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September marks the 50th anniversary of Chile's 1973 coup, where General Pinochet ousted Salvador Allende's democratically elected government, leading to 17 years of military rule. Allende, elected in 1970, pushed for radical reforms like raising the minimum wage, free school meals, and land redistribution. He also had a visionary plan to use computer and communications technology for social, economic, and political change. Chile's experiment with democratic socialism showed how political innovation can drive technological advancements, making science, technology, and design key features of their socialist journey.

But was Allende's techno-utopia ever going to work in reality, or was it just a socialist pipe dream? Click on to find out.

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On September 4, 1970, Salvador Allende was elected as Chile's president, leading the Popular Unity (UP) coalition. His government was spearheaded by the Socialist Party of Chile and the Communist Party.

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After taking office, the new government launched a nationalization program and the US-owned copper industry, as well as a significant portion of the banking sector, were taken into state ownership. By early 1972, all mining companies and 68 other firms were brought into the public sector.

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Chile's nationalization of copper was seen as a major achievement of Allende's tenure, and the working class was highly enthusiastic about his government, which quickly improved living standards.

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Chile stood out in Latin America by maintaining the longest period of uninterrupted democratic rule from 1932 to 1973. Allende's commitment to peaceful socialist change and the free expression of ideas sharply contrasted with the political turmoil in neighboring countries like Argentina and Brazil.

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Chile was also a focal point in the global Cold War. Between 1962 and 1969, Chile received over a billion dollars in US aid through the Alliance for Progress—more than any other Latin American nation. The US aimed to improve Chilean living standards to prevent the poor and working classes from embracing communism.

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Bringing Chile’s key industries under state control was central to Allende’s political platform, posing significant management challenges. Members of the Chilean government agreed that electronic computers and the interdisciplinary science of cybernetics could assist in managing the country's economic transition.

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Allende appointed 28-year-old engineer Fernando Flores as General Technical Manager of CORFO, the department overseeing nationalization. Flores was also keen on using revolutionary computer technology to plan the nationalized industries.

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In mid-1971, Flores reached out to British management consultant Stafford Beer, a pioneer in management cybernetics—using feedback and information within closed systems. Flores sought Beer's advice on integrating these theories into a potential computerized economic planning system.

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While it's challenging to universally define the interdisciplinary, postwar science known as "cybernetics," one of the field's originators, MIT mathematician Norbert Wiener, provides a widely-cited description. In 1948, he described cybernetics as the study of "control and communication in the animal and the machine."

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Some members of the cybernetics community saw cybernetics as a universal language for the scientific study of machines, organisms, and organizations. Cybernetic thinking influenced later work in information theory, computing, cognitive science, engineering, biology, social science, and industrial management.

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In a letter to Beer, Flores expressed familiarity with his work in management cybernetics and noted he was "now in a position to implement scientific views on management and organization at a national scale, where cybernetic thinking becomes essential."

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Excited by the idea's potential, Beer left his other consulting work to focus on Cybersyn (Synco in Spanish)—an information support system to aid decision-making in nationalized industries, with a focus on workers' control and management. Beer traveled to Santiago to meet Allende and convinced him of the project's value.

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Cybersyn was a groundbreaking innovation, being one of the first large-scale computer systems used outside military and scientific fields. In many ways, it was the great-grandparent of modern "big data," but it focused on using data for societal benefits rather than capitalist profit.

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Cybersyn's design had four components. Part one, Cybernet, involved installing Telex machines in every state-owned company to create a near-real-time communication network between industries and the government. While this may seem normal in 2023, it was a huge leap forward in 1971.

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Part two of Cybersyn was Cyberstride, a suite of programs designed to collect, process, and distribute data in a useful format across the network.

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Part three of Cybersyn was CHECO, the most ambitious component, but it ultimately never came to fruition. A predecessor to modern-day algorithms, it was designed to be a real-time model of the Chilean economy, providing data to predict potential future economic outcomes based on government actions.

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Finally, part four was the Opsroom, a futuristic room with seven swivel chairs in a circle, surrounded by screens displaying data from shops and factories. One wall was dedicated to Cyberfolk, an unfinished project designed by Beer to allow Chilean citizens to provide direct feedback on their life satisfaction and happiness.

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Throughout 1972, work on Project Cybersyn progressed. However, in October, a pivotal event changed the trajectory of Allende's government and the project. Thousands of Chilean truck owners initiated a national strike, plunging the country into a state of emergency.

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The October Strike also reshaped how Beer and Flores perceived the interplay between technology and politics. While Flores still saw value in Cybersyn, he realized it couldn't handle the vast economic and political issues in Chile or alter the country's societal structure; the human factor was, as usual, largely unpredictable.

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Even if Project Cybersyn's technological components were fully operational, the system couldn't tackle issues like dissatisfied students, runaway inflation, lack of foreign credit, falling copper prices, black-market hoarding, and potential violence.

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Despite being unfinished, Cybersyn proved valuable. Allende used real-time data from the system to plan and respond to the truck drivers' strike, and by staying in direct contact with around 200 loyal truck drivers, the government ensured the movement of essential goods to areas with the greatest need.

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Afterward, the government utilized Cybersyn to generate daily reports on national goods production and transportation, which enabled them to swiftly respond to crises or sabotage. What previously took around six months to collate and process was now done in real-time!

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Beer emphasized that the tools he was developing in Chile were "people’s tools," designed for and in consultation with Chilean workers. However, critics from the Chilean opposition argued that Cybersyn resembled a new form of high-tech government surveillance, potentially leading to increased control and abuse.

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In 1973, Project Cybersyn met its premature end when a US-supported military coup led by Augusto Pinochet overthrew the Chilean government. This ushered in a right-wing dictatorship and initiated a rapid economic liberalization program.

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In post-socialist Chile, marked by military rule and economic neoliberalism, a distributed cybernetic system like Cybersyn has little relevance for monitoring and managing the national economy.

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By the time of his overthrow, Allende had nationalized around 40% of Chile's economy. Of the state-owned 40%, about 27% was utilizing Cybersyn, which was a significant success for an experimental technology of that era.

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Today, Cybersyn is a footnote in the history of the information age, but it remains a powerful example of the interconnected nature of technology, power, and politics. We've since witnessed distributed communication technologies, especially the internet, radically transform society—driven by user behavior, market forces, and political actors shaping its course.

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Nevertheless, there is potential for such a system to integrate with hardware like manufacturing robots and delivery drones, streamlining economic processes further. It could integrate with every aspect of the economy—one of Project Cybersyn's weaknesses was its focus on manufacturing and goods transport, neglecting clerical and other sectors.

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In recent years, tech workers have organized, joined trade unions, and taken action against the actions of Silicon Valley decision-makers. These skills could be vital for developing technology in the coming period, and by building on the foundation of the Cybersyn project, they might streamline production processes and help humanity reach its full potential.

Sources: (The MIT press) (Farsight)