The Paradox of the Neoliberal Developmentalist State: Reconstructing the Capitalist Elite in Pinochet’s Chile

Abstract

The Pinochet dictatorship is often seen as the world's first orthodox neoliberal experiment, characterized by the dramatic withdrawal of the state from social and economic life. However, it has also been characterized as `state developmentalism without a developmental state'. How do we explain this seeming paradox, between neoliberalism and state developmentalism, between a state that is simultaneously subsidiary and developmentalist? Based on 15 months of fieldwork, including archival research and numerous interviews, this chapter argues that the paradox vanishes when the military regime is conceptualized in terms of class restructuring rather than economic development. More than economic development as such, the principal objective of the Pinochet government was the construction of a capitalist elite capable of subordinating the state and integrating civil society into its hegemonic networks.