A coup enabled economists to capture a whole state’s economic machinery

Evidence

With Pinochet’s decision to adopt a radical shock treatment, the neoliberal economists led by Kelly and Kast at ODEPLAN and by de Castro at the Faculty of Economics occupied the most significant positions of economic responsibility in 1975 (see Table 9.2). The new finance minister, Jorge Cauas, was given additional power over every agency related to the Ministry of Finance as well as over ten other ministries, giving him effective control over economic decision making. The “Pinochet of the economy,” Sergio de Castro, was placed at the helm of the Ministry of Economics. Miguel Kast was named deputy director of ODEPLAN, and his staff supervised implementation of ministerial tasks (Fontaine 1988). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1576

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The CIA-backed coup installed Chicago-school austerity economists in Chile — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 356; Chicago-school economists delivered a shock-treatment blueprint to Pinochet’s coup regime within days — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 322; The Allende overthrow made multinational regulation intellectually respectable for development economists. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1779 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Economics has replaced politics as the governing science of the state #corroborates (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 154
• State withdrawal from economics was itself a drastic political act disguised as technical reason #complicates (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 747