Chicago parking meters: Harbingers of neoliberal privatization  

“Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals,” Friedman said in 1979. “It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government – in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.”

Lily Geismer, a professor of history at Claremont McKenna College and author of several texts on neoliberalism in the U.S., said this ethos holds true for modern adherents of Milton’s philosophy to this day.

“For [neoliberals], the government’s main function is… to support and protect the free market,” she said.

Though Western neoliberalism’s most famous political figures are conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher – who eviscerated social safety nets in the U.S. and U.K., respectively, and espoused free-market solutions to crises instead of government intervention – Geismer said that Democrats too have become enamored with neoliberalism since the 1970s.

In her estimation, the Democratic Party since that time has transformed from a party of the multiracial working class to one representing the interests of affluent, college-educated, mostly white liberals – people who don’t worry nearly so much about money as the working poor.

“They have their own approach to neoliberalism, like with public-private partnerships,” Geismer said. “It’s all about believing that the free market is the most efficient way to handle problems.”

The privatization of Chicago’s parking meters under Daley’s watch, Geismer said, is a textbook example of neoliberal politics. A homecoming, even. It also proved a harbinger of the form of politics that had already begun usurping the Daley political patronage networks - the so-called Chicago Machine - by the late aughts. Much as Geismer said, under Daley’s mayoral successors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot, private-public partnerships, not patronage, have come to rule City Hall. 

Neoliberalism "is everywhere. It touches on everything in American life,” Geismer said, including education, infrastructure, health care, transportation and policing.

Another example is Ventra, the private company with ties to military contractors that bought up Chicago’s public transit fare system in 2013 for $454 million, with Emanuel’s blessing. Ventra’s launch was marred by months of technical problems and, as with CPM and the city’s parking meters, public train and bus prices went up after it replaced the old public fare system. The biggest price increase came in 2017, when fares increased from $2 for buses and $2.25 for trains to $2.25 and $2.50, respectively. At the time, Emanuel defended the price increases as necessary to avoid service cuts. 

The influence of neoliberalism can also be seen in Emanuel’s appointed school board opting to close 50 public schools in 2013, mostly in low-income Black and Latino neighborhoods. It was the largest school closure in Chicago history, and heralded the creation of multiple for-profit charter schools to absorb many of the displaced students. The charter schools remain a heated political topic in Chicago to this day.

Charter school expansion has stalled out since Lightfoot took the mayor’s office in 2019, running as a reformer. She has also led efforts to improve social welfare through initiatives like a universal basic income pilot program for low-income residents, and free internet services for some low-income families with children enrolled in the Chicago public school district. But throughout her tenure she has embraced what University of Texas at Austin sociology researcher Riad Azra labeled as another aspect of neoliberalism: austerity. 

“Austerity traditionally has been defined as the economic policies surrounding deficit cutting,” Azar wrote in 2015. “When public debt runs too high, according to the theory, the accounts must be balanced by cutting spending and raising taxes.”

Lightfoot’s 2021 city budget follows Azar’s description of austerity to a tee. In response to the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic, her budget that year included a major property tax increase, gas tax hikes, layoffs of city workers and severe speeding enforcement that threatened to ticket any driver going even 6 miles per hour over the posted limit.

It didn’t earn her many friends in City Hall. Though the budget narrowly passed, she infamously told several City Council members that if they didn’t vote for the budget that they shouldn’t “ask [her] for shit for the next three years.”

In fact, Lightfoot has made enemies both to the left and right since 2019. She’s feuded with the left-leaning Chicago Teachers Union on multiple occasions over issues of student safety, school resources and teacher pay, while to the ire of the city’s growing progressive factions her 2022 budget also expanded the Chicago Police Department’s funding to over $1.9 billion. That’s more than 40% of the city’s entire operating budget.  

However, she and the city’s Department of Public Health have also imposed Covid-19 vaccine mandates on city workers and bar and restaurant patrons, angering the city’s conservative elements - including the police unions. Having made everyone angry, by late 2021 her approval rating stood at only about 42.5%. 

This anger from both ends of the political spectrum is predictable, Geismer said, given neoliberalism’s esteem of the free market. When everything costs money, she said, eventually most people run out of it. And when that happens, the status quo can’t help but collapse. 

“We’ve seen pushback to the neoliberal consensus from both the left and the right,” Geismer said. “Some people blame neoliberal policies for the rise of Trumpism. And to the left, a lot of the labor militancy we’ve seen in the last few years is a response to it.”    

The future of neoliberalism in Chicago and beyond is uncertain, Geismer said. With both left- and right-wing populism growing alongside the gap between wealthy and poor, it’s unclear how long centrist free market policies will remain viable. For Democrats in their big city bastions, she opined, the best path forward may be a return to the working class politics that they once relied on.

“I have hope that with this labor action, [the Democrats] can claw back to being a working class party,” she said.

In the meantime, remember to bring some extra cash if you plan a road trip to Chicago between now and 2084. Parking can cost up to $7 per hour.

Follow @djbyrnes1

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit