All three performed magical good deeds. But Cinderella's pumpkin did not really turn into a coach. The Miracle of Chile, too, is just another fairy tale.
Chile can claim some economic success.
But that is the work of Salvador Allende - who saved his nation, miraculously, a decade after his death. Quite a miracle. Pinochet did not destroy Chile's economy all alone. It took nine years of hard work by the most brilliant minds in world cademia, a gaggle of Milton Friedman's trainees, the Chicago Boys. Under the spell of their theories, the General abolished the minimum wage, outlawed trade union bargaining rights, privatised the pension system, abolished all taxes on wealth and on business profits, slashed public employment, privatised 212 state industries and 66 banks and ran a fiscal surplus.