What went right in Chile ?

Now we learn that Augusto Pinochet was not just a fascist mass murderer but also a crook so why did not only per capita GDP but even the physical quality of life improve so much in Chile from 1973 to 1990 ? The mass murder was public.  The crookedness is, sad to say, demonstrated by the corruption of my mom's bank -- Riggs -- the first bank I ever saw, which seems mainly to have specialised in money laundering.  The claim that Chile has done well by the Chileans is based on the work of the noted righties Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze (Dreze Jr is lefty enough to  make Sen look like Milton Friedman).

I really should know the answer, but I would like to hazard a guess.   The timing of Pinochet's coup and the association with the CIA's destabilisation of the Allende administration made Chile an international pariah.  I wonder if that wasn't the secret to sustained growth.   More particularly, money center banks might have been relatively reluctant to loan to Chile because of the bad publicity.  In contrast, they were eagerly investing in the Brazilian economic miracle (dated 1966-1973) and generally reclycling OPEC money to the rest of Latin America with crumbs for Africa. 

Then, surprise suprise, there was a debt crisis.   Who ever would have thought ? Well Charles Kindleberger for one who predicted it in the edition of Manias, Bubbles and Crashes which I read.

I wonder to what extent the secret of success is a cold shoulder from the lords of the world economy.  I think of recent international financial crises: Argentina, Russia, East Asia, and Mexico.  Each victim had recently been the darling of the money center banks and pro-market commentators.   I honestly suspect that the affection of the money center banks is the kiss of death for a developing economy.

It is certainly true that mainstream pro market commentators on economics (including leading economists) always seem to discover anti market policies in crisis hit countries whose success  last decade had been evidence that they were right.