How an eccentric English tech guru helped guide Allende's socialist Chile
Stafford Beer pioneered ‘cybernetic management principles’ but Pinochet’s coup saw technology turned to nefarious ends
John Bartlett
Sat 22 Jul 2023 06.30 EDT
Stafford Beer pioneered ‘cybernetic management principles’ but Pinochet’s coup saw technology turned to nefarious ends
In the autumn of 1971, an ambitious young engineer from Talca, central Chile, strode into the lobby of the exclusive Athenaeum Club on London’s Pall Mall to meet Stafford Beer, an eccentric Surrey insider he had long admired.
Fernando Flores had been appointed head of Chile’s Production and Development Corporation (Corfo) by the socialist president Salvador Allende at just 26 years of age, and amid a rush of excitement for Allende’s plans, hoped to present Beer with his vision for a technology-driven, state-led economic model.
Beer was frustrated by the lack of traction his ideas were getting in Britain – he had pioneered “cybernetic management principles”, the science of effective organisation, which inspired Flores – and was quick to agree.
The meeting would blossom into a dizzying, experimental collaboration in Allende’s Chile – one of cold war Latin America’s fiercest battlegrounds – and the fruition of the Cybersyn Project, a futuristic plan for a modern socialist economy.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/22/stafford-beer-chile-allende-technology-cybernetics