Neoliberalism in Chile as a Result of an Extreme Leftist Movement and Pinochet's Regime

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Neoliberalism in Chile

In this paper, I argue that Neoliberalism is the product of an extreme leftist movement and US intervention that Chile’s former dictator, Augusto Pinochet who ruled between the years 1973 and 1990, used to transform Chile into an economic power during the wound down of the cold war era. This essay first analyses the US’s fears of communism taking root in Latin America and the extreme measures the US took throughout Latin America in brainwashing military personnel and promoting military coups. Secondly, I will identify and discuss the tipping points resulting from the left wing going too far. And Third, I will explain the contributing factors in the process by which neoliberalism was implemented in Chile by Augusto Pinochet as a tool to achieve his national project to remake Chile into a society that would uphold his values of private entrepreneurship and economic freedom that would keep the United States and Chileans at bay.

US Anxiety

To begin, I want to start off with the USA’s anxiety of communism taking root in Latin America and how Chile got into the spotlight of the Nixon administration. This was in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis and President Eisenhower investing in a war on communism in all of Latin America primarily Cuba at the time. The US failed against the fight against socialism in Cuba however the US ramped up its involvement in the other americas by investing in the individual Latin American countries militaries and counter insurgency programs through military training, providing military equipment, providing a “School of the Americas” to help counter communism, and even trained military and police how to perform electroshock torture to get information from r...

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...lowed for neoliberalism to take place and ultimately reshape Chile into the well rounded country it is today.

Resources

CIA, 2000. CIA Activities in Chile. Central Intelligence Agency Library. Electronically accessed 4/17/2014.https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/chile/

Danner, M. 1994. The Massacre at El Mozote. A Parable of the Cold War. Vintage Books New York

Remmer, K. 1989. State Change in Chile, 1973 - 1988. Studies in Comparative International Development. pages 5 - 29

Silva, E. 1996. The State and Capital in Chile: Business Elites, Technocrats, and Market Economics. Oxford: Westview Press.

Skidmore, T. 2013. Modern Latin America. Eighth Edition. Oxford University Press. Pages 268 - 485

Tinsman, Heidi. 2014. Buying into the Regime: Grapes and Consumption in Cold War Chile and the United States. Print.

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