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There's a distinction to be made between rapid neoliberal deregulation policies which naively attempt for a full "shock therapy" solution in an economy already

There's a distinction to be made between rapid neoliberal deregulation policies which naively attempt for a full "shock therapy" solution in an economy already devastated by accumulated allocative inefficiency from central planning and oil shocks (in the case of the USSR), and the general concept of laissez-faire which is separate from a particular national policy and can emerge by counter-economic means (e.g. crypto-anarchism), or others. Chile and the Chicago Boys is a bit disingenuous to regard as outright failure, it's a controversial subject. Keep in mind that the Chicago School are a unique economic position, but they've been oversimplified to "free market" in common discourse.

__jal 11y ago
What makes the Chicago Boys unique, to a large degree, is that they seem to have made a choice to trade analysis for position advocacy. A lot of them are better thought of as taking part in politics rather than academics. If you want sources, just scan Brad Delong's blog; there's a decent chance he's making this point at any given time. There was a wonderful example I can't take time time to dig up right now in which an (Chicago-aligned) economist published a paper with outright deceptive priors and when confronted, explained that his goal was to promote an argument, and it was the reader's problem to make counter arguments. You can call that a lot of things, but academic inquiry isn't one of them.