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Cybersyn And Early Uniminds 339

Posted by Hemos from the i-can-see-your-house-from-up-here dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian Website is running a story on Cybersyn. An experimental computer network based on cybernetic principles that was used by Chile's revolutionary government between 1971 and 1973 to provide a real-time, decentralized form of economic analysis in the nationalized sector of the Chilean economy. The network has been described as Chile's Internet. There is a photo of the control room which looks something like the deck of the Starship Enterprise. The whole thing was the brainchild of Stafford Beer, a sort of British Buckminster Fuller. All very Orwellian and Big Brother, the whole experiment was brought to an end by the CIA sponsored coup d'etat on the September 11th, 1973."
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Cybersyn And Early Uniminds

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  • As opposed to "nutritional principles"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rot26 ( 240034 ) * on Monday September 08, 2003 @07:45AM (#6898777) Homepage Journal
    I bet "Cybernetic Principles" sounded really groovy in 1971, although I'm curious how you can build a computer network, or a computer-anything for that matter, without them.

    • Re:As opposed to "nutritional principles"? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Cybernetics is the application of control processes from biological systems to artificial systems. So you can build a computer network with no reference to biological systems, and you have built that network without cybernetics. This system, however, was built on cybernetic principles.

      • Re:As opposed to "nutritional principles"? (Score:5, Informative)

        by AJWM ( 19027 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @12:48PM (#6901696) Homepage
        Cybernetics is the application of control processes from biological systems to artificial systems.

        You're thinking of bionics. (Although the definition you give isn't exact for that, either). Cybernetics is the study of control and communication in both living and non-living systems.

        Here are the dictionary links:
        bionics [hyperdictionary.com]
        cybernetics [hyperdictionary.com]

        (Triva note: the term "cybernetics" was coined by Norbert Wiener, "bionics" was coined by Dr. Jack Steele -- my father-in-law)
    • I need to check a history book, but I think both computers and telephone networks existed in 1971. I think maybe there was even color TV. I suspect the reason that people couldn't hook a ton of cool gadgets to the telephone system in the US was more a matter of the AT&T monopoly than lack of imagination.

      Most of the ideas that we think are cool today are really just twists or refinement of ideas that have been around for a long time.
    • I bet "Cybernetic Principles" sounded really groovy in 1971

      True. But when Staff wrote 'Cybernetics and Management" in 1959, the idea that you could apply Wiener's 1948 observational theories to real enterprises, let alone an entire national economy, has got to have been one of the all-time crazy ideas. Like Team Syntegrity (part of the Viable Systems Model [staffordbeer.com], kicking off from the idea that every imaginable system can in some sense be modelled as an icosahedron), based on Buckminster Fuller's idea that 'al

  • Cybersin ? (Score:4, Funny)

    by makapuf ( 412290 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @07:46AM (#6898784)
    First thought it was about pr0n or Kazaa (or using blink tags), but no.

  • Not quite the internet (Score:5, Funny)

    by Brento ( 26177 ) * <brento@br[ ]ozar.com ['ent' in gap]> on Monday September 08, 2003 @07:48AM (#6898791) Homepage
    Voters, workplaces and the government were to be linked together by a new, interactive national communications network, which would transform their relationship into something profoundly more equal and responsive than before - a sort of socialist internet, decades ahead of its time.

    Uhhh, no, that's nothing like the Internet, actually. The Internet links men with chicks, to transform their relationship into something profoundly more equal and responsive than before - the guys shell out money and get pr0n. Nothing socialist about it, and certainly nothing to do with voters.

  • hey now.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08, 2003 @07:48AM (#6898793)
    That doesn't look like the deck of the Enterprise. Just seven captain's chairs, and nothing else. And that would suck. One Captain Kirk, given Shatner's overacting, annoying enough. Seven of them would just plain suck.

  • CIA sponsored coup d'etat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08, 2003 @07:51AM (#6898815)
    How can the americans say so lightly that cia organised a coup, and in the same breath ask why people around the world dislike them?

    34

    • Re:CIA sponsored coup d'etat (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:04AM (#6898905)
      For a couple of reasons.
      Firstly, the USA is an extremely large country, and only has one neighbour of any relative population size. This helps make the USA far more of a self-contained world than just about any other country out there. It also means that ~97% of television content is locally produced, furthering this.

      America is extremely nationalistic and has a national myth of grandious pridefulness 2nd to very few. Most Americans don't want to tolerate anything that gets in the way of that nationalism. It skews the mind into thinking that Americans are superior and that foreigners are inferior, no matter what the ears hear and the eyes see.

      So if the USA is taking out governments in places like Venuzvela, Chile, Greece, Zaire etc, it is because they're 'enemies of freedom', while supporting evil regimes like the government of Turkey for 'the greater good'. I doubt anyone much in America sees the oxymoron of this.

      It was much the same with the British Empire. It stood for 'freedom' and 'christian charity' and so on. In reality, the people in power were just cold greedy sociopaths. Same with America. And the people cling to the national myth out of their personal fears, and in part because the people against the national mythos are for sociological reasons often even more dysfunctional than those for it.
      • It skews the mind into thinking that Americans are superior and that foreigners are inferior, no matter what the ears hear and the eyes see.

        Anyone who's ever tried to convince an american that their country is in the process of being fucked without ceremony by its "elected" leaders will have to agree with that.

        It's a shame to see what was and could still be a great country going to bits because so many of its citizens are either stupid, full of blind patriotism, or both.

        Daniel
      • Britain is a fairly populous and rich country that has NO neighbours at all. At the time of the empire all propoganda was internal. The Irish were not to be trusted. A highly "internalised" country if ever there was one.

        Now our media comes from 2 places. Ourselves and the US! Great! That's a healthy balanced view of the world.....

      • Re:CIA sponsored coup d'etat (Score:4, Interesting)

        by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @10:43AM (#6900275) Journal
        This was modded "INSIGHTFUL"? Too bad there's not a "+1 POLEMIC" rating.

        First paragraph - pretty much spot-on.
        Second para, 1st sentence - still ok, but drifting into empty spitefulness
        2nd P, 2nd s: hard veer into nonsense.

        "I doubt anyone much in America sees the oxymoron of this" - Based on what, your own HUMUNGOUS generalizations? Your fervently-held political beliefs?

        I think you were right at the beginning. *MOST* of America really doesn't have anything to do with the world, and doesn't want to. Why? Because they don't have to. Provincialism all over the world is being invaded by American products, advertising, and culture (such as it is). SELF-EVIDENTLY, Americans (with no cultural heritage to speak of) don't really mind this.

        Thus the furious protests against "globalization" - yes, American culture is shallow and self-serving, but at least it's more benign (as was the British Empire before it) than pretty much any conceivable global alternative, as well as a LARGE number of "local" dogmas, no matter where you are from.

        "And the people cling to the national myth out of their personal fears, and in part because the people against the national mythos are for sociological reasons often even more dysfunctional than those for it."
        I do confess this is a great statement.
      • I doubt anyone much in America sees the oxymoron of this.

        Thank you for your widely overgeneralized summary of America. One thing you forgot to mention is that the USA, believe it or no, is probably the most diverse country on the planet. If you set aside Bush & Cheny and their clone army of Christain oil barons, there is much to appreciate in the US. There are still people here who know our roots. There are statistics like there being more Irish people in parts of the US than all of Ireland. Most

      • Firstly, the USA is an extremely large country, and only has one neighbour of any relative population size. This helps make the USA far more of a self-contained world than just about any other country out there. It also means that ~97% of television content is locally produced, furthering this.
        All this is true. (It's also why people in the USA are rarely bilingual. There's no practical use for a second language for many Americans. Anyone who learns a second langauge is just doing it for the sake of rou

    • Who said we took it lightly? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MyNameIsFred ( 543994 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:08AM (#6898923)
      Your assumption is wrong, that the American people ignored the actions of the CIA. Many people in the US objected to the CIA sponsored coups. The events in Chile along other CIA sponsored coups were the primary reason that the American people forced the government to put the CIA on a leash. So did the American people recognize that something wrong was being committed in their names? Yes. Did they act to stop it? Yes.
      • And the US Administration has so obviously learned their lesson that they would never dare interfere with another South American country ever again. Yeah Right!!! [guardian.co.uk]

      • Pakistan.. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by k98sven ( 324383 )
        So did the American people recognize that something wrong was being committed in their names? Yes. Did they act to stop it? Yes.

        So.. could someone please explain to me why the USA is now best-friends with Pakistan?
        Musharraf ousted an elected civilian regime and replaced it with a military dictatorship.
        This was harshly criticized by the international community, including the USA.

        Come 9/11 and we're suddenly best friends?

        This entire "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and
        "ends-justify-the-means" mentalit
        • And then there's that whole CIA-Crack thing [namebase.org] that no one ever did anything about. If they are on a leash, someone forgot to tie off the other end of it.

        • Re:Pakistan.. (Score:3, Insightful)

          by doktor-hladnjak ( 650513 )
          So.. could someone please explain to me why the USA is now best-friends with Pakistan? Musharraf ousted an elected civilian regime and replaced it with a military dictatorship. This was harshly criticized by the international community, including the USA.

          I'm not sure I agree with the whole Pakistani bloodless coup. However, I know a lot of Pakistanis and they seem to imply that a majority of their fellow citizens had no problem with the coup. A lot of Pakistanis felt the "democratic" government had beco

      • Did they act to stop it? Yes.

        Did it have any effect?

        List of US-sponsored/CIA involvment in coups/invations in Central America from 1975:
        -Nicaragua 1979
        -El SAlvador 1979-1989
        -Grenada 1983
        -Panama 1989

        And CIA has been linked to paramilitary organizations, coups and secret operations in Puerto Rico, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Venezuela (as late as 2002).
        The list is pulled from the back off my head and prob. not complete.

        So did the act to stop CIA from doing this have any effect at all?
        IMO, no.

      • Venezuela anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by zenyu ( 248067 )
        Your assumption is wrong, that the American people ignored the actions of the CIA. Many people in the US objected to the CIA sponsored coups. The events in Chile along other CIA sponsored coups were the primary reason that the American people forced the government to put the CIA on a leash. So did the American people recognize that something wrong was being committed in their names? Yes. Did they act to stop it? Yes.

        There were hearings, the Republican administration withheld information from the Congress
        • I agree with a lot of your post except:

          Anyone remember "Iraq will be a cakewalk", want to compare today's, "We knew Iraq would not be easy"...

          It was the press that was saying the Iraq invasion would be easy, not the administration.

          And:

          While the Bush's may have stolen the last election, I'm more ashamed that it was so easy for him to actually win support of 48% of eligible voters who showed up at the polls, than less than half a million Democrats his brother illegaly removed from the rolls and a few h
    • Funny how can Britsh sit so smug when they Forced China to accept drugs so the English could have their tea. Or the French forget that they sat around or helped send thousands of Men, Women and childern to Hitlers gas chambers, Or ..... At the time the where claiming to be MARXIST. From reading the artical the CIA might have help the coup along but it seems there was a lot of support for it. The economy was in the dumper. Things where not working. At the time the US thought Marxist==evil. At the time if you
    • And your strategy for the Cold War would have been something along the lines of "Give up and die," I'd expect.
      • My strategy for the Cold War would have been to back up democratically elected regimes, such as Allendes, with massive economical aid if they were willing to turn their back to and limit trade with dicatorships. However, the US foreign policy was much more led by protecting the interests of US companies abroad. For instance, the US outrage against Castro came mostly from the nationalisation of various industries which led to large losses from the US companies that had cosied up to the previous, US friendly,
    • How can the americans say so lightly that cia organised a coup, and in the same breath ask why people around the world dislike them?

      Because Americans do; we do not reflect. We consider everything through the prism of self-interest--is it good for the U.S. or bad for the U.S.? This is probably the secret of our national strength: we're so self-absorbed and so confident of success that we don't consider alternatives, but spend our energies moving around or through whatever obstacles are in our way.

      It's telli

    • It is easy in retrospect to ignore the forces at work in the world in the 1970s. The US knew that the USSR was sponsoring coups and otherwise undermining countries throughout the world, with the ultimate intent of world conquest. This has been solidly established with the information released since the fall of the USSR, although it was obvious as early as the 1930's (and eloquently described by Winston Churchill just after World War II).

      The US (with the constant agreement and assistance of the UK, btw), ha
      • While leftists love to believe that the Allende regime was one of flowers and love and all that, in fact it had its own repressive and murderous side.

        Perhaps you would like to give some sources to back up this unsubstantiated allegation?

        The reason investment dried up was that companies were not interested in putting money into a regime which confiscated property, as Allende had done.

        Actually the reason the economy was doing bad is that the CIA did its best to cripple it. That is also in the officia

  • Chilean Enterprise (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Monday September 08, 2003 @07:52AM (#6898823) Homepage Journal

    "Computadora, te, gris del earl, caliente." :)

  • Not Orwellian at all (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08, 2003 @07:53AM (#6898825)
    At last! A /. article on my pet subject!

    The system contains strict limits on what information is passed upwards - this is how it was able to function on 1970s computer hardware over 1970s WANs. The absence of totalitarian control is a crucial design factor. There just isn't the bandwidth, nor would you want it.

    Beer is the most freedom-loving person you could hope to imagine. He designed Cybersyn to enhance freedom, not to crush it. He sadly died last year.

    For a full account of this system, read Beer's book "Brain of the Firm".

    • Re:Not Orwellian at all (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I shall go on.

      Cybersyn is the implementation of Stafford Beer's "Viable System Model" which is modelled on the working of the human nervous system.

      Totalitarianism would be like if the brain demanded to know every detail of what the hand was doing.

      The body doesn't work this way - hand control (for instance) is decentralized, with part being controlled by local "muscle memory", part being controlled where the nerves meet the spinal cord, and part being controlled at different levels of the brain. In order

    • Re:Not Orwellian at all (Score:5, Informative)

      by StaffordBeerIsMyHero ( 705229 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:19AM (#6899006)
      I shall go on. Cybersyn is the implementation of Stafford Beer's "Viable System Model" which is modelled on the working of the human nervous system. Totalitarianism would be like if the brain demanded to know every detail of what the hand was doing. The body doesn't work this way - hand control (for instance) is decentralized, with part being controlled by local "muscle memory", part being controlled where the nerves meet the spinal cord, and part being controlled at different levels of the brain. In order to prevent information overload the information passing upward is filtered at every stage to remove redundancy and irrelevancy. In Cybersyn, the workings of actual factories was monitored by a couple of IBM/370s (if memory serves) but only statistically, to throw up warning events if the stats went out of whack. These warning events would be passed up to the "industry level", where they would mostly be absorbed since the industry may be operating within tolerances even if the individual factory isnt. Only if the industry had problems would signals be passed to the "master control room". A highly moving aspect of the whole tale is that the "master control room" is a logical neccessity, but when Beer pointed it out on a system diagram to Allende, his immediate assumption was that the box represented THE PEOPLE. Actually the Cybersyn implementation couldn't be as decentralized as Beer wanted, because Chile could only afford two computers which, by their nature, had to be centralized processing units. In today's world things would be a lot different, and no doubt Beer would advocate open source as the one way to enforce that the government couldn't be collecting information it shouldn't. (Repeated because this topic finally made me get an account)

    • Re:Not Orwellian at all (Score:5, Funny)

      by tessaiga ( 697968 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:27AM (#6899058)

      Beer is the most freedom-loving person you could hope to imagine.

      Ah, this must be where the phrase "free as in Beer" I keep seeing on Slashdot comes from.

  • It's a Conspiracy - I tell you. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Crypto Gnome ( 651401 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @07:56AM (#6898846) Homepage Journal
    Just for a grin, I searched google.

    Looking there, you can find beer.

    Looking there, you can find Stafford
    eg It's in the UK [staffordbc.gov.uk] The United Kingdom is well known for its relationship to beer.

    Oddly enough, searching for both Stafford and beer returns no links about the proliferation of fermented ales in a certain part of the United Kingdom.
  • So much for the "extra something" we lefties can bring...

  • Didn't work (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jabbadabbadoo ( 599681 )
    "...cybernetic principles that was used by Chile's revolutionary government between 1971 and 1973 to provide a real-time, decentralized form of economic analysis in the nationalized sector of the Chilean economy"

    Yeah, but, well, it didn't work. What they got was a real-time view of a country going down the drain.

    I propose tagging the network RTDTDA.NET (Real-Time Down The Drain Analytic Network)

  • Chile....? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Epistax ( 544591 ) <epistax AT gmail DOT com> on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:10AM (#6898935) Journal
    I can't say why but I kept reading that as SEELE.

    /massive, ultra-nerdy reference

  • Ministry of love... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Noryungi ( 70322 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:13AM (#6898964) Homepage Journal
    Hmph. At the risk of sounding like a leftie:

    All very Orwellian and Big Brother, the whole experiment was brought to an end by the CIA sponsored coup d'etat on the September 11th, 1973.

    Why is this "Orwellian and Big Brother[ish]"? You seem to forget that the "CIA sponsored coup" was actually a pretty bloody affair itself... More than 3000 people "disappeared" (tortured and fed to the fishes), some because they were just suspected of left-of-center sypathies.

    But don't take my word for it, read the following:
    Amnesty International 1 [amnesty.org], Amnesty International 2 [amnesty.org], Amnesty International 3 [amnesty.org], Human Rights Watch [hrw.org], and even this week's Economist [economist.com], etc... I could go on, but you get my drift.

    • >

      Why is this "Orwellian and Big Brother[ish]"? You seem to forget that the "CIA sponsored coup" was actually a pretty bloody affair itself

      Two wrongs don't make a right...

      Actually, if it is a fact that CIA sponsored this specific coup, it is also a fact that Chile was in economic, social, political and juridical disarray due to Allende's allies trying to turn it into a richer, southern Cuba, with KGB aid. Between KGB and CIA, I'll side with CIA every time.

      Pacifism fails to reckon sometimes you ne

      • Re:Ministry of love... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by hummassa ( 157160 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @09:58AM (#6899798) Homepage Journal
        With the difference that Allende wanted a richer, democratic Cuba, and Pinochet is a father-of-the-people tradition-country-family do-what-I-say-or-else-i'll-throw-you-from-a-plane- above-the-Andes bloody murderer. Leandro, go talk to some chilean people. Every chilean person I met (righties, no less, I'm not talking lefties like if there was any alive today) feared Pinochet as much as the devil. They didn't like the lines to get toilet paper, too, but they wouldn't choose our friend el generalissimoAugusto.

        • >

          Allende wanted a richer, democratic Cuba

          Supposing you were right (I happen to disagree), the natural (and planned) course of the socialist revolution he was leading would have created a perhaps richer, but certainly no more democratic Cuba... even if Allende himself would have needed to be assassinated by hard-core revolutionaires later.

          If you can get past the leftist hagiography that clouds real History, Chile was already in destabilization phase of a typical revolution, with Ministers of State h

        • Sure, Allende wanted a democratic Chile: one where the tyranny of the majority was in full force. Steal from the rich, give to the poor, until everyone's poor and miserable. Not that Pinochet was any good, either.
      • Of course, some people believe that both Chile's and Cuba's economies would have been much better off if it hadn't been for the fact that the US spent huge resources destabilizing them.

        While I don't have much sympathy for Castro - while he got rid of an oppressive dictator, he doesn't exactly seem to have kept to his ideals - Allende on the other hand was democratically elected, and still had to endure massive CIA interference, and was murdered thanks to the CIA. How that qualifies to being compared to Ca

        • >

          some people believe that both Chile's and Cuba's economies would have been much better off if it hadn't been for the fact that the US spent huge resources destabilizing them.

          Yes, and some people still believe Stalin was a nice guy.

          In fact, even if the US really helped ejecting Allende and boycotts Cuba to this day, most of Chile's woes were, and Cuba's are, self-inflicted. While the Soviet Union endured, it subsidised Cuba with the equivalent of at least US$ 10G per annuum, or US$ 1K per inhabita

      • Pacifism fails to reckon sometimes you need violence to forestall even more violence and other evils.

        Or in this case you needed violence to ensure thirteen years of oppressive military dictatorship and frequent murder of members of the opposition, and assorted other evils.

        • >

          this case you needed violence to ensure thirteen years of oppressive military dictatorship and frequent murder of members of the opposition

          How is that even comparable to the much more numerous killings perpetrated in the much longer dictatorship in Cuba, which is the nearer example of what-would-have-happened?

          This taking only Latin America into account... don't even get me started about the Iron and Bamboo Curtains countries.

          It is true two wrongs don't make a right, but in this case I fear it wa

    • Shh!!! You're going to tarnish the United States' reputation as a benefactor to other nations. While you're at it, please don't mention Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, or Nicaragua either.

  • If this is Orwellian (Score:4, Insightful)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:24AM (#6899041)
    (An epithet meaning "Old-Etonian with assumed name, badly behaved Englishman with chip on shoulder dying of tuberculosis in post-war Britain, but I'll assume the usual ludicrous use of the word to mean "totalitarian") then what does that make MRPII and ERP systems? Are you suggesting, since the control available to managements nowadays is so much greater than this little low-bandwidth system, that big business is ultra-left wing and ultra-totalitarian?

    No, I don't think so either. Most sane people would think that giving a business the information it needs to stay in business is a good thing. And if you actually RTFA, you will see it describes how the system was able to keep the Chilean economy functioning during a national strike. It made the economy more resilient. Isn't that what software is supposed to do?

    I feel a major rant coming on, but it's off-topic.

    • Are you suggesting, ... that big business is ultra-left wing and ultra-totalitarian?

      No. Actually it's ultra-right wing and ultra-totalitarian. The only difference is that employees of this totalitarian system have the possibility of disengaging. Remember that Henry Ford was an early economic advisor to the Bolsheviks and businesses are still run in much the same way as in his day - the tools may have changed, but in the final analysis, it's still all about command and control.

    • While they do not have the nifty captain's chair, they DO have a room where they monitor the key financial data that affects the monetary supply and exchange rates. If they move out of expected and prescribed relations, the Fed can and does take action to adjust the amount of money supply and the rates. One of the Federal Reserve Committee headed by Allen Greenspan, deliberates and set such policies. While they do not have fine control over most aspects of production in the US, what they can DO will affe
  • ...Stafford Beer. Aaaaaaaaaggghh...

  • The US will eventually have a planned economy. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ahfoo ( 223186 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:30AM (#6899086) Journal
    It's fascinating to look at these early efforts at controlled economies and think how much better the US economy could be with a bit of technological innovation. And by innovation I don't mean another few decades of intense patent litigation.
    The lack of a national electronic currency is a glaring absence. You can hardly expect e-retailing to compete with cash when e-currency consists of credit cards issued by usurous, predatory corporate behemouths. But a conservative government has no reason to disturb the status quo of all things. A national e-currency would disrupt the existing financial industry to no end and that potential negative is much more important to a conservative government than the possible positive of helping the economy as a whole. Why trade what works for some today for what might work for many tomorrow.
    So, I understand that it's a political impossibility today, but when the government finally does awake to its responsibility to create a usable currency as it is laid out in the Consitituion, the possibilities are great. It could make a viable welfare state a reality.
    The currency could be manipulated in ways previously unheard of. People could be paid simply to live their lives and still there would be no need for inflation. Businessnes could prosper at the same time. It wouldn't have to be anti-business at all. America could never thrive without business, but it wouldn't have to. A planned economy and a thriving business world could easily exist side by side.
    I realize these ideas are still quite blasphemous, but should we reach a point of crisis trodding the well worn path, it's nice to know that there are alternatives that could be introduced before things got too bad.

    • Electronic transfers in and out of bank accounts via debit cards or ACH transfers isn't good enough? Also, guess which is the most expensive way for a retailer to take payment? Cash! It's more difficult to keep track of due to 'sticky fingers' or just plain incompetance. One also has to take the time and risk of transferring it to a bank or hiring an armored car service to pick it up.

      Our economy is as vibrant as it is because it's not planned. Bureaucracies are notoriously inefficient when it comes to

      • Having recently moved from the US to Austria, I can safely say the US banking system sucks. The electronic banking aspect is incompletely implemented and only those parts which are convent to institution are implemented. On a side note, the customer service here in Austria is also stellar compared to the standard fare in the US. Just another in a long line of incidents demonstrating the fall of the US...
    • It's fascinating to look at these early efforts at controlled economies and think how much better the US economy could be with a bit of technological innovation.

      The greatness of the USA is founded in volatility and uncertainty to a great degree. How do you plan for things never before imagined?

      It could make a viable welfare state a reality.

      I would bet stagnation soon follows. Humans are animals, and, left wanting nothing, they will become consumers to the fullest degree. Trust me, we are a long wa
    • It's fascinating to look at these early efforts at controlled economies and think how much better the US economy could be with a bit of technological innovation.

      Study economics. Planned economies are fundamentally worse than free ones. Think about it: how can a central planner know what the next big fad is going to be? Who knows best what you want: you or him? Multiply that out by 300 million souls...

      The free market is the best possible mechanism for the allocation of scarce resources (which is all

  • Captain! (Score:4, Funny)

    by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:31AM (#6899092) Homepage Journal
    "Sir! Employment dip approaching 132 mark 7!"

    "On...screen! What...could it...Sensors?"

    "Sir, it appears to be a second-class hiring anomaly. They are pointing fingers, I suggest evasive action. Our treasury is not capable of withstanding a direct attack."

    "Understood. It appears that...we can...not win this...one. Change our course to...braised shrimp and roast duck. Maximum warp!"

  • Montioned in Shockwave Rider (Score:3, Interesting)

    by handy_vandal ( 606174 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:31AM (#6899094) Homepage Journal
    The Chilean events get a mention in John Brunner's excellent novel The Shockwave Rider (Ballantine, 1975):
    When the short-lived Allende government was elected to power in Chile and needed a means of balancing that unfortunate country's precarious economy, Allende appealed to the British cyberntics expert Stafford Beer.


    Who announced that as few as ten significant quantities, reported from a handful of key locations where adequate communications facilities existed, would enable the state of the economy to be reviewed and adjusted on a day-to-day basis.

    Judging by what happened subsequently, his claim infuriated nearly as many people as did the news that there are only four elements in the human genetic code.

    -- John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider

  • a chilean perpective (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:35AM (#6899124)
    If you want to know about the chilean guy who was behind this, and what he is up to now, check this article [fastcompany.com].
    For those of you already complaining about how a bloody coup thwarted this clearly great idea, please read that article. It is very politically biased, but it shows how this guys ideas have evolved over time, and I would dare to say he wouldn't think of building such a clearly useless system now.

    A system like that cannot take individual human actions into account, it cannot deal with subjective market decisions, it cannot handle human relations. A professor at Universidad de Chile (the one the submitter mentions) told us about this system years ago, and how it seemed to be such a great idea for managing coal production (for example)... until it had to deal with a coal miners strike...

    If you want to know why such a centralized system will never be useful check econlib [econlib.org], you might learn a thing ot two.

    By the way, I'm chilean.

  • Not "Revolutionary" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by SAN1701 ( 537455 )
    Allende was democratically elected, in an election far less suspitious than what happened in Florida.

    There was an U.S. sponsored coup after, and then the most brutal regimem of the 20th century in americas took power.
    • But still "revolutionary" in terms of the policies the government supported: one of very few regimes that branded itself socialist that actually stood by fundamental Marxist principles instead of just using socialist symbolism as a justification for oppression. In that sense the Allende government was certainly revolutionary.
    • There was an U.S. sponsored coup after, and then the most brutal regimem of the 20th century in americas took power.

      Most brutal regime? I am not sure. There have been some pretty awful cases elsewhere. Certainly it was not good though. When I visited Chile during Pinochet's period in power, it was quite clear that it was a pretty repressive situation.

      However the economy under the Unity government was a total basket case, and maybe Chileans were better off under Pinochet. If it hadn't been for the coup th

  • Al Gore (Score:2, Funny)

    by brakk ( 93385 )
    So, Al Gore worked for Chile's revolutionary government in the early 70s?

  • A lot of people seem somewhat confused about exactly what Allende was, and the nature of the regime.

    It probably wasn't what you think. [dorta.com]
    • I'm not sure what you're saying here.

      There is a possibility that the elected Allende government would have deteriorated into chaos or civil war or totalitarianism. There is a possibility that it wouldn't. The article you quote obviously assumes this would be the case, by using right-wing economic models. If you use left-wing economic models this isn't so clear. Obviously all we are seeing is a difference of opinion, not "confusion about exactly what Allende was".

      I find it difficult to justify CIA in

  • Have you actually ever talked to anyone in Chile? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheNarrator ( 200498 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @11:09AM (#6900504)
    I have been to Chile many times. I've talked to people who live there. The 1970s coup was very necessary. The whole country was an economic disaster and there were massive food shortages and the country was quickly being taken over by the radical left supporters of Allende and their Cuban backers. Businesses were being nationalized and the chilean supreme court had ruled that the Allende government was violating the constitution in trying to impose communism, though they were ignored.


    Over 15 years, 3000 people were killed, but this was remarkably humane compared to the communist revolutions at the time. Around the same time in Cambodia, 3,000,000 people (That's 1000 times more people) were executed by a fanatical communist regieme. In the aftermath of Vietnam there were 10s of thousands killed in political executions.


    Communists hate Pinochet because he was the only person to ever remove a communist government from power. Up to that point it was assumed that the world would soon be 100% communist because slowly but surely every country was turning communist and no country had ever gone back.


    Today in Chile many people marvel at the non-Chilean's media's obsession with the Allende Coup. Today Chile has the best economy in Latin America, and the least corrupt, most well run government in the region that actually does a great job at promoting things like public health.

    I was there during the 2000 election between Lagos and Lavin and if you read the Chilean or Argentinan press you saw story after story about Lagos and Lavin's varying postitions on the economy, education, etc. If you read the international press the whole thing was Pinochet vs Allende , Pinochet vs Allende. It's as if you were reading about the 2000 U.S election in some newspaper and they were framing the whole thing as an election where the primary issue was the Vietnam War.

    • Re:Have you actually ever talked to anyone in Chil (Score:4, Insightful)

      by vidarh ( 309115 ) <vidar@hokstad.com> on Monday September 08, 2003 @11:32AM (#6900692) Homepage Journal
      The 1970s coup was very necessary.

      If so, then why didn't the opposition arrange demonstrations, arrange strikes without massive CIA intervention and actually manage to keep the strikes going, and demand changes?

      Fact is, Allende was democratically elected, and the opposition, even with CIA help, didn't manage to raise enough support in the population to get anywhere near overthrowing his government before they decided to start murdering innocent people.

      If Allende was so bad for Chile, why couldn't the CIA stay out of it and let Chileans decide for themselves and throw him out of power?

      And why did they support a fascist dictator if the goal was to "save" the Chilean people from suffering?

      You try to justify it by pointing to Khmer Rouge, but "forget" that Khmer Rouge and Allende had wildly differing political platforms. You also conveniently "forget" that the "communist" Khmer Rouge was finally stopped not by the US, or any of it's cronies, but by "communist" Vietnam.

      Allendes regime was different from either in that it didn't murder the opposition or anyone that ever looked like they might consider possibly opposing them, and was democratically elected. If you want to equate Allende and Pol Pot, I would submit that Mother Theresa was really Stalin in drag, and claim that it is just as plausible.

      Try telling the hundreds of thousands of people that had close friends or relatives killed because of Pinochet that the coup was "necessary", and that you think the CIA and a small group of military officers, none elected officials, had a right to take that decision on behalf of the Chilean people.

      If you truly believe that, then would you also support the removal of the US government if some small group, say Al Quaeda, decides that they think it is necessary to do so on behalf of the American people?

      If not, then who do you think have the right to decide that it is "right" to overthrow a foreign democratically elected government?

    • I would like to request that you respond to the opposing viewpoint that's listed in reply to your post. I am honestly interested in seeing some resolution between these two very opposed but also reasonable sounding positions.

      Thanks!

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