The Chile Project
The Story of the Chicago Boys and the Downfall of Neoliberalism
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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.
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In this meticulous study, economist Edwards (Crisis and Reform in Latin America) recounts the history behind the 2019 Chilean protest movement that led to a constitutional referendum and the election of a left-wing president who vowed to eradicate "the neoliberal model." Edwards traces the roots of this tumult back to 1955, when the U.S. State Department launched a plan to influence Latin American affairs by training Chilean economists in the free market ideology of Milton Friedman and his colleagues at the University of Chicago. For years, the Chicago-trained economists had little influence on Chilean policy until military dictator Augusto Pinochet seized power in 1973 and turned the economy over to them. Edwards credits the Chicago Boys' policies, including low corporate taxes, tight restrictions on unions, and a pension system based on personal savings accounts, with helping to transform Chile into the wealthiest nation in Latin America by the early 2000s, but also reveals how the program entrenched high rates of inequality, fostered corruption, and produced environmental destruction. Marked by Edwards's firm grasp of regional politics and lucid explanations of economic theory, this is a valuable primer on a complex subject.
