3. Neoliberalization and New Commodification Frontiers: A Global Critique of Progressive Reason

Actually, although Von Hayek’s ideas had more impact on the theoretical-political field, Milton Friedman’s courses taught at the University of Chicago achieved greater direct influence on the economic policies, administrators, and decision-makers. Connections of the Chicago School with Chilean students date back to mid-50s through the formalization of an agreement between the University of Chicago with the University of Chile and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. As a result of this agreement, teachers such as Theodore Shultz, Arnold Harberger, Earl Hamilton, and Simon Rottenberg, among other members of the Friedman group, developed a course of studies at the Center for Economic Research specifically created to that end. Then, Chilean students who attended that Center were given scholarships to continue with their Master’s and PhD studies at the University of Chicago. Afterward, many of them held key positions within Pinochet’s regime, such as the following: Sergio de Castro (Minister of Economy, 1975–76; Minister of Finance, 1976–82), Pablo Baraona (President of the Central Bank, 1975–76; Minister of Economy, 1976–78), Álvaro Bardón (President of the Central Bank, 1977–81; Under Secretary of Economy, 1982–83), Sergio de la Cuadra (President of the Central Bank, 1981–82; Minister of Finance, 1982), Jorge Cauas (Minister of Finance, 1974–77), Hernán Büchi (Minister of Economy, 1979–80; National Planning Office [ODEPLAN], 1983–84; Minister of Finance, 1985–89), Miguel Kast (ODEPLAN 1978–1980; Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, 1981–82; President of the Central Bank, 1982), Rolf Lüders (Minister of Economy, 1982; Minister of Finance, 1978–79), among others (Delano and Traslaviña 1989).

Structural reforms occurring in the region from the mid-80s until the end of the century were characterized by the following:

One of the major effects of privatizations was the increase in foreign investment in Latin America after clearing the obstructions—mainly to strategic sectors. Thus, foreign investment targeted to privatizations accounted for 36% of the direct foreign investment in the 90s, which had a total amount far higher than that recorded during the previous decade—of 0.3% of the GDP in 1989 to 6.9% in 1999 (Lora 2001).

The collapse of the neoliberal governance, pre-announced with the Caracazo (February–March, 1989) and which covertly unfolds through a growing social conflict throughout 90s, becomes clearly visible with the prolonged Ecuadorian political crisis marked by the prominence of the rebellion of the indigenous movement brought together in the National Confederation of Ecuadorian Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE) and the following failed presidencies of Abdalá Bucaram (1996–1997), Jamil Mahuad (1998–2000), Gustavo Noboa (2000–2003), and Lucio Gutiérrez (2003–2005), the meltdown of the Argentinean institutional system, in December 2001—anticipated withdrawal of the government from the Alliance, the “sovereign” default declaration, and subsequent interrupted presidencies until Néstor Kirchner took office in 2003—, and, decisively, with the events that framed the so-called Water Wars (2000) and Gas Wars (2003) in Bolivia.

From different perspectives, the metamorphosis or mutation idea has been referenced as a change process, where structures that give meaning to—and define—the social system are kept (Castels 1996); or as the inherent variability of the social accumulation regime defined as matrix of changing configuration (Collado 2005; Nun 2003).

Among them, Anderson (1999), Harvey (2007), Plehwe et al. (2006), Puello Socarrás (2015).

https://​www.​montpelerin.​org/​statement-of-aims/​

After their first meeting, the Mont Pelerin Society has held 40 general assemblies, 33 regional meetings, and 12 special meetings. It currently has “500 members in 40 countries, including senior government officials, Nobel Laureates in Economics, ‘businessmen’, journalists and academics” (Mato 2007: 27). Around it, an extensive and powerful transnational network of Think Tanks—constituted by over 200 foundations, institutes, “study” centers, among others, around the world—has been built from which a true crusade against “statism” has been launched, with a sustained strategy coming into play in the shaping of public opinion through prominent businessmen, political officers, university professors, economists, journalists, and social and religious leaders aiming at setting up a hegemonic common sense around the full de-legitimization of the State, the assimilation of the public and state sector as intrinsically corrupt, inefficient, and authoritative, contrary to absolute markets as the only social arrangement compatible with full individuals freedom and fair mechanism to allocate resources.

By case, the income difference between 20% of the world population who lives in the wealthiest countries and 20% of the poorest countries went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1997. (Duménil and Lévy 2004, pp. 41–63).

These analyses on managerialism can be elaborated on and articulated with Boltansky and Chiapello (2002) studies regarding the new spirit of capitalism, where, among other things, the extraordinary increase of inequalities does not affect, nor does it undermine the “legitimacy” of the capital, but, on the contrary, streamlines generalization and deepening of the capitalist ethos beyond the owning classes and the affluent sectors of the working class. Likewise, the grounds of this analysis also underlie Foucauldian propositions that emphasize neoliberalism as a new governmentality that is not exerted on conducts, but that nests in the production mechanisms of those conducts; a generalized rationale-normativity where competition, efficiency and usefulness are undertaken as the “personal” self-accomplishment, making businessmen from their own individuals (Foucault 2004; Dardot and Laval 2007).

We refer to the core of the argument—both for its main leaders and main figures, and for the organic intelligentsia they have displayed—that has been formulated around the experiences of progressive governments in Latin America, their policies and discourses, mainly the ones in which they present themselves as “the” alternative to neoliberalism.

In this case too, it should be noted that these experiences and processes created impacts that cross the boundaries of territory, dogging a large part of political and intellectual forces from other latitudes into giving in and identifying themselves with this stance. For instance, the Argentine experience was echoed in Podemos, in Spain, Siryza, Greece; Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the Left Front had echoed in France, among others.

We say “interregnum” because, although the ruling Left pictured itself ushering in a post-neoliberal era, as we know, that did not last long. Even so, for such sectors, the recent changes in several governments in the area conceived as a “return to the 1990s”—some emblematic examples include Temer in Brazil, Macri in Argentina, Kuczynski in Peru, Piñera in Chile, and even Moreno in Ecuador—would reinforce the view that the progressive governments truly meant a “way out” and/or the “overcoming” of neoliberalism. Nowadays, they place their hopes in Maduro’s “resilient” government, Evo Morales’ re-election and the return of the ousted leaders in Brazil, Argentina, and Ecuador.

Here we take Scribano’s contributions (2004) into account to think of a series of processes that have their epicenter in the body, and particularly, in a series of affectivities partially structured as the embodiment of the social aspect. On the basis of these processes, social actors seek to maintain their world of life without problematizing them, because that is how they obtain certainty, foresight, and an unquestioned set of practices. Here is where the notions of phantoms and social fantasies are inscribed as a specific chapter of these practices whose objectives bare a relationship to conflict avoidance. Fantasies prevent conflict-related situations in a journey in which perceptions and sensations take something particular as universal. To this effect, the fantasy has a hint of hope or illusion which is contrasted with the phantom, since they are built from the perceptions that they bring forward the failures, frustrations, and defeats, thus disabling the capacity for action of the subject. After practice, the phantom becomes a perception associated with a feeling of threat and of social fear that later redefines the new practices.