Networked Information and Industrial Output: Evidence from Chile’s 1972 Truckers’ Strike

This paper examines Cybersyn — Chile's cybernetic coordination system under Salvador Allende — during the October 1972 national truckers' strike, which cut aggregate industrial output by roughly 9 percent. Using monthly data for twenty sectors and a calibrated CES–Leontief model, I construct sector-specific counterfactuals for the trucking shock. The four government-designated priority sectors outperform their structural predictions by an average of 17 index points; the priority–non-priority differential sits at the 90th percentile of a permutation null distribution (p = 0.100). Mitigation was selective: concentrated in sectors with state-enterprise ownership, simple supply chains, and military distribution support. Where coordination needs were greatest — food and beverages — priority designation provided no measurable protection. Cybersyn was more effective at protecting the sectors it was easiest to protect than those that most needed protecting: a partial vindication and a realistic assessment of its limits.