Neoliberalism: in Latin America

Overview of Theme  

Neoliberalism has existed in a number of related forms for hundreds of years, but its contemporary, orthodox form was first attempted in Chile following the overthrow of socialist President Salvador Allende in 1973. A team of University of Chicago economists, trained by Milton Friedman, worked with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and dictator General Augusto Pinochet to completely restructure Chile’s economy, privatizing almost all public assets and violently repressing protestors and suspected sympathizers (Harvey 2005a:8; Hershberg and Rosen 2006b:4; Klein 2007:76-85; Winn 2004).  

Since the 1970s, it has expanded to become the dominant model for not only economic policies, but social and political policies as well. As such, it is difficult to separate contemporary Latin America from the birth, growth, and expansion of neoliberal economic policy both at home and abroad.  

But what is it?

Neoliberalism is often referred to in popular speech as “the free market.” David Harvey, perhaps the foremost writer on the history of neoliberalism, argues that “Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating innovative freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade” (Harvey 2005a:2).

In practice, this has led to “state pullback and decentralization, the privatization and marketization of almost everything, financialization and the emergence of the consumer citizen, the explosion of apocalyptic religiosities, and class consolidation and growing inequality" (Allison and Piot 2012:1).  

In essence, the state – government – should remove itself from the equation in order to allow the market to work naturally and efficiently to set prices. State-owned enterprises should be privatized, beginning with utilities and transportation and moving to social security, prisons, and health services. Under this ideology, capital should also be deregulated; that is, anything seen as a barrier to trade should be removed (Goldman 2005; Harvey 2005a; Ho 2009; Hudson and Hudson 2003).

More Than Just The Money

Neoliberalism is a form of economic organization, but what has interested anthropologists are the ways in which it has reformed people and societies. That is, in order for neoliberal systems to work, society – and the individuals which comprise it – must be figured and refigured in order to “fit” properly. Predicated on an unquestionable belief in individual freedom and individual rights, neoliberal ideological projects seek to make “subjects responsible for their own civility or savagery, development or regression, social health or disease” (Sawyer 2004:15). Individuals are then held responsible for their failure to develop, their failure to escape poverty, or their failure to get well, as systemic or institutional barriers to development or health are ignored or explained away (Biehl 2005; Biehl 2007; Harvey 2005a; Harvey 2005b; Harvey 2006; Ong 1988).  

In other words, “neoliberalism has now become a frame of mind, a cultural dynamic, an entrepreneurial personality type, and a rule of law that penetrates the most intimate relations people have with each other, state apparatuses, and their natural environments” (Goldman 2005:8).

From: Fischer, Kate. "Teaching Neoliberalism In/Of Latin America." Fieldsights - Teaching Tools, Cultural Anthropology Online, April 11, 2013, http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/217-teaching-neoliberalism-in-of-latin-america