As Friedman had predicted, the junta's 'shock' approach produced 'severe difficulties' – but not for all sections of the Chilean population. As he acknowledged, the immediate effect was 'severe recession', as Chile's GDP fell by 13 per cent per annum. In an open letter to Friedman and Harberger, Andre Gunder Frank denounced 'economic genocide' in Chile. Frank pointed out that the removal of price controls, combined with the destruction of trade union power, had drastically reduced real wages, to the extent that, by December 1975, one hour of work at the official minimum wage purchased 160 grams of bread. From 1975, stark spending cuts and the 'freeing' of prices on two thousand commodities caused purchasing power to fall to 40 per cent of its 1970 level. While the real incomes of the poorest plummeted, the share of national income in the hands of the upper 5 per cent of income receivers rose from 25 per cent to 50 per cent.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 341