The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism in Ms. Reviews & Bookmarks

Jun 27, 2008 Lissa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: social-science, politics, history

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book is a must read for the discerning, politically-minded and moral activist. Reading The Shock Doctrine literally kept me up at night; never have I been so freaked out by the display of such blatantly self-serving political machinations as I was by the phenomenal reporting undertaken by Klein.

In essence, the book relates how Milton Friedman, through his University of Chicago economic department, went on to create "Chicago School" fundamentalist, pure-market-theory corporatist economists This book is a must read for the discerning, politically-minded and moral activist. Reading The Shock Doctrine literally kept me up at night; never have I been so freaked out by the display of such blatantly self-serving political machinations as I was by the phenomenal reporting undertaken by Klein.

In essence, the book relates how Milton Friedman, through his University of Chicago economic department, went on to create "Chicago School" fundamentalist, pure-market-theory corporatist economists that themselves went on to destroy economies world-wide, from Chile under Pinochet, to Brazil, Poland, Russia, and now are at work in Iraq, New Orleans, and Sri Lanka.

The principal of "The Shock Doctrine" was first used by Canadian Psychologist Ewan Cameron under the auspices of the CIA during Cameron's campaign of literally "shocking" of psychiatric patients back to a tabula rasa or "blank slate" whereby that person's personality could theoretically be "rebuilt" in a "healthy" image. Of course the people who endured Cameron's tortures experienced no such "cure." Their brains were scrambled. Klein goes on with her book explaining how the Chicago School economists use just this same form of "The Shock Doctrine" but instead of using it on people, they use it on an entire nation's economy. For these economists, political shocks like a coup, wars, disappearances and torture of political opponents, or national disasters like Hurricane Katrina are not "disasters" but "market opportunities" whereby the nation, once in a position of "shock," is thus open for mass privatization, price adjustments, signing on with burdensome debt and required privitisations at the hands of the World Bank and the IMF, foreign investment/ownership, incredible wealth accumulation for a few, all without any voting by the populace and in some cases with a suspended constitution. Under that state of "shock," the populace are temporarily unable to fight back.

Seriously folks, you can disagree with the premise of this book, but the facts remain that in Milton Friedman's "Chicago School" world, the "Free Market" is thought to only be theoretically true and free when even democracy has been closed down. This really gives one an insight into what we're fighting against when we consider the globalization death strangles of massive debt from the IMF and the World Bank, and what is really meant by the words "Free Trade." ...more

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Feb 09, 2010 Dee rated it it was amazing

This is a horrifying and terrifying book, but it makes the last 50 years make sense and lets us see "behind the curtain". I had to take breaks because I was growing heartsick at reading the cold hard facts of how unfettered capitalism has destroyed lives all over the world. But learning the truth helps one to fight against it! Klein shows how Milton Friedman's economic philosophy was spread throughout the world and intersected with "advances" in torture and psychological warfare. A desire for "c ...more

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Jun 09, 2008 Marybeth rated it it was amazing

In her book The Shock Doctrine Naomi Klien raises many issues that transnational feminism raises but in her findings she does not perform a gender analytic. In the book Klein exposes how Milton Friedman, infamous economist of the Chicago School of Economics, began and perpetuated his use of economic shock therapy infiltrate countries fresh from disaster be it a coup, war or natural. Shock makes people compliant and inclined to follow leaders.

Disaster Capitalism is a neoliberal ideology viewing ...more

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