is called China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Look at that map inside:
https://dialogochino.net/28021-chinas-belt-and-road-advances-in-latin-americas-andean-region/
” China has sought a bigger role overseas since Trump was elected, presenting its Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade agreement as an alternative to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the United States has abandoned.
The country is already testing U.S. dominance in Latin America, offering the region $250 billion in investment over the next decade. It is the top trading partner of many other countries in the region, including Brazil and Argentina. ”
Expect more to come.
Articles such as this are great reminders that our demographic, cultural, and political issues are no confined to the US and Europe.
Great essay. Perhaps it’s not merely ‘democracy’ that is the problem, or even the attempt to be ‘democratic’ in a multi-racial society. More fundamental, perhaps, is an iteration of ‘democracy’ based in a ‘consumer’ model of politics in the form of ‘rights’ (without concomitant obligations). In such a scenario, ‘rights’ are a consumer product of ‘society’ or ‘government’ (representing the ‘supply’ side of the market). Tthe ‘supply’ side being (at any given time) finite and unable to meet ‘demand’ sufficient to satiate. To the extent that ‘democracy’ is operationalized as a consumer model of politics — rather than participation in power — collapse is inevitable because ‘demand’ is well-nigh infinite, but ‘supply’ is not.
I would love more commentary and evidence on racial identity in Latin America, as well as the story of how these countries became race-mixed.
The common argument is that there is no sense of race of racism in Latin America, but that there is xenophobia and colorism. Latin America is held up as an example of how we should be, in the USA (non-racist, and amalgamated)
https://www.amren.com/features/2018/08/a-racial-introduction-to-chile-part-i/
https://www.amren.com/features/2018/09/a-racial-introduction-to-chile-part-ii/
https://www.amren.com/features/2018/09/a-racial-introduction-to-chile-part-iii/
https://counter-currents.com/2019/06/what-will-a-hispanic-united-states-look-like-part-1/
https://counter-currents.com/2019/06/what-will-a-hispanic-united-states-look-like-part-2/
https://counter-currents.com/2019/06/what-will-a-hispanic-united-states-look-like-part-3/
These links above should be useful.
Wow, thanks a lot
Thank you for this interesting article. I visited Chile a few years ago and had no inkling of the troubles underneath the apparently prosperous, orderly face of the country. Mind you, that to some extent may reflect the error made by most British people when thinking about South America (which, admittedly, few British people do!). It is exactly the opposite error to that made by North Americans, who think of the whole of South America as much like a narco-cartel ruled Mexican favela. We Brits think of it as closely resembling Spain, with which we are relatively familiar, and rarely appreciate the enormous differences between the southern cone countries (with a much higher proportion of people of European descent, the Andean countries (largely Amerind) and the tropical zone (often with large negro admixture).
the problem is precisely the Hayek-Friedman component that sadly permeates the Latin right from the Cold War days, in which American financiers were the best and almost only friend of white Latin property owners (ergo benefiting mostly the rich urban cosmopolitan traders with less children – who eventually move to Miami anyway).
of course, integrated multiracial societies are going to be harder to maintain democratically, as the lower races want their status bettered always, and the higher races cannot help but see themselves as such; while the intermixers form a revanchist unstable middle but that somehow glues it all together out of need.
ergo, the Catholic corporate integralism in social matters could have been included in economics as well. Bachelet gave a lot of gibs away to browns stupidly, but Piñera’s government went too free-trade on the other end; and raised transport fares in a country where younger/poorer whites also complain about public transport, inviting the (brown) left to pounce on that opening.
and of course, the Catholic anti-democratic corporatism may have needed to extend to politics, as since Pinochet all the democracies have grown more liberal and (therefore) antiwhite.
the white Catholic settler nations need to return to confessional Catholicism, and the colonial (or at least early republican) segregation system. just without the excessive serfdom, since the right amount of gibs do the same trick in the postindustrial world. (meanwhile, the globalist idea was to make browns as unfertile and pozzed as postmodern whites through excessive gibs – if only there weren’t enough of a difference so browns outbred anyway…).
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