Rethinking Chile's Chicago Boys': neoliberal technocrats or revolutionary vanguard?

The term Chicago Boys' remains closely associated with the orthodox neoliberal adjustment implemented in Chile by the Pinochet dictatorship. The conventional portrayal of the Chicago Boys is of a group of US-trained, technocratic economists who institutionalised neoliberal principles and technocratic prerogatives in public policymaking in Chile. This article will contend the Chicago Boys were much more than neoliberal technocrats: they were a revolutionary vanguard that designed and led a capitalist revolution and radically altered the material and ideological foundations of the nation.