The unbearable pervasiveness of radical neoconservatism

I recently re-read Walter Jon Williams' City on Fire, and something jumped out at me: phrasing right out of Milton Friedman's masturbatory fantasies:

“There is a recipe for creating wealth,” he says. “It is simple enough. Reduce tariffs, reduce state spending, reduce controls on borrowing and lending. Protect the value of the currency while allowing free exchange, permit the citizens free access to foreign currencies. Permit the citizens to keep any wealth they earn [...] and tax with a light hand, with a tax code renowned for its evenhandedness and a revenue bureau renowned for its incorruptibility...”_p.114

“The companies will be sold. We anticipate no difficulty with that–they were all remarkably profitable, after all. The profits will help to finance reorganization in various other state enterprises, which will also be sold as soon as they can be made efficient. I convinced them, you see, that it had to be done now, while martial law was still in force, because a popular government would not be able to shrink in size with the proper ruthlessness. So the enlarged army will hold the metropolis together while structural changes take place[...]”_p.65

This is a capsule description of the 1973 Chilean coup and subsequent neoconservative sacking of the country (and of Argentina, Brazil, the US, Russia, Iraq, etc.). It certainly is a recipe for wealth, and for an rocketing disparity between the rich and the poor. As we have recently seen, it is also a recipe for opening the door to runaway corruption in the financial markets. It's a recipe, all right: it is a recipe for an entire smörgåsbord of misery to be visited on a society by its ever-more-wealthy ruling élite. Wealth is always measured as a differential, not as an absolute: a differential in income, in life expectancy, in everything that matters.

When this book was written this may have seemed like inevitable truth, promoted by a political class and media intent on reversing the 20^th century gains of the labour movement. The author is by no means a reactionary twit, but he couldn't help absorb some of the constant stream of bullshit that is constantly unloaded on us all. 1997 was just eleven years ago, but these really do feel like ideas from the previous century.