Estrategia, September 1991
“Naturally, our fundamental concerns are transcendent and spiritual, but our material well-being and development is measured in terms of goods and services”
At the end of each day, people want to get home and live in peace within their own families.
At the end of the day, they want to feel having done a great, dignified and useful job; they want to have the assurance of receiving an adequate income, or at least the expectation that such income would improve along the lines of their current or of an alternative line of work.
At the end of each day, people will also decide how to increase their own well-being with such income.
In this respect, Professor Paul A. Samuelson points out that one of the main economic problems is that of poor societies that continue to struggle to develop. As he begins his analysis of this topic, he does so by quoting Francis Hacketts, who asserted: “I believe in all the outcomes of a healthy materialism: a good kitchen, a leak free house, an adequate sewage system, plumbing, hot water, bathrooms, electric light, cars, good roads, new ideas. I believe that all of that should be available to everyone.”
Such a statement might sound excessively materialistic considering that our fundamental and spiritual concerns are indeed transcendental; nevertheless, our material well-being and development is measured in terms of goods and services.
In an earlier article I quoted the Chilean economist, Jorge Ahumada, whose seminal book, En Vez de la Miseria(Instead of Misery) published in the 1960s depicted Chile’s low quality of life, as follows: “Suffice it to recall our child mortality rates, huge housing deficits, dietary deficiencies, the fact that our schooling term averages to a mere three years of primary education, the lack of durable goods such as telephones, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and other similar products then labeled in our country as if they were symbols of wealth.”
It is noteworthy that such a distinguished professor of economics, regarded as “progressive” in those days, considered then that the possibility of buying such durable consumer goods reflected a sort of wealth.
A new indicator of economic wellbeing, denominated the Human Development Index, was calculated and published in May 1990, defining it as the process of expanding human choices, mainly that of a long and healthy lifetime, education, and access to goods and services allowing a decent standard of living. Interestingly, the goods encompassed in the calculation of that index were basically the same as those alluded in Professors Ahumada’s and Samuelson’s above-transcribed statements.
In this sense, among another benefits, the opening of foreign trade operations meant the real possibility of directly importing many durable consumer goods, or of importing machinery and equipment to produce them in Chile. Such is the case of refrigerators, washing machines, cars, and televisions all of which are nowadays present in a much higher proportion in Chilean homes than 20 or 30 years ago.
This beneficial outcome for Chileans was obtained despite the voices of some specialists who opposed what they referred to as an outlandish free trade theory, alluding to the problems often arising from over-branding and issues regarding equipment models, spare parts, inadequate technical services, the proliferation of sanitary goods, etc. The state was then supposed to intervene and “put order.” Happily, those specialists were unsuccessful in their bids and projections; and we hope that they continue to be so in the future.
Thus, if we continue developing based on our individual freedoms, private efforts, and sustained quality work we may, at the end of each day, continue to increase Chileans’ quality-of-life options.
