We have a black guy as president. That simply would not have happened even 20 years ago. At protests, even relatively minor nastiness by police is filmed and broadcast immediately. Look up what the police did in some places in the 60ies as a comparison. We have the internet to get information out about various things.
It's easy to see and complain about the bad things, and right to do so, or else they wouldn't improve. It's also worth considering though, that things have improved in many ways.
> Chile for instance, has a culture that is more instinctively capitalist.
I don't know much about Chile, but didn't they vote in a guy who was more or less a communist in the 70ies? Who was then murdered, along with many people, by a brutal dictator, who put in place many capitalist institutions? Which do turn out to work better than the alternative in many cases, so they've been kept? I don't know what the average 'man on the street's view of the whole thing is though. Is it possible the capitalism was kind of foisted on the country and has stuck because it more or less works, but that it's not all that ingrained into the culture? I have no idea, honestly, but do think the Startup Chile thing is pretty cool even if they didn't accept me.
It's worth mentioning that the CIA did everything they could to prevent that "communist guy" from being elected and govern peacefully, and once his government was overthrown it offered all its support to that "brutal dictator", by their own admittance https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/chile/....
They actually have seemed to pick fairly sensible, middle of the road type of people after having ditched Pinochet, rather than lurching to the other extreme.
It seems like a country that's doing pretty well, but I honestly have no idea what things are like 'on the ground'.
My comment was tongue in cheek. However, I did think the GP's comment about Chile being "instinctively capitalist" was a bit ridiculous considering the country's history.
We have a black guy as president. That simply would not have happened even 20 years ago. At protests, even relatively minor nastiness by police is filmed and broadcast immediately. Look up what the police did in some places in the 60ies as a comparison. We have the internet to get information out about various things.
It's easy to see and complain about the bad things, and right to do so, or else they wouldn't improve. It's also worth considering though, that things have improved in many ways.
> Chile for instance, has a culture that is more instinctively capitalist.
I don't know much about Chile, but didn't they vote in a guy who was more or less a communist in the 70ies? Who was then murdered, along with many people, by a brutal dictator, who put in place many capitalist institutions? Which do turn out to work better than the alternative in many cases, so they've been kept? I don't know what the average 'man on the street's view of the whole thing is though. Is it possible the capitalism was kind of foisted on the country and has stuck because it more or less works, but that it's not all that ingrained into the culture? I have no idea, honestly, but do think the Startup Chile thing is pretty cool even if they didn't accept me.