We can always read the words of Friedman himself on his role in Chile. One thing I know for an absolute certainty is that if there is a disjunct between the leftist narrative and Friedman's discussion, then Friedman is to be believed. Years ago, I was in the business of manufacturing leftist narrative, and I recognize it when I see it.

Here is part of an interview done by PBS with Friedman in 2000:

On His Role in Chile Under Pinochet

INTERVIEWER: Tell us about some of the abuse you had to suffer and the degree to which you were seen as a figure out on the fringes.

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Well, I wouldn't call it abuse, really. (laughs) I enjoyed it. The only thing I would call abuse was in connection with the Chilean episode, when Allende was thrown out in Chile, and a new government came in that was headed by Pinochet. At that time, for an accidental reason, the only economists in Chile who were not tainted with the connection to Allende were a group that had been trained at the University of Chicago, who got to be known as the Chicago Boys. And at one stage I went down to Chile and spent five days there with another group -- there were three or four of us from Chicago -- giving a series of lectures on the Chilean problem, particularly the problem of inflation and how they should proceed to do something about it. The communists were determined to overthrow Pinochet. It was very important to them, because Allende's regime, they thought, was going to bring a communist state in through regular political channels, not by revolution. And here, Pinochet overthrew that. They were determined to discredit Pinochet. As a result, they were going to discredit anybody who had anything to do with him. And in that connection, I was subject to abuse in the sense that there were large demonstrations against me at the Nobel ceremonies in Stockholm. I remember seeing the same faces in the crowd in a talk in Chicago and a talk in Santiago. And there was no doubt that there was a concerted effort to tar and feather me.

INTERVIEWER: It seems to us that Chile deserves a place in history because it's the first country to put Chicago theory into practice. Do you agree?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: No, no, no. Not at all. After all, Great Britain put Chicago theory in practice in the 19th century. (amused) The United States put the Chicago theory in practice in the 19th and 20th century. I don't believe that's right.

INTERVIEWER: You don't see Chile as a small turning point, then?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: It may have been a turning point, but not because it was the first place to put the Chicago theory in practice. It was important on the political side, not so much on the economic side. Here was the first case in which you had a movement toward communism that was replaced by a movement toward free markets. See, the really extraordinary thing about the Chilean case was that a military government followed the opposite of military policies. The military is distinguished from the ordinary economy by the fact that it's a top-down organization. The general tells the colonel, the colonel tells the captain, and so on down, whereas a market is a bottom-up organization. The customer goes into the store and tells the retailer what he wants; the retailer sends it back up the line to the manufacturer and so on. So the basic organizational principles in the military are almost the opposite of the basic organizational principles of a free market and a free society. And the really remarkable thing about Chile is that the military adopted the free-market arrangements instead of the military arrangements.

INTERVIEWER: When you were down in Chile you spoke to some students in Santiago. In your own words, can you tell me about that speech in Santiago?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Sure. While I was in Santiago, Chile, I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile. Now, I should explain that the University of Chicago had had an arrangement for years with the Catholic University of Chile, whereby they send students to us and we send people down there to help them reorganize their economics department. And I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile under the title "The Fragility of Freedom." The essence of the talk was that freedom was a very fragile thing and that what destroyed it more than anything else was central control; that in order to maintain freedom, you had to have free markets, and that free markets would work best if you had political freedom. So it was essentially an anti-totalitarian talk. (amused)

INTERVIEWER: So you envisaged, therefore, that the free markets ultimately would undermine Pinochet?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Oh, absolutely. The emphasis of that talk was that free markets would undermine political centralization and political control. And incidentally, I should say that I was not in Chile as a guest of the government. I was in Chile as the guest of a private organization.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think the Chile affair damaged your reputation, or more importantly, made it harder for you to get your ideas across?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: That's a very hard thing to say, because I think it had effects in both directions. It got a lot of publicity. It made a lot of people familiar with the views who would not otherwise have been. On the other hand, in terms of the political side of it, as you realize, most of the intellectual community, the intellectual elite, as it were, were on the side of Allende, not on the side of Pinochet. And so in a sense they regarded me as a traitor for having been willing to talk in Chile. I must say, it's such a wonderful example of a double standard, because I had spent time in Yugoslavia, which was a communist country. I later gave a series of lectures in China. When I came back from communist China, I wrote a letter to the Stanford Daily newspaper in which I said, '"It's curious. I gave exactly the same lectures in China that I gave in Chile. I have had many demonstrations against me for what I said in Chile. Nobody has made any objections to what I said in China. How come?"

INTERVIEWER: In the end, the Chilean [economy] did quite well, didn't it?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Oh, very well. Extremely well. The Chilean economy did very well, but more important, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society.

[I have taken the unusual step of copying the entire text of this part of the interview so that there is no excuse for glossing over it. The entire interview is available at the link, and involves wider topics. Damning an academic like Friedman and his ideas for the sake of demagoguery, using falsehoods and half-truths is reprehensible. Honest is to discuss his ideas head on.]

I recall reading that under Marxist Allende, the inflation rate was hitting 500% - that's not a typo -- (early Mugabe levels, another Marxist loser), and Friedman - iirc -- focused on inflation rates, bless his soul!

ring a bell w/anyone??

The lefties can't comprehend that soaring inflation rates disproportionaly harm the very 'masses' they profess to champion.

imo, the agenda is to deflect from the economic success, by focusing on their sphere -- social justice and human rights -- which is fine! but recongize it a diversionary tactic.

and Pinochet, the Fascist, still had more cajones by putting himself up the to voting process (albeit reluctantly) versus their hero, Castro, who in 47! and counting years, does not trust his own people.

If I absolutely had to choose between the two? I'd take Pinochet, simply b/c he ran a better economy.

...diary. And, since it interests me, I’ll commit to writing it as soon as I have time in the coming weeks (I have to go "freely" contract my body so I can eat and keep this roof over my head).

For now, a couple of observations:

Any discussion of the Chilean “economic miracle” that neglects to mention the two deep recessions suffered in less than a decade, the polarization of income distribution, the sharp cuts in social spending and concomitant rise in poverty, or the disastrous state of the pension system, is just as "sloppy" a narrative, one that "pieces events and intents together in false ways so as to attack a larger idea," democracy and popular sovereignty.

Friedman rejects the very notion of the polity “interfering” in the market – to him, “profit-making is the very essence of democracy.” This perverse understanding is at odds with what most people perceive as democratic; I suspect rather more would agree with Alexis de Tocqueville’s conception, that democracy rests firmly upon the “equality of conditions” – one person, one vote NOT one dollar, one vote.

As I said, Milton may well have expressed dislike for the tactics of the Pinochet regime, but he was more troubled by Allende's machinations: you simply can't have the government distributing milk to malnourished children—the proper role of the state is to smash unions and increase the “flexibility” of the labor market. People sure are more “flexible” when they’re hooded, upside down, with electrodes protruding from their genitals.