In the introduction to Non-literary Fiction: Art of the Americas Under Neoliberalism, Esther Gabara (University of Chicago Press, 2022) says there were "initial experiments with these [neoliberal] social and economic 'reforms' in the Americas" beginning in the 1960s.
She refers to this article:
Norman A. Bailey. "The Colombian 'Black Hand': A Case Study of Neoliberalism in Latin America." The Review of Politics Vol. 27, No. 4 (Oct., 1965), pp. 445-464 (20 pages).
Gabara said that Bailey's article "celebrated the Brazilian military coup d'état of 1964 as the model for an aggressive campaign in Colombia. His pro-business, free-market hemispheric strategy was 'uniformly opposed to all forms of collectivism.'" (As Bailey said in the article, and Gabara noted.) A decade later, Milton Friedman would help General Pinochet in Santiago, Chile. Bailey, too, "was content to ally with repressive regimes, but state repression was just one tool in the broader violence employed to introduce, maintain, and expand these social transformations." Bailey continued to advise Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush regarding Latin America.
Gabara is interested in these neoliberal experiments related to how they "coincid[ed] with the radical experiments that ground histories of contemporary art."
The artists in the non-objectual art movement "abandoned historical distinctions between sculpture, painting, and theater" and tended away from museums. "They celebrated earth art, performance and body art, posters, media interventions and new media, work with found objects and trash, mail art, conceptualism, ephemeral installations, and popular cultural forms including religious rituals and samba."
"Fiction played a crucial role in these theories and practices of non-objectual art. Note the terms of Gullar's meditation on the relationship between 'obra e objeto' (work and object), artwork and world: 'The frame was the middle ground between fiction and reality; at once a bridge and a wall that protected the painting, the fictitious space, and made it communicate in fits with the real, exterior space.' This. narrative of non-objectual art breaking the frame is foundational in Brazilian art history, and Amor summarizes its widely accepted interpretation as a 'rejection of the fictional space of representation.' Yet Gullar writes that the non-object resides directly in 'real' space and 'transcends the space, not by eluding it (like the object), but by enfolding itself radically in that space.' That extension into space involves a broken frame and an active spectator: the primary operation of the non-object is to inspire the viewer's 'move from contemplation to action,' and so by extension to bridge fiction and reality. In an interview published not long after he had invited Gullar to his symposium, Acha also presented non-objectualism as an activity and a kind of fiction. In no-objetualismo, he states, 'I'm not interested anymore in the work of an artist, I am concerned with the process, with the invention.'"
"The disappeared victims of the military dictatorships, as well as of declared democracies such as Mexico, were the defining feature of the early neoliberal era and have governed debates over memory and justice since."
Bailey's article said:
In Latin America, three Neoliberal groups were founded in the 1950s, and about 40 in the early 1960s. (Bailey was writing in 1965.) He said these groups were "now covering all of Latin America except for Haiti and Cuba." They had formal organizational structures with a president, chairman, executive director, council members, and so forth.
The Neoliberals oppose "communism, socialism, and feudalism" as well as "totalitarian methods or...state invention in the economy" and support "the system of private initiative." (p. 448) One Neoliberal leader, Raimundo Emiliani Román, said in his pamphlet "El Camino a la Miseria" that "all socialism tends" to the idea "that no one owns anything, and the general distribution of poverty." (p. 464)
"The Neoliberal groups in Latin America converge on two common factors: their membership is overwhelmingly made up of businessmen (in the broadest meaning of the word) and professionals, and they are uniformly opposed to all forms of collectivism, whether of the right or the left, and in favor of the free market economy, although not necessarily in its pristine form. Within this general orientation, specific idea-systems espoused range from the philosophy of Ayn Rand through the strict market economics of a Ludwig von Mises or a Friedrich Hayck to the 'social market economy' of Wilhelm Röpke and Jacques Rueff. These differences lead to fissures and controversies within Neoliberalism, but heavy concentration of power and membership in the 'social' wing permits a fair degree of united action." (pp. 445–446)
Some groups focused on the "social and economic development in Latin America" (in the "long-range," considering its "entire direction") while others developed "aggressive attack policies" to buy time for the others to do their long-range work. Bailey categorized the groups' activities as either defensive, offensive, or a mix of both.
Of the defensive methods (p. 447):
- Civic action: "housing, health and community development...under the general theory of the 'socail function' of capital" with "two purposes: to improve the public image of private enterprise and to delay a violent upheaval until the economic process has carried society beyond the crisis peak."
- General education: "literacy campaigns, trade union leadership schools, and business schools"
- Capitalization: ""the effort to...give them [the workers] a clearly visible stake in the economic system. This is not merely a profit-sharing plan. It is, rather, an effort to create a larger class of proprietors in the belief that greater social stability will follow."
"Agents of the Neoliberals have been planted in many communist parties and movements of the Jacobin left." (p. 448)
"The most controversial of all direct action activities is the formation of antiguerrilla militias." (p. 449)
"Although feudalism as a formal social and economic structure is not as prevalent in Colombia as elsewhere in the continent, the feudal mentality very definitely exists as a political force. The movements of the Jacobin left and the Democratic left are strong, the former growing, the latter decaying. And finally, in 1960 Neoliberalism began to find its identity and flex its muscles. Its activities were initially highly successful, and this success set off a chain of reactions the end of which is not yet in sight." (p. 449)
"Colombia is legally tied to its two-party system, which means that both the Liberal and the Conservative parties are fragmented, and other groups must operate in a sort of political penumbra. The Neoliberals, basically democratic in philosophy, attempt to negotiate within the major parties and pressure them from the outside through the formation of private groups." (p. 449)
"As a further problem, the Neoliberals preach economic liberalism in a country where Article 32 of the Constitution itself states:
The State can intervene by law in the exploitation of industries or businesses, whether public or private, with the end of rationalizing the production, distribution and consumption of wealth or to give the worker the just protection to which he has a right." (p. 452)
Colombia doesn't have a powerful "feudal oligarchy," but
"feudalism is powerful as a mentality. The latest manifestation of the feudal-mercantilist mentality is the so-called 'dos brazos' theory of politics and economics. Under this theory, which has powerful and influential adherents in both legal parties and among the Christian Democrats, the State should intervene actively to set salaries and wages, fix quotas for various industries, and generally plan the entire economy, with direct planning in the public sector and indirect planning for the private sector (but with powerful sanctions for recalcitrant entrepreneurs). Following good corporative economic and political doctrine the 'dos brazos' theorists would organize the entire nation into 'gremios' which would then bargain with each other and the state. The magazine Arco is published by a group of men dedicated to these principles, and among others, this theory was expounded to the author by the General Manager of the Asociación Nacional de Industriales (ANDI), the industrial 'gremio.' This individual, interestingly, is in high favor with the small group of neo-Peronists clustered around the brilliant journalist, Alberto Zalamea, and his magazine and newspaper (both named La Nueva Prensa). There is an increasingly powerful Christian Democratic movement, the Partido Social Demócrata-Cristiano (PSDC), which holds ideas very similar to the 'dos brazos' theorists and the neo-Peronists. The PSDC intends to try to circumvent the legal prohibition of third parties by presenting candidates in 'Listas Populares Independientes,' and only nominally Liberal or Conservative. The Party was formed in August, 1959, and by July, 1963, had over 1200 militants throughout the country. It is particularly strong in Antioquia and the Valle. All of these groups are actively angling for military support, and some conspicuous army figures, although wary after the disastrous experience of Rojas Pinilla, are openly toying with a return to 'populist caesarism.' Within the Church 'social Christian' thinking is strong and gaining in strength, along with a still considerable segment feudally-minded (in the traditional mold, rather than the modern corporative mold) and a small Neoliberal wing centered around the lay organization, Opus Dei." (pp. 453–454)
"In the autumn of 1960 a group of twenty-five Colombian industrialists, businessmen, professionals and agriculturalists met and formed the Centro de Estudio y Acción Sociales (CEAS)." Its four objectives were to present the Jacobin left as dangerous; to campaign against Castro in Cuba and communism and in favor of the free market; to take "anticommunist and anti-Modern Left" actions, for example, by infiltrating labor unions; and "to attempt to alter the mentality of the capitalists towards a greater realization of their social responsibilities." (p. 455)
Over the following year, CEAS "spread, forming groups in other major Colombian cities through personal visits by members of the Bogotá group. These other Neoliberal centers are not branches of CEAS — once founded, they maintain their own policies, programs, and finances. The Fundación pro Bienestar Social was founded in Medellín in January of 1961. ... In February of 1961 the Instituto de Estudios Sociales y Económicos (IESE) was founded in Cali." (p. 458–9) "Efforts to establish a formal Neoliberal group on the Caribbean Coast (Barranquilla) have not succeeded, but informal cooperation exists in the distribution of literature and other duties." (p. 462)
"The Neoliberals are operating in Colombia in a general atmosphere traditionally unfriendly to capitalism. The Conservatives in the government of Valencia are paternalists and statists, and many are angling for alliances with the Jacobin left (the outstanding example of this is the Conservative political leader and former Minister of Labor, Belisario Betancur). This same government pressed successfully for the passage of the Ley Primera of 1963, with its governmental control of both wages and prices, and its list of fifteen financial statements which all companies are (theoretically) required to supply to the government weekly." (pp. 462–3)
Also:
"...Neoliberalism is causing a wrenching restructuring of Colombian politics and Colombian political and economic thinking. For the first time the philosophy of economic freedom is a topic of passionate interest and debate. For the first time the Jacobin left and the communists are faced with a group that has ideas equally strong and convictions equally fervent, and that does not balk at using effective methods to propagate them. In the citadel of political feudalism, the Laureanista Conservatives, an apostate group has joined the Neoliberals. The Democratic left (pushed particularly by its younger leaders) is moving towards alliance with the Neoliberals, and Colombia's presumptive next President under the alternation (his health and the military willing), Carlos Lleras Restrepo, appears to be sympathetic to this movement." (p. 463)
Having broad methods and reach, they are successful and aren't politically vulnerable at any "one centralized focal point." (p. 464)
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