The Socialists in Chile were engaged in a project very similar to what many of their ilk have undertaken; one man, one vote, one time. I think we can be fairly certain of where Allende’s Socialist technocrats would have taken Chile, and that it would have wound up like Venezuela in even shorter order, not having the oil industry to subsidize everything until they ran it into the ground.

Coup? Maybe from the viewpoint of the Allende supporters that got rounded up and herded into the soccer stadiums instead of their intended victims… I’m really not too fond of the “conventional and accepted wisdom” vis-a-vis Pinochet and his “crimes”. He seems to have mostly been guilty of being a Chilean patriot, who listened to what the Chamber of Deputies was saying, and then did his best to undo what Allende was trying to impose via very undemocratic means. I’m sure someone will chime in to correct me, however…