translated from Spanish: Chile as “a center where new ideas are fought”: former editor of The Economist on social outburst

The former British government economist and former editor of The Economist, Richard Davies, released his book “Extreme Economies”, weeks before the social outburst of 18 October. A book that speaks fairly of citizen discontent.
In that sense, in an interview with La Tercera, Davies argued that he was “not surprised” by what happened that 18 October.
“No one likes to see violence and repression in the streets. But let me put it this way. If I hadn’t written this book and followed my life as a government adviser; Well, I basically would have kept all that stuff the IMF and the World Bank say about “the miracle of Chile,” he said.
“When the UK faced the 2008 financial crisis I was at the time at the Bank of England, and Chile was one of the countries mentioned. So, if I didn’t write this book, I would have probably wondered when I saw the riots: “What’s wrong with Chile?” But after meeting Santiago and talking to people I noticed a lot of concern about the way markets work. Chile has a market-oriented economy. But those markets basically don’t work for everyone,” he added.
When asked about his description of Chile in his book, which categorizes it as “a center where new ideas are fought”, the former editor of The Economist referred to emerging figures of national politics such as deputy Giorgio Jackson and MEP Camila Vallejo.
“What struck me about Chile is that the entire Generation of Giorgio Jackson and Camila Vallejo are more radical and are forging a path of their own. For example, I know Giorgio Jackson is interested in technology, in that philosophy called accelerationism. This is a technology-inspired vision that challenges capitalism; that undermines the notion of ownership and leads it to a shared economy,” he said.
“I think that’s interesting because, well, what were the implications for pharmacies or the book market? These two are corrupted spheres in Chile. And maybe with new ideas you can solve something. I don’t know what’s going to come out of that battle of new ideas, as I say in the book, but I hope that someone from that new political generation will present a kind of really new model, where competition is genuine and that markets take advantage of. Because markets can work well, but in the modern age you have to use technology to control them,” he concluded.

Original source in Spanish

Related Posts

Add Comment