Neoliberalism. Part 2

Neoliberalism in Latin America began in the 1980’s, with the debt crisis that was being suffered in the developing world. Furthermore international lending agencies were willing to give out loans to nations in order to repay debt. However these loans had conditions attached to them, essentially that developing nations must reform their economic structure for the benefit of the great powers of the world (mainly US). These reforms opened up many Latin American nations to foreign companies and multinationals for the purpose of exploiting there comparatively cheap labour or to simply extract their resources. The institutional structure of many governments was shifted from import substitution, under populist nationalism to export oriented manufacturing and agriculture under technocratic democracy. However the idea of democracy during neoliberal reform is not the classical understanding of democracy, instead it was a carefully orchestrated public relations manoeuvre meaning free elections, except the candidate represented mainly elite interest in consensus over the need for a neoliberal model. In other words you are free to elect which neoliberal president you want, and the working class cannot elect someone from their own ranks.