Richest Man in Chile, Anacleto Angelini Fabbri Dies
Long live the Grupo Angelini.
This guy died with a fortune of 6 billion, and his grupo is all over the place with significant holdings in everything from fishing to forestry to the biggest gas station in Chile, Copec. Like all the other big empresariales, his ship came in under Pinochet. In 1970 he had 4 main businesses, a number which quadrupled by 1978. In 2005 'socialist' president Ricardo Lagos named him a "forger of Chile", for his Midas touch in jacking up the profitability of so many endeavors. By the time of his death his group has about 90 enterprises under his belt.
His fortune was based on the exploitation of natural resources, which was achieved with no environmental controls. He poisoned rivers, destroyed forests and ruined lives. Despite his calls for Chile to "capitalize itself in order to create jobs", there has been no serious development of human capital in Chile, which really would strike a blow to this country's abysmal Inequality problem.
Unfortunately, that's not in the cards as far as the economic groups are concerned. Chile is nothing more than a fundo, a plantation for the extraction of raw materials. This 40+ person Ethical Wage committee is but a cocktail party among the slave owners, campy theater which needn't require great investment - why, if the audience is so dumb to begin with?
Education in Chile would give Chileans the formation necessary to obtain higher paying, skilled jobs processing the raw materials that are wrought from their own earth. In addition to bringing Chileans out of poverty and precarious economic plight, (currently 80% of Chileans live on less than $400 per month), the economic push of human capital would create less of a demand for a wholesale pillaging of the environment, as was exacerbated under Lagos and continues to this day.
As the economist Marcel Claude explained to me (note: this is a spoiler to an upcoming interview with Claude to be published on this blog), you can cut down three trees and export them, or you can cut down one tree and make three tables out of it. The latter scenario is where Chile needs to be. The former is Chile's curse. Chile's economy is a Latin American tragedy just like any other, says Claude. Whereas the United States turned its wealth inward, Chile has historically exported all of its wealth. This mentality seeps into Chilean identity (an oxymoron?), as Chileans have for decades sought to identify with Europe, and now the United States, so quick to impress upon you the fact that they speaky Eengleesh. I laughed. It's so true.
I guess as humans we're kinda superficial, our eyes move against our will to where the money is, and our bodies - our souls follow. It seems like such a simple solution to reinvest in the Chilean people, it's something they need to fight for. The money which is theirs, from their land, which belongs to them.
This guy died with a fortune of 6 billion, and his grupo is all over the place with significant holdings in everything from fishing to forestry to the biggest gas station in Chile, Copec. Like all the other big empresariales, his ship came in under Pinochet. In 1970 he had 4 main businesses, a number which quadrupled by 1978. In 2005 'socialist' president Ricardo Lagos named him a "forger of Chile", for his Midas touch in jacking up the profitability of so many endeavors. By the time of his death his group has about 90 enterprises under his belt.
His fortune was based on the exploitation of natural resources, which was achieved with no environmental controls. He poisoned rivers, destroyed forests and ruined lives. Despite his calls for Chile to "capitalize itself in order to create jobs", there has been no serious development of human capital in Chile, which really would strike a blow to this country's abysmal Inequality problem.
Unfortunately, that's not in the cards as far as the economic groups are concerned. Chile is nothing more than a fundo, a plantation for the extraction of raw materials. This 40+ person Ethical Wage committee is but a cocktail party among the slave owners, campy theater which needn't require great investment - why, if the audience is so dumb to begin with?
Education in Chile would give Chileans the formation necessary to obtain higher paying, skilled jobs processing the raw materials that are wrought from their own earth. In addition to bringing Chileans out of poverty and precarious economic plight, (currently 80% of Chileans live on less than $400 per month), the economic push of human capital would create less of a demand for a wholesale pillaging of the environment, as was exacerbated under Lagos and continues to this day.
As the economist Marcel Claude explained to me (note: this is a spoiler to an upcoming interview with Claude to be published on this blog), you can cut down three trees and export them, or you can cut down one tree and make three tables out of it. The latter scenario is where Chile needs to be. The former is Chile's curse. Chile's economy is a Latin American tragedy just like any other, says Claude. Whereas the United States turned its wealth inward, Chile has historically exported all of its wealth. This mentality seeps into Chilean identity (an oxymoron?), as Chileans have for decades sought to identify with Europe, and now the United States, so quick to impress upon you the fact that they speaky Eengleesh. I laughed. It's so true.
I guess as humans we're kinda superficial, our eyes move against our will to where the money is, and our bodies - our souls follow. It seems like such a simple solution to reinvest in the Chilean people, it's something they need to fight for. The money which is theirs, from their land, which belongs to them.
posted by Chileno @ 5:20 PM
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10 Comments:
Your blog is really funny. You go to work to a foreign, less developed, country. You set up a blog, and all you write is shit about your host country. That's hilarious.
Actually, no. It's pathetic.
You feel superior because you are paler, probably taller, and come from the U.S. of A!
No wonder people all over the globe despise the United States.
Well done, Americano!
>>>You go to work to a foreign, less developed, country
And where do I work, oh wise one? FYI, if you wanna play that game (and for the record, you started it) then if you look at the sheer numbers, Chile is better off with me than without me. I contribute to the economy vastly more than I draw on public resources. I'm not pretending like Chile should go out of its way to thank me, but for you to act as if I owe something to Chile beyond what I pay for its services...
Oh, but you might be talking about about the more intangible things. I should tread lightly as I'm just a foreigner, should speak softly about the fragile, defenseless natives lest I harm them.
What LatinAmericanist rubbish. What a hollow, worthless shell of a "friend" you pretend to be to Chileans. For my part, that I should not rail against a corrupt government that screws over the majority of Chileans -- that would be less friendly than actually bringing up these issues, which are blocked out by a controlled media.
"My host country", what the FUCK are you talking about??? The vast majority of my criticisms -- up to my use of the term "third world" -- are inspired by Chileans themselves.
>>>You feel superior because you are paler, probably taller, and come from the U.S. of A!
If you say so. But...when did I say so? (Not that it matters what I think, you've already decided for me, it seems).
>>>No wonder people all over the globe despise the United States.
Because of me.
By the way, where are you from?
Please pardon my ignorance regarding the Chilean economy but as of now I'm getting, exclusively it seems, all of my information about the country from you... Just a question that popped into my head reading this, thinking about Russia after Yeltsin secured power and China now... You mention having the Chilean people rising up to take control of their resources and change from an export heavy country to an internal development but I was wondering, if the oligarchy is based in continuing the rape of the land, where do local economists see the capital for investment coming from to build a modern capitalist country?And if you could speak slowly and keep the syllables to a minimum, please...
Great question, but I guess I should clarify that I'm not exactly calling for revolution. Maybe that is what's needed, in which case your question is more pertinent. And I'll definitely think about it.
But in the meantime, I think the substance of my bitching lies in the fact that the phrase "democracy" is used so often when in fact it is, as you say, an oligarchy. And among the most brutal in the world. It's just that with a population of 16 million, you don't raise too many eyebrows.
Let me rant a bit about Chile's validity on the world stage and then dovetail into a validation of the original purpose of this post.
So Chile has proved itself a pilot country at certain points throughout history. Its communist uprising in the north predated the bolsheviks', Allende's democratic socialism was thought by many to be a model for peaceful, democratic revolution, Pinochet's neo-liberalism was the next experiment, whose "success" went on to ruin 60 other countries.
Today, however, the only news that seeps out of Chile is that it's an economic miracle, a rising star, a jewel of Latin America. My friend Cristóbal Edwards wrote this article for Time, quoting some hack sociologist down here called Eugenio Tironi who says that social liberalization -- oh my, a single-mother president! -- is the ironic result of Pinochet's free-market reforms, an increasingly affluent society that rid itself of authoritarian rule and then moved to push for more social liberality.
Which is fine, but as my friend Tomas Dinges pointed out, these "Culture Wars" are only happening among an elite few. The rest of Chilean society has barely woken up, much less have they evolved to such delights as reproductive rights (BTW: the morning after pill that Edwards talks about is completely false. The law is on the books, but conservatives managed to block production, so nobody can access it. The rich, of course, always find a way).
Which is what I'm trying to get at. In this classist society with one of the world's worst levels of inequality, who is controlling the narrative of the country??? Answer: The oligarchy.
This elite narrative is exported, but it also suffocates Chile domestically. The Catholic Church controls a major TV station and the two biggest newspapers are a conservative duopoly. The Orwellian control that the government has over Chile is artless and obviously hypocritical, simply because there is very little vocal opposition. A journalist makes less than a thousand bucks a month while his boss makes 16 grand.
Artless as it is, however, it's strong. Chile is a "Democracy", so the line goes. And, after all, what could be worse than Pinochet?
The truth, of course, is that Chile is not a democracy, the parliament and executive branches are simply a rubber stamp for big business. Check this out, a senator copied a Wikipedia article, spelling errors and all, into a legal brief. Such professionalism - these politicos hardly take themselves seriously. The Chilean "government" is a total farce, a facade.
Nevertheless, Chileans are told that this is a Democracy, and as I mentioned in an earlier post about inspiration, I think that people are hopeful that they will be represented. It's a long shot, but like I said I'm not necessarily calling for "revolution", but if only public money from overflowing commodities' wealth -- a lot of that money is public, like COPPER -- could be diverted into serious programs to educate Chileans and create "internal development" as you say, or HUMAN CAPITAL, then Chilean society would improve dramatically.
People hop on here and bark at me for calling Chile a "third world country" and in a lot of ways they're right that this isn't Cambodia or whatnot, that there is wealth here. Which is why it's pathetic that the wealth is not distributed, and that there's 27% poverty according to European standards, and that 80% of Chileans live on less than $400/month, which violates their dignity.
RICARDO LAGOS should have stayed consistent with his own earlier philosophies, and reigned in the power of economic groups, but he did just the opposite, and exacerbated for Chile what is a growing global trend of inequality and environmental destruction.
Now he's a professor at Brown University.
Don't let the occasional anonymous drive by shooter discourage you, Chileno, you're pretty informed on a lot of topics and have a good eye for the elephants in the room the chileans try to avoid looking at.
If you have time, let me recommend some reading. "The Economic History of Latin America", by Victor Bulmer Thomas, is a very worthwhile read, though at times a bit dense.
Another worthwhile read is "Chile: legacy of hispanic capitalism" by Brian Loveman. If you have trouble finding them, fire me off an email and maybe I can help you.
Hope the strike today doesn't ruin your commute too much.
nos vemos
Once again, nice post.
Concerning the industrilisation, I 'm not sure that trying to compete with a billion chinese who make 40$ a month is very interesting. And chilean handcraft is very poor. "Los Industrialistas "are an historical movement in Chile, and according to them, we should process everything, and once, it was that way.
Today with globalisation, that would mean be like northern Mexico, a maquiladora paradise. Except there is no cheap energy in Chile.
Selling what the earth produces in addition to the raw, is a major improvement, as for decades Chile only sold it's own soil ( guano, salitre, copper ..).
The actual path is not going anywhere, almost every one with some degree of intelligence knows that ,but U-turn is not an option.
Personnally I would find very sad to see that beautiful land covered with factories and power plants.
For me ,one of the keys of Chile's future, is the control of the lithium/copper market with the local currency, and try no matter how to get out of the US$ price trap.
But I admit, I am a monetarist ...
NB : I'm not so fluent in inglich, so if you see major grammar non sense, just edit it please :-)
Christian, your kind words have a much greater impact than the drive-by's. The latter is just dumbass chatter that I let slip through sometimes if I think I can make some use out of it. Hopefully it doesn't bore you guys too much.
Anyway, I'll check out those books both are easy to find and I'm traveling to the states soon so I'll pick 'em up.
Lagos: your "inglich" ;-) is not an impediment at all and you bring up thought-provoking counterarguments, but I gotta dig in: your basic premise that the Chilean labor economy would have to hinge on that of China -- well, sure, if it's laissez-faire like Chile currently is. But if you think outside the box a little you can see that, well, a truly representational government would place controls on the businesses exporting Chile's niche materials, so that in order do business in Chile you would have to process materials here, and pay good wages to skilled labor. (And of course the fed would simultaneously invest in educating Chileans, too). Note, again, that Chile's resources are "niche" and that Bachelet's Secretary General himself countered investors' argument against raising wages, pointing out that businesses WON'T flee simply because Chile has a lot of what other countries don't have.
I don't know how on earth you equate skilled labor to somehow turning every last inch of Chile into Ciudad Juarez (Mexico), it sounds more like an impressionistic, FUD (fear, uncertainty & doubt) type of pro-establishment argument to me.
Anyway, how would "freedom from the US$ price trap" help the Chilean people?
Chile's economic history is a boom and bust chronology ; since the XIX° century, every global recession or crisis have always impacted Chile very hard. There is an study from PUC university who advances that the most impacted country during the 1930's depression was Chile, and it would have taken 50 years to turn the page ...
Why that ? Chile has always made good money selling his raw, but once a decade, the prices fall, and the exchange rate goes wherever it wants.
Combine both and you have a nice recession or worst.
The chicago boys in the 80's thought they had found the solution : a pegged exchange rate between the US$ and the CHP$. LOL. In 82/83 the country suffered the most dramatic financial crisis since 1930, very similar to the argentinian crisis 18 years later.
I believe that's why " long term " remains a concept in latin-america :-)
Hacienda today do not want to touch the money from the boom, they don't even want it to get into the country for not appreciate the CHP$ rate and iritate the exporters cartel. They might be right, the probability of a major recession are bigger every day ( thanks to the US$ bubble, the visible part of the iceberg being the subprime loans market).
The dificulty of financing long term projects make them inexistant.
That's why I claim that as long as Chile will sells his products in a foreign market in another's foreign country currency, their hands are tied.
NB: Good news, the economists have predicted 5 of the last 3 recessions :-)
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my left of topic question... My head's swollen and I'm not sure how much will remain tomorrow but I appreciate it...
I didn't take anything you'd written as a call to arms, vive! that sort of thing... The tone just insinuated to me that the Chilean economy/society sits suspended in time so any movement or development would be growing from the ground up... I guess that could be a revolution of sorts but I wasn't thinking of coups, tanks with flowers coming out the barrels or the US airlifting people to safety from the roof of the palace...
I, of course, have many more questions but I know you've moved on to more immediate issues to discuss so I won't harass you any further on this line... The continued mention of natural resources (lithium/copper), however, causes some heart palpitations... Heavy metal extraction has historically been a pretty toxic enterprise with no real ground made on repairing the damage done... I know we use a lot of copper and lithium but it seems that re-examining the use and working more on reuse is key if people still want a livable environment down the road... Originally I was wondering how Chile could develop a more white collar/information based economy to shift away from the industrial option while not resulting in a Cuba type situation where everyone with a PhD is driving cabs or paying their savings to risk death in the Caribbean...
Obviously I should check out these books Christian suggests...
One more thing anonymous fucknut,
>>>You set up a blog, and all you write is shit about your host country.
Dude if you read this blog I've fucking encouraged people to come to Chile, this blog effectively closed the sale for one commenter a while back who moved his family here. We can estimate FOUR more people coming here to leach off Chile's overflowing public resources, the free education and public health care for foreigners - ha!
On top of that I have friends visiting me here, yo, the more I think about it Chile is waaay indebted to me so use your energy to petition for my renumeration, bitch. "Host Country" you owe me a big THANK YOU for Christ's sake. Your welcome.
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