Neoliberalism and democracy

Abstract

Conclusion: After nearly two decades of largely uninterrupted implementation, neoliberal policies have provided but modest aggregate growth, while income and wealth disparities have increased dramatically, separating the super rich from other social classes. This is most clearly evident in Latin America, where governments, sheltered by a wall of neoliberal doctrine and international compromises, have made themselves highly resistant to popular pressures for income redistribution and changes in the existing social structures. In effect, neoliberalism - coupled with its strange brand of ballot box democracy- has managed to strangle the full array of political forces antagonistic to and resisting its project. Economic power has tended to concentrate in the hands of those social groups that share objectives of accelerated capital accumulation; benefiting themselves, their families, and their elite classes. Evidence of the undemocratic methods utilized by Latin American rulers of neoliberal democracies abound: the excessive use of presidential decrees in Menem's Argentina, the exclusion of popular leaders from consultative bodies Salinas de Gortari's Mexico, or the application of strong arm tactics in Fujimori's Peru, could start a long list.