Chilean neoliberalism developed in distinguishable stages each with distinct theory.

Evidence

The Chilean path to neoliberalism reveals different stages of development consisting of different tasks, theoretical positions, and modes of political rationality. To simplify, the first stage, proto-neoliberalism, covers the period from the mid-1950s to the end of the 1960s. The organized neoliberals focused primarily on projects outside the state. Think tanks, university institutes, and the media served as key institutions to build up cadres and a coherent counter to the dominant Zeitgeist in order to gain influence in the public sphere. The primary task was conceived as an ideological critique of the socialist/import substitution tendencies. The second stage, rollback, was put into effect between 1973 and 1975. The military regime destroyed the fundamentals of the import substitution model and its social relations through repression, the return of the expropriated enterprises, and the abolition of price supports. The next phase, rollout, started in 1975. The vanguard theorists widely entered in state positions, becoming organized state cadres, and implemented the monetary, regulation, and competition theories of the Chicago School. The ultraorthodox measures realized in the period 1975–1978 were aimed at the core of the economy and included the introduction of a free trade regime and the deregulation of the domestic and financial markets accompanied by further privatizations. After the economic reconstruction, the extension and, thus, deepening of neoliberalism as a program were effected between 1978 and 1981. The key reference was to the Virginia School public choice theory, wherein the market approach was extended to other spheres of society (viz., seven modernizations). The crisis of 1982–1983 provided the occasion for a substantiation phase of the neoliberal project under new conditions, requiring a greater amount of concerted state intervention to safeguard neoliberalism. The adjustment to external power relations and the socialization of debt demanded a reshuffling of the economic team, but ensured the continuity of the neoliberal model. The period 1983–1989 can be characterized as the revival phase of neoliberalism. Under Büchi, a state-led structural adjustment of the export-oriented economy was engineered. The path from an administration of the crisis to pronounced neoliberal policies mirrored the explicit demands of the international finance organizations. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1613

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the stage model: proto-neoliberalism, rollback, rollout, substantiation, revival.
• XREF: The rollback/rollout vocabulary maps directly onto Jamie Peck’s ‘Construction of Neoliberal Reason’ stage schema. — connects to: Chilean neoliberalism drew on Hayek and Buchanan, not only Chicago monetarists. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 162; Chilean neoliberalism was adapted contextually, not imported as a ready-made doctrine. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1545; A radical corporatist ‘gremialista’ movement emerged at Chile’s Catholic University — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1554 (+2 more)
• SEED: Angle: an available intellectual history piece contrasting the ‘textbook Chicago’ myth with the actual multi-school pragmatism of Chilean statecraft.