I've been reading Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, and in the first part of the book, she describes how Milton Friedman and his fellow U. of Chicago economists and students yearned for a "laboratory" where they they could put their free market ideas into practice in a pure form.
The problem was that most economies at that time were not "pure" market economies, but had massive government intrusions, mainly in the forms of support for unions, minimum wage laws, universal education, etc. So they colluded with potential dictators such as Pinochet in Chile, who, if placed in power, could impose market reforms that would be impossible if the workers had any say in them. According to Klein, the result was massive redistribution of wealth to the rich, and misery (shock) for lots of others.
It occurred to me, as I was reading this, that Friedman didn't have to go to all the trouble to manufacture a relatively pure "free market," and in fact, it was right in front of him all the time.
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