The paragraphs below were written for a class in response to the second chapter of The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (2007).
In Chapter 2 of The Shock Doctrine, Noami Klein describes the influence of Milton Friedman and the Economics department at the University of Chicago in the proliferation of neoliberal ideology throughout the world, and the various military coup d’états that spearheaded its establishment in the developing world for the purpose of promoting U.S. corporate interests. Prior to the rise of neoliberalism, the Keynesian view of economics was the dominant view among people and among institutions in the United States and Europe, as well as much of the so-called “third world”. In order for a shift in such ideology to occur, certain basic assumptions about the world, the economy, and the role of government would have to change in the minds. of policy-makers and the public consciousness. In the 1940s and 50s, proposals along the lines that Friedman believed in such as deregulation of industries, cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and cutting back on social welfare spending, would have been seen as unthinkable or even heretical, but there were many of those within the capitalist class and their cronies who could benefit from such a system. And so Friedman and his cohort trained students in their ideology at the Chicago School, and they would go on to become teachers, financial advisors, bankers, policymakers and political figures, and so forth. What’s more, they noted the need to prevent developing nations from seeking further economic independence from U.S. interests, and thus the U.S. government and various corporate interest groups funded the education of students from various countries from around the world (notably Chile and Indonesia) in economics at the University of Chicago. These students would go on to teach more students and promote their free market ideology back home. And when they failed to bring about the neoliberal intellectual revolution in their countries that they had hoped for, the CIA-funded military overthrows of nationalist and left-wing governments and installed brutal far-right dictators with teams of advisors all trained in Chicago School, neoliberal economic ideology.
What strikes me about this series of events is that neoliberal economics held itself as a champion of freedom and individual liberty, and yet as a set of policies could not manage to get itself off the ground in a manner one would associate with “freedom”, instead opting for supplanting democratic governments for dictatorship, taking away freedoms of speech and assembly from people, disappearing, torturing, and murdering political opponents and dissenters. In the developing world, neoliberalism was an ideology that could only come about through mass, tyrannical violence from above. And couldn’t take shape in the United States and Western Europe until after it had already been established in the third world. I think it’s very notable that neoliberal policies were developed by thinkers in the United States and Western Europe, but would not be considered politically viable in these countries for a long time, however the project of forcing countries in the global south to adopt these ideas came long before they finally made their way to debate stages in the United States. It seems that the proponents of such ideology knew that the general public consciousness in the west was opposed to these ideas, but also wasn’t opposed to exploiting those poorer than them, and it was only a matter of time before the “common sense” of how the exploited should run their countries and economies became the “common sense” of how all governments and economies should be run.
Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Penguin UK, 2007.