I’ve written critical columns about the failure of Venezuelan socialism and I’ve written laudatory columns about the success of Chile’s free markets reforms.
Today, let’s compare and contrast what has happened to these two countries.
Here are two maps of South America showing per-capita economic output. Amazingly, Venezuela was more than twice as rich as Chile in 1980 but now Chile is more than three times as rich as Venezuela.
At this point, I normally would pontificate about the meaning of these two maps.
But there’s no need for me to write anything because the person who shared them on Twitter (X) nailed the obvious takeaway.
Game, set, and match. Economic liberty trounces statism.
The same message that you see in this chart.
P.S. If you want to learn about Milton Friedman and Chile, click here.
Chile’s caudillo dictators had as uncoerced an economy as Herbert Hoover. Brazil just booted out the Caudillo de Deus and reelected the so-called communist. Are not all of these socialist variants the same thing on a map colored by inflation?
Socialists would point out that Venezuela isn’t *real* socialism of course
The GDP per capita ratio for Chile to Venezuela is 5 to 1 in nominal dollars per Wikipedia.
PPP dollars are calculated by the OECD per Wikipedia. PPP dollars are nonsense. Dan Mitchell: OECD is a “Paris-based international bureaucracy that uses American tax dollars to advocate for bigger government and higher taxes” PPP dollars are part of equality before growth.
PPP dollars are nonsense. US has 7.2x GDP per capita as India in real nominal dollars but has 2.5x in PPP dollars according to Wikipedia. Try buying a car, gasoline or tv in India with ppp dollars.
Am I right in thinking that Friedman was also influential with Israel which, of course, has also done very well as an economic powerhouse? Maybe someone out there knows.
Mr. Mitchell,
Excellent!!!
Kevin Susquehanna County, PA
Sent from my Behemoth Dell 690
I’m surprised Argentina advanced that much. Looking at other countries, big cocaine producers Colombia and Peru showed big gains. How much was due to cocaine vs economic growth?