What is 'Neo-Liberalism'

[Brad DeLong]

>Brad DeLong wrote:
>
>>Isn't it time to admit that Chile's *economic* development strategy 
>>over the past thirty years has been, broadly, a success? Chilean 
>>per capita GDP has doubled since 1980--and increases in inequality 
>>have been modest...
>
>Brad, I don't like it when people bait you as some sort of 
>crypto-fascist, but really - do you think rounding up people in 
>soccer stadiums and killing them is a good foundational economic 
>development strategy? I haven't even mentioned the privatized 
>pension system that covers only half the workforce, or the tuition 
>bills for public schools.

I think that rounding up people in soccer stadiums and killing them 
is a horrible crime, and would remain a horrible crime even if it 
were a good foundation for economic development (which it ain't: I'm 
with Dani Rodrik in believing that "authoritarian" regimes are 
overwhelmingly likely to create bad economies). I want to see Henry 
Kissinger on trial for conspiracy to murder General Schneider.  I 
don't think that Chilean pensions are a success. And I think that 
free primary and secondary schooling is a basic human right.

But to say that the current state of Chile's economy demonstrates how 
awful the economic consequences of "neoliberal" policies are seems to 
me to reveal an extraorinarily large disconnect from reality...

Brad DeLong