The case of Mexico shows that, despite a proliferating discourse that it is over, neoliberalism is as relentless as ever.
In fact, conflict, war, violence, pain, pessimism, frustration and illiberalism abounded in the past four decades, but the reigning rhetoric is otherwise. For scholars and natives of Latin America, the narrow, triumphalist if mournful viewpoint of Anglo-American elites avoids the discomfort of addressing the Latin American experience of, and abundant scholarship on, neoliberalism. We should not be surprised. Including Latin America in these nominally global histories would make it impossible to suggest that neoliberalism is tantamount to consensus; that it was peacefully developed, not violently imposed; that it is defined by a sense of optimism; that it is not imperial. Without Latin America, we forget about the intimidating rise of Third World power before the 1980s, epitomised by movements for a New International Economic Order. We forget about the weaponisation of the Volcker Shock and the destruction wrought by its ensuing debt crises. We forget the reassertion of First World domination through enforced ‘structural adjustment’. More importantly, we are able to ignore that neoliberalism is structurally ongoing.