A few months before the coronavirus shut down the world, Chile exploded against neoliberalism. A World Bank economist, Sebastian Edwards, was on the ground to record the rebellion:

“On Oct 18, 2019, and to the surprise of most observers, massive protests erupted throughout the country. Demonstrations were triggered by a small increase in metro fares—thirty pesos, or the equivalent of four cents of a dollar. But the rallies were about much more than the fare increase. Hundreds of thousands of people marched in several cities and demonstrated against the elites, corporate abuse, greed, for-profit schools, low pensions, and the neoliberal model. Demonstrators asked for debt forgiveness for students and free universal health services.“

Having done my dissertation on Chile over 40 years earlier and participated in the internationational solidarity against the dictator August Pinochet, who subjected the country to both neoliberal transformation and massive repression, I was elated. I even entertained the idea that the rebellion in Chile could be the spark for a global revolt against neoliberalism, much like the Bolsheviks thought their seizure of power in Russia would trigger the socialist revolution in Europe. But that fanciful thought was quickly shelved. Despite the international coverage of events there, Chile stood alone.

But not in vain: an anti-neoliberal president, Gabriel Boric was elected president in 2021 and neoliberal policies are now being rolled back in that country, though in the teeth of strong opposition from the local elite, technocrats, foreign investors, and the multilateral agencies.

So the obvious next question: why, despite its obvious failures, has neoliberalism not provoked similar rebellions in other parts of the global South?

One thing I can say is that it’s long overdue.

Take the case of the Philippines. After 45 years, we are an economic wasteland, except in the eyes of our elites and technocrats. The poverty rate stands at 25 percent of the population, despite efforts to doctor the statistics, whereas in China, it’s estimated by the World Bank at two percent. The Gini coefficient, which measures inequality, is at .50, one of the highest in the Global South. Owing to our economic managers’ push during the Fidel Ramos presidency to bring down tariffs on imports to 5 percent or less, our manufacturing is nearly gone. Elimination of quotas on agricultural imports, including rice, as demanded by the World Trade Organization, has led to nearly all our key agricultural lines being dominated by imports, mainly from the United States and the European Union. With manufacturing dead, agriculture dying, business processing operations (BPOs) and services unable to generate a significant number of new jobs domestically, our work force is left to scurrying abroad in search of decent, non-dead-end jobs. Without the $37 billion in remittances they send back annually, the economy would be dead in the water.

If it were just a case of objectively documenting the devastating impact of neoliberal policies, our side won the battle as early as the 2000s, with detailed studies like Focus on the Global South’s The Anti-Development State: The Political Economy of Permanent Crisis in the Philippines. There was even a finance secretary who admitted that there’s “an uneven implementation of trade liberalization…which has killed so many local industries.” He was ignored.........

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