No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump's Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need

by Naomi Klein

It’s a lesson I learned when I glimpsed another kind of future on the streets of Buenos Aires over fifteen years ago. At the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002, Argentina was in the grips of an economic crisis so severe that it stunned the world. In the 1990s, the country had opened itself to corporate globalization so rapidly and so thoroughly that the International Monetary Fund held it up as a model student. The iconic logos of global banks, hotel chains, and US fast-food restaurants glowed from the Buenos Aires skyline, and its new shopping malls were so fashionable and luxurious that they frequently drew comparisons with Paris. Time magazine, on its cover, declared Argentina’s economy a “miracle.” And then it all came crashing down. Amidst a spiraling debt crisis, the government attempted to impose a new round of economic austerity, and all those gleaming global banks had to board up their windows and doors to prevent customers rushing in to withdraw their life savings. Protests spread across the country. In the suburbs, supermarkets (owned by European chains) were looted. In the midst of this chaotic scene, Fernando de la Rúa, then Argentina’s president, went on television, his face shiny with sweat, and announced that the country was under attack from “groups that are enemies of order who are looking to spread discord and violence.” He declared a thirty-day state of siege—which gave him the power to suspend a range of constitutional guarantees, including freedom ...