Jamal Awil

← The Road from Mont Pèlerin

The state provided the old and new incentives in order to achieve competitiveness. [fact]

Whereas from a purely Chilean point of view, the modification of the internal power structure and the abandonment of some orthodox elements of the neoliberal program in the course of the 1982–1983 crisis might be interpreted as ending a “radical neoliberalism” and opening up a “pragmatic phase” (Silva 1991, 2001), from a global standpoint it was exactly the fine-tuned adjustment to external and internal requirements that ensured the continuity of the neoliberal project. … Under Büchi's aegis, a new regime of state-led export-oriented industrialization was set in motion, without altering the social relations around the development strategy (the seven modernizations) that had been previously implemented. … The state provided the old and new incentives in order to achieve competitiveness in the new nontraditional export sectors and to increase internal savings and investment. Simultaneously, it created favorable conditions on a macroeconomic level through devaluation, temporary tariff protection, regulation of the financial system, and a strict policy of wage controls.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 1615