Hacker Cinema
Chicago Boys
2015 · Film · documentary · 85 min
Directed by Rafael Valdeavellano, Carola Fuentes
The economists behind the implementation of the most extreme capitalist system in the world observe with surprise the discontent of its countrymen. For the first time, they tell the story of how they became Milton Friedman's students in Chicago in the 1950s and what were they willing to do to pursue their extreme economic ideas, aided by Pinochet's dictatorship in the 70s. Unseen images and testimonies that allow us to understand the historic process that transformed the Chilean people and Chile in the country that it is today, an image of success and discontent.
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It is telling that one has to roughly estimate Trillions of Wealth in Thousand of Milions in Dollars the Top 0.01 or Top 400 Invidiuals have (is it one quarter or one third of the 0.01 percent?) but at the "Bottom" - say 90% - it is down to the decimal point (with some manageable variances).
The basic message of the article is to give the impression that there are somehow two "equally weighted" positions:
In short, there’s a split among economists. Some argue that income needs to be distributed more equitably, while others say governments should focus less on taking actions that could inhibit top earners and more on addressing the reasons others aren’t as successful. Do we slow the 0.01 percent or lift the 99.99 percent, which could be a heavier and more complex assignment? As the debate continues, members of the 0.01 percent continue on their course.
A controversy on which policies should be implemented regarding income inequality. Having read the voluminous Piketty and now searching for the "underdog" Greg Kaplan (Co-Director of the Gary Becker Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics: basically the Chicago School of Economics in a new better empiricist's clothes), there is basically - in my quick search - nothing substantial about his arguments other than the good ol' tale: Do not "destroy" the wealth creating machine of the 0.01% instead let the other 99.99% adopt it. Like a cynic saying: Everyone can win the lottery.
For anyone interested about the "real" consequences of the old Chicago School of Economics, there is a great documentary called "Chicago Boys" about the case study of Chile from '73 onwards.
Anyone even bothering to look deeper into the history of inequality between "Stalinism" (Socialism) and "Thatcher-Reaganism" (Neoliberalism) there is for example FDR's "New Deal" which somehow is rarely brought up these days, the parallels (translating into our times) are striking. And many other examples of truly rich datasets to look into.
Of course the datasets about the obscenely rich is very poor even nowadays in the "information age". One has to wonder is this "information distribution" not how real wealth can be defined, too?