The only country in Latin America where an actual US-style neoliberal system took hold along with the typical class-cucked citizenry that goes along with it is Chile, and the neoliberalism had to be put in at gunpoint by a vicious dictatorship that murdered 15,000 Chileans after a CIA coup overthrew the Democratically elected Marxist government of Salvador Allende.
Neoliberal scholars such as Milton Friedman said that neoliberalism in these places would always have to be enforced at gunpoint by a rightwing dictatorship because otherwise a majority would never vote for it. The admission that a majority would never vote for such a system ought to be a profound tell – how good could this system be if no majority in these parts of the world would ever vote for it?
After Pinochet left, the neoliberal culture continued, but really it only infected the upper 1/3 of the population who benefited from Pinochetism, while the lower 2/3 hated it.
Chile to this day remains one of the most unequal countries on Earth with class conflict and hatred so thick that it breaks out into street violence all the time. In recent months the country has been shaken by leftwing insurrectionist riots against the rightwing government, a logical outcome, but it was already like this somewhat for 30 years after Pinochet left. Chile is a place like the Philippines where the classes hate each other so much that they pretty much want each other dead, literally. The class hate is so thick you can cut it with a knife.
Neoliberalism also caught on somewhat in the UK under Thatcher and later Conservative governments, probably the closest to a US rightwing style government on Earth. Even long after Thatcher left, she caused such cultural change that the top 1/3 of the population went over to neoliberalism.
The bottom 2/3 of course did not (see Chile above – a 1/3 benefit, 2/3 are harmed equation is typical of neoliberalism), and Thatcher was burned in effigy amidst violent riots in the poorer urban areas when she died.
Thatcher was also an extreme anti-environmentalist, and it is not yet known if the Earth accepted or rejected her body when it was placed inside of its body. One wondered the same thing about Reagan, the vicious anti-environmentalist. When he died, I wondered, “Will the Earth even accept his body when it is interred?”
Neoliberalism caught on in Ireland, where it did the usual damage. It’s not known why the population opted for this.
It caught on in the Baltics because they hate Russia and Communism so much that they are almost psychotic. Of course, like all such people, the Baltics tend to be quite fascist. In an extreme reaction against anything slightly smelling of Communism, including the mildest forms of socialism, the Baltics went to extreme neoliberalism in a knee-jerk, unthinking way.
The more neoliberal a country was the more it got ruined by the 2008 economic crash (and the more socialist it was – like China – the more it was protected), and the Baltics were devastated by the crash. Latvia was hit worst of all. 1/3 of the population fled its ruined economy, including almost all of the educated and skilled classes. Latvia remains in neoliberal ruins to this day.
Russia went neoliberal under Yeltsin, who opened fire on the nation’s Parliament when it defied him, murdering 600 people, including many legislators. In 1996, the Communist Party actually won the election, but Yeltsin stole it with the help of the US and suitcases literally packed with cash.
Russia was stripped bare and sold for 10 cents on the dollar to the worst capitalists, mostly of a (((certain type))) with the help of bankers in Germany and in the the US, where a (((certain type of people))) also delighted in the looting of their ancient enemy (see (((Jeffrey Sachs))) and (((the Chicago Boys))), back for another round after the Chile debacle), 15 million people died premature deaths. and the nation’s paternity stolen by a (((venal capitalist ruling class))) that was indistinguishable from (((Organized Crime))).
The huge reaction against the neoliberal rape of the land was the main thing that brought the nationalist Putin into power to try to repair the damage and heal the rape victim.
Neoliberalism has been imposed in Europe and many other parts of the world via austerity via bankers and the IMF and the World Bank, but austerity was hated everywhere it was put in – in Europe, Latin America, the Arab World, and even in Africa – and it caused mass riots and even the overthrow of quite a few governments everywhere it was imposed. It was the violent reaction to this austerity that directly led to the Pink Tide in Latin America that US bipartisan foreign policy has now rolled back.