The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism in The Transition Movement

Oct 25, 2011 Riku Sayuj rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: economics, sociology-institutions, pop-eco

"Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent."
~ Mao

I read it once, and I couldn't believe it.

I tried reading it again and I believe it even less.

I want to, honestly. And I feel as strongly as the author that The Shock Doctrine is changing the world. But it runs in the face of all economics I have been taught and I find myself scorning and muttering 'alarmist' to some of the more provocative paragraphs.

Thesis: The history of the contemporary free market was written in ...more

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Mar 09, 2012 Katie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction

I can't emphasize enough how important the subject matter of this book is. It took me years of reading and doing my own research to discover what Naomi Klein is able to convey in one very well-researched book. As a young economics student, I was taught (and believed for a time) that an unrestrained market would benefit everybody and that it was circling the globe because it was a popular idea that people in other countries were catching on to. An idealistic picture was painted for me and no oppo I can't emphasize enough how important the subject matter of this book is. It took me years of reading and doing my own research to discover what Naomi Klein is able to convey in one very well-researched book. As a young economics student, I was taught (and believed for a time) that an unrestrained market would benefit everybody and that it was circling the globe because it was a popular idea that people in other countries were catching on to. An idealistic picture was painted for me and no opposing views were offered, so it's no wonder that I bought into it. However, my worldview was forever changed after reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and I started to dig deeper into the subject.

Where Economic Hit Man introduces the idea of coercing leaders into enacting free-market policies, Shock Doctrine picks up by chronicling why and how this has been done over a period of several decades. What Shock Doctrine makes very clear is that nobody was really choosing to free their markets and privatize all their industries. Rather, many free-market ideas are so unpalatable to people that democracy has to be suspended in order to pass such policies. Whether or not you are a believer in free-market dogma, I think most people would agree that sovereign, democratic states should have the ability to make their own choices rather than having an outside ideology forced on them through the use of terror. For this reason, I think everyone should read this book to understand how the US has lead a worldwide effort to undermine democracy in one country after another, all in the name of the free market. If this doesn't cause you to question our militarism, then I don't know what will.

Furthermore, not only has free-market ideology been forcefully applied, but it did not produce the results that were promised. Actually, the whole story (which you don't get in university economics departments - they only teach the convenient pieces) demonstrates time and time again that these policies, while great for the owners at the top, create a situation for most people that is much worse than before. Klein shows that in case after case, after implementing free-market policies, unemployment sky-rocketed, prices for necessities like food, water, and electricity shot up, often becoming unaffordable for large segments of the population, and poverty rose dramatically while a select few (now known as the 1%) profited dramatically. This is perhaps the most powerful message in the book because if an economic theory, when applied in the real world, does not produce the intended results, it refutes the theory and proves it false. This is an extremely important point to make because US domestic and foreign policy continues to be guided by free-market ideology. It is completely unacceptable for our government to be basing its most important decisions on an ideology that is a proven failure.

I recently learned that it took 4 years, with a team of researches, to write this book. You can certainly tell. It doesn't read as opinion because it's not based on opinions. It's a well-formed thesis that is supported by solid evidence, and plenty of it. It's this thorough research that makes it so important - because before this book, it took people like myself years to put together enough bits and pieces to get the whole picture and see US foreign policy for what it really is: military intervention on behalf of money-hungry capitalists who view other countries as new markets ripe for profit rather than sovereign states where we have no right to interfere in their politics. Thanks to Naomi Klein, the truth just got more accessible. ...more

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May 04, 2014 David Bjelland rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, the-left, muckraking, economics

You read this, and all of a sudden those 60,000 anti-globalization activists at The Battle of Seattle don't seem so radical at all.

... Hell, you'll probably wish you could go back in time and throw a brick or two yourself. ...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Sai Chand rated it liked it

Though the book sounds very cynical, it tries to establish a relation between various disasters and unbridled capitalism.

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Jan 09, 2012 Mark Hebden rated it it was amazing

Shelves: politics, favorite

I re-read The Shock Doctrine over the past week. I wanted to see how the shock hypothesis corresponded with current events regarding the global financial collapse. In truth it corresponds greatly. The same groups and individuals are arguing that the only answer to the current crisis is neo-liberal privatised economies, despite the fact that it is exactly that type of governance that caused the mess in the first place. While people are “shocked” the market forces are determined to push through th I re-read The Shock Doctrine over the past week. I wanted to see how the shock hypothesis corresponded with current events regarding the global financial collapse. In truth it corresponds greatly. The same groups and individuals are arguing that the only answer to the current crisis is neo-liberal privatised economies, despite the fact that it is exactly that type of governance that caused the mess in the first place. While people are “shocked” the market forces are determined to push through the shrinking of public sectors everywhere for the benefit of a handful of companies and their shareholders.

Some other interesting things came out of re-reading the book. The fact that Israel gained a state security system at the expense of destitute Palestinians and now hawk this out to the rest of the world as a global security service. It reframed its economy to put counterterrorism at the heart of policy at the same time that it stopped paying even lip service to a peace agreement with the Palestinians. It is now requires war to keep its economic growth the right side of positive. Similarly, economic growth in rich countries has become so dependent on the growth of large companies, many of them security or weapons related, whose profits only grow in times of conflict, it is now in a rich states best interests to be at war! National growth is now inextricably linked to permanent conflict.

I have consistently linked Israeli actions towards Palestine with Apartheid South Africa and its treatment of black citizens. Naomi Klein points out an important distinction. The South African Bantustans were essentially labour camps, while refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank have appropriated the opposite system. They have kept work from the workers and created a holding network for millions of people now deemed surplus to humanity.

Lastly a major sticking point is that major corporations have excluded the poor to the stage where those people, proud people now aim their anger at the convenient other, the immigrant or the refugee and other vulnerable people such as benefit claimants. The exclusion of so many people in developed countries has created situations remarkably similar to those of Weimar Germany that precipitated the rise of Hitler and Nazism.
...more

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Jan 19, 2011 Ryan Melena rated it it was amazing

This book was a real eye-opener. It offers fantastic insight into the inevitable effects of extreme free-market practices and exposes the people and institutions that continue to champion a disturbing ultra capitalist ideology.

Although the book is a bit slow at times (mostly because of the tremendous amount of supporting evidence the author provides), the patient reader is rewarded with a wealth of valuable information.

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