From class society to neoliberal mass society: Social and cultural transformations driven by Chilean neoliberalism

Abstract

This article presents a critical reflection on the formation of Chilean neoliberal society, employing the analytical categories of “spectacle” (Debord), “control” (Deleuze), and “masses” (Amorós). The aim is to conduct a longitudinal analysis of neoliberal transformations, articulating reflections on subjectivity, social control, and political culture. This analysis seeks to better define the specific mechanisms for producing social imaginaries and the production of desirability. By considering economic-legal, cultural, social, and political variables, we develop a referential analytical framework that aims to overcome the limitations of economistic and institutionalist interpretive frameworks, advancing toward a cultural and social characterization of what we call “neoliberal mass society”; that is to say, a mass society forged in the heat of capitalist spectacle and new forms of social control that emerged with democratic neoliberalism. By linking these political categories to specific historical processes in Chile, we aim not only to achieve a deeper and more complete characterization of the mechanisms of social control and production operating under neoliberal society -such as advertising, indebtedness, and precarity- but also to position and suggest this conceptual framework for its application to the realities of other Latin American countries that faced similar processes of the establishment of civic-military dictatorships and the neoliberalization of their societies.