Although Letelier recognised this aspect of Friedman’s argument, he argued that, in Chile, ‘when the economic theories he advocates coincide with an absolute restriction of every type of democratic freedom’, Friedman had instead disentangled economics and politics. In rendering Friedman’s argument, Letelier, perhaps unconsciously, distorted it. The central argument of Capitalism and Freedom is not that economic liberalism is necessary for political democracy, but that it is necessary for political freedom – defined as the absence of coercion by one’s ‘fellow men’. Although it seems obvious that Pinochet’s torturous regime fundamentally violated this condition, the coercion that most concerned Friedman took the form of political interference with the market. By ‘removing the organization of economic activity from the control of political authority’, he argued, ‘the market eliminates the source of coercive power’.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 326