Editing Popular Unity (Chile) (section)

== Policies ==
The expropriation of the first company, a textile factory, was announced on December 2, 1970. Others followed over the next several months, and the opposition congress unanimously approved a constitutional reform for the nationalization of copper and other resources, expropriating large foreign companies without compensation. There was considerable redistribution of income and falling unemployment. Only the banks resisted the UP’s attempts to nationalize them.<ref name=":0" />

The main beneficiaries of both [[Eduardo Frei Montalva|Eduardo Frei]] and Allende [[Land reform|Land Reform]] were the peasants already working the land. The process was similar to that of [[sharecropping]], in which the owners of the land pay people to work the land. The peasants working the land keep a percentage of the profit, the rest goes to the owner. The reform policies rarely addressed the small land holders, turning them against the Allende government. Although the UP did not gain full power of the government with Allende’s election, it did gain the administrative and economic ability to limit the power of business owners through expropriations and strengthen the urban working classes and rural peasantry. One large difference between Christian Democrat and Popular Unity governments was their reactions to ''tomas'', or seizures of land by the peasants. Frei’s government would not expropriate any land that had been seized, but Allende accelerated expropriations. This led to a massive movement to seize land. In 1967, there were 9 seizures, but in 1971, there were 1,278.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Kay|first=Cristobal|year=1975|title=Agrarian Reform and the Transition to Socialism in Chile, 1970-1973|journal=The Journal of Peasant Studies|volume= 2| issue = 4|pages=418–445|doi=10.1080/03066157508437948}}</ref> Half of these seizures occurred on farms below the land limit of expropriation. The government established peasant councils that were supposed to represent peasant interests. Their failure in doing this played a large role in Allende’s loss of favor among the peasantry. A series of programs, including pay equality, resulted in diminishing incentives to work, and productivity fell. The agrarian reform under Popular Unity resulted in a significant rise in peasant standard of living, an increase in peasant political awareness and activity, and the expropriation of all latifundios. It also was not as extensive, or as successful, as it was expected to be, and Allende lost their potential support.<ref name=":1" />