The Chile Project: The Story of the Chicago Boys and the Downfall of Neoliberalism

In The Chile Project, Sebastian Edwards tells the story of how the neoliberal economic model came to an end in 2021, when Gabriel Boric 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 United States State Department launched the "Chile Project" to train Chilean economists at the University of Chicago. After General Augusto Pinochet overthrew socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973, Chile's "Chicago Boys" implemented the purest neoliberal model for the next seventeen years, undertaking a 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 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. The Chile Project provides an important new perspective on the history of neoliberalism and its global decline today.