Chile: the balanced view : a recopilation of articles about the Allende years and after

communityand its cilizens, contenting itself with only setting the policies and generating the conditions which will allow individuals lo see their own problems, choose their solu– tions and assume the responsibility of their fulfillment This is not only because the national emergency requires the real efforts of all Chileans, but because ofthe conviction that ís the most effective way of advancíng all the people to a 'way of life that has access to all the benefits of modern culture. This is whytodiiythe State has kept as its field of direct action onlythe sectors that have a strategic importance for national devalopment. We wish the people to stop thinking of the State being the entity responsible for solving all their problems, ranging from the financial requirements of a productive activity to the problems of supplies in a densely peopled lower class neighbourhood. I\lowadays the authorities inform wholly on the present-day conditions, ease legal channels, create the infrastructure and then motívate the interested party or parties so that they seek and carry out their own solutions. Such an aim could not be carried out with justice if at the same time an authentic equality of opportunities were not granted to all citizens. " .- This aim will now be carried out in Chile by giving a compensation to all those who, for reasons out oftheir reach or power, are in a lesser situation in the competitive medium that we are establishing so as to make optimum use of our scarce resources. Concretely, it consists of a policy of mínimum wages and farlily allowances that are equivalent for all, in a plan for erasing extreme poverty that includes a national program of nutrition, and the elimination of the thousands of temporary camps in which a large atnount of the population lives, the real access to education, including adult programs, medical service at everybody's reach, a reform of the welfare system, and the rapid carrying out of investment programs that have a high figure of man labour so as to absorb the unemploy- ~~. . These programs, plus the recently approved tax dispositions, make up a plan of income redistribution which is a balanced solution between the social policies of sharcd sacrificewhich the country demands, and the economic growth it urgently requires. The limits of current resources and the bankruptcy of the economlc system discovered in September 1973, make the carrying out of these social programs even more urgen!, as the improvement that economic progress will bring to the poorer peóple, will take a period of time which, credibly enough, to them will seem excessively long. In keeping with the principal aim of incorporating all the people into the development efforts, we are convinced that it is not only a possible, but an imperative need of the times we live in, to attract the interest of the workers with conditions that will motivate the accumulation of resources destined to be used in efficient enterprises that will produce goodsand provide services. To do this, the Government has begun to work on the wording of a Social Statute for Enterprises, and will proceed to carry out its clauses in the measure in which they may be appl icable to all enterprises, since one cannot ignore the cultural and educational charac– teristics which workers have tOday, nor the different demands of capital and technology of each enterprise depending on its type of activity. Simultaneously, we are backing new schemes, already functioning in many cases, and which go from the promotion of coopera– tives, not only of productots but of consumers and workers, to new systems of control or surveillance by the State oí some activities which, although of certain importance, do not justify the spending ofthe scanty fiscal resources so as to control them through ownershi p. Before referring to the aims and programs of economic development, the basic conditions which influenced the distribution of the resources of the Chilean economy during the last 40 years, should be mentioned. As a matteroffact, from a régime with a realistic exchange, low customs protection and high exportation that existed until the crisis of 1929, Chile passed suddenly to a period of chronic shortage of hard currency. Protective measures, originally planned to inhibit importation, ended up being an incentive for a policy of industrial development based on 210