The Chile Project
the story of the Chicago boys and the downfall of neoliberalism
- ISBN: 9780691208626
- Editorial: Princeton University Press
- Fecha de la edición: 2023
- Lugar de la edición: Princeton (NJ). Estados Unidos de Norteamérica
- Encuadernación: Cartoné
- Medidas: 24 cm
- Nº Pág.: 376
- Idiomas: Inglés
How Chile became home to the world's most radical free-market experiment-and what its downfall suggests about the fate of neoliberalism around the globe
In The Chile Project, Sebastian Edwards tells the remarkable story of how the neoliberal economic model-installed in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship and deepened during three decades of left-of-center governments-came to an end in 2021, when Gabriel Boric, a young former student activist, was elected president, vowing that "If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave." More than a story about one Latin American country, The Chile Project is a behind-the-scenes history of the spread and consequences of the free-market thinking that dominated economic policymaking around the world in the second half of the twentieth century-but is now on the retreat.
In 1955, the U.S. State Department launched the "Chile Project" to train Chilean economists at the University of Chicago, home of the libertarian Milton Friedman. After General Augusto Pinochet overthrew socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973, Chile's "Chicago Boys" implemented the purest neoliberal model in the world for the next seventeen years, undertaking a sweeping package of privatization and deregulation, creating a modern capitalist economy, and sparking talk of a "Chilean miracle." But under the veneer of success, a profound dissatisfaction with the vast inequalities caused by neoliberalism was growing. In 2019, protests erupted throughout the country, and in 2022 Boric began his presidency with a clear mandate: to end neoliberalismo.
In telling the fascinating story of the Chicago Boys and Chile's free-market revolution, The Chile Project provides an important new perspective on the history of neoliberalism and its global decline today.
Part I. THE EARLY YEARS
1. Exporting Capitalism: The Origins of the Chicago boys
2. The Chicago Boys in the Ivory Tower
3. Salvador Allende's Thousand Days of Socialism and the Chicago Boys, 1970-1973
Part II. THE CHICAGO BOYS AND THE PINOCHET DICTATORSHIP, 1973-1990
4. Augusto Pinochet's Coup and the Chicago Boys' Reform Program
5. Milton Friedman's 1975 Visit and the Shock Treatment
6. Market Reforms and the Struggle for Power, 1975-1981
7. The Birth of a Neoliberal Regime: The Seven Modernizations and the New Constitution
8. Milton Friedman and the Currency Crisis of 1982
9. The Second Round of Reforms, 1983-1990: Pragmatic Neoliberalism
Part III. NEOLIBERALISM UNDER DEMOCRATIC RULE, 1990-2022
10. The Return of Democracy and Inclusive Neoliberalism
11. Staying Neoliberal
12. Grievances, Abuses, Complaints, and Protests
13. The Distributive Struggle
14. Broken Promises: Pensions and the Revolt
15. The Constitutional Convention and the Election of Gabriel Boric
16. The End of Neoliberalism?