Dean Baker on Chile and Social Security

 Leaving Things Out of the Leaving Things Out Critique

The Washington Post beats up on a book on globalization by Jon Jeter, a former WAPO reporter. The book is largely critical of the recent course of globalization, the reviewer clearly less so.

In the last paragraph the reviewer takes Jeter to task for praising Chile's globalization with a human face, without mentioning, among other things, that Chile was the first country to privatize its Social Security system. While this may have been an unfortunate omission, it is worth noting that Chile recently partially reversed this privatization, increasing the guaranteed benefit in the system.

The reform of the privatized system was a central theme in the last presidential campaign (Chile is now a democracy, the privatization took place under a dictatorship), with both major candidates supporting reform, including Sebastian Pinero, the brother of the labor minister who had overseen the initial privatization.

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols