The whole idea is to swallow the bitter pill now in exchange for prosperity later. There are worse fates than brutality and starvation in the short term: witness Venezuela, which has been trying to wish away its economic problems for decades now, and keeps going from bad to worse.
On the other hand, we all know what Chicago Boy orthodoxy has wrought in Chile with Pinochet, or in southern European countries in the wake of the forced IMF/ECB bailouts.
