Notes

Neoliberalism-liberal commitment to individual liberty, the belief in the free market and opposition to state intervention in it; became "neo" in the 1930s because new ideas of liberalism emerged;
Structural adjustment- conditions of economic "restructuring" imposed by organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF on borrowing nation-states.
Free market- a market free of any impediments.
Deregulation- a commitment by nation-states to limit or eliminate restraints on the free market and free trade.
Limited government- no government can do things as well as the market and a government should not intervene in it.
Double movement- coexistence of the expansion of the laissez-faire market and the reaction against it.

Crash Course:
-without the government, the market economy wouldn't exist
-many people believe that markets are "natural phenomena that follow laws like "supply and demand"; if you believe this, you believe there's nothing the government can or should do to improve the economy.
-The government creates and maintains a market economy by:
1) establishing law and order- helps by providing predictability; the government creates a legal system to punish people that commit fraud (knowing they will be punished prevents people from committing);
2) defining rules of property- without government, property wouldn't really be "yours"; if people steal or violate your property, the government could punish them and help you repair the damage (an example of this would be trespass laws, to keep people away from your property); ownership is a bundle of rights establishing what you can do with what's legally yours; without these laws, we couldn't buy or sell anything, because nothing would be ours to do so.
3) governing rules of exchange- the government creates laws in order to prevent people from buying or selling controlled substances or products; things you cannot buy or sell legally include drugs and some alcohols, which different laws are applied in different states, or even selling yourself into slavery or prostitution;
4) setting market standards- means that the government ensures that buyers and sellers are operating on the same playing field (aka, if you're going to buy a pound of something, you need to know what a pound is and how much you're getting, and so do the sellers);
5) providing public goods- public goods are things and services that the government provides that can be enjoyed by everyone and, once provided, cannot be denied to a particular subset of the population (for example, public transportation must be provided to everyone, everywhere); the government steps in to provide public goods when markets wouldn't; helps keep rules around the nation the same for everyone and make things a little more fair; if they didn't, no one would have these services unless people paid a lot of money to get it from the market, because the market only provides if it's profitable;
6) creating a labor force- mainly happens through compulsory education laws, where states require kids to go to school up to a certain age to at least try to ensure they grow up to have a level of competence that will enable them to be productive workers; also helps create the workforce by providing student loans, they also provide government programs to help with employment.
7) ameliorating externalities- "an externality is an external effect that is a byproduct of a market transaction, they can be positive or negative and can also be seen as the difference between the private cost and social cost of economic behavior" (example, driving is an economic behavior: in the 70s, we bought leaded gasoline (a private economic transaction) and the pollution in the air was a public cost that everyone had to pay for (the cost of public health); the government prevented this problem by outlawing lead in gasoline and creating regulations that limited air pollution, forcing companies and purchasers to pay for these negative external costs; Regulation is one way to deal with negative externalities, another way is taxes.
8) promoting competition- the essence of a functioning market system; in a perfect world, that would mean people got the best products at the best prices; history has shown that corporations and individuals have often tried to stifle competition and create monopolies (if there's only one firm selling a product, that firm can charge whatever it wants), but doesn't usually benefit consumers as much as it benefits monopolists; anti-trust laws can be used against big corporations; the government can also grant anti-trust exemptions that allow monopolies; the government can also pass laws that promote or inhibit competition, although usually, it tries to make the marketplace even more competitive.

Documentary
-what keeps us out of shock is our history
-pain might even be more bearable than the deprivation we experience
-in Chile, they placed electroshock therapy to "help" people, which actually gave economic benefits to the wealthy and took from the poor.
-74% of an average paycheck for a family would go to buying bread. buying milk and riding the bus became luxury and schools stopped providing free milk for students.
-Orlando Letelier in 1976, he wrote "the economic plan has to be enforced", meaning in Chile, that could only be done by killing thousands, concentration camps, and putting more than 100,000 people in jail in three years.
-20:30

neoliberalistic beliefs:
-free trade in goods and services: we don't want to pay taxes for oil that we're taking away from you.
-free circulation of capital: into the banker's pockets
-freedom of investments- we'll invest in your third world industry, we'll make it all nice and shiny and new. under the condition that our workers have jobs there, all profits go to us, and it doesn't help your economy whatsoever.