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The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
by: Naomi Klein

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 330.122
EAN: 9780312427993
ISBN: 0312427999
Label: Picador
Manufacturer: Picador
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 720
Publication Date: June 24, 2008
Publisher: Picador
Release Date: June 24, 2008
Sales Rank: 77
Studio: Picador

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Product Description:

In this groundbreaking alternative history of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free-market economic revolution, Naomi Klein challenges the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory. From Chile in 1973 to Iraq today, Klein shows how Friedman and his followers have repeatedly harnessed terrible shocks and violence to implement their radical policies. As John Gray wrote in The Guardian, 'There are very few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is one of those books.'

Amazon.com Review:
Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine advances a truly unnerving argument: historically, while people were reeling from natural disasters, wars and economic upheavals, savvy politicians and industry leaders nefariously implemented policies that would never have passed during less muddled times. As Klein demonstrates, this reprehensible game of bait-and-switch isn't just some relic from the bad old days. It's alive and well in contemporary society, and coming soon to a disaster area near you.

'At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq'' civil war, a new law is unveiled that will allow Shell and BP to claim the country's vast oil reserves… Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly outsources the running of the 'War on Terror' to Halliburton and Blackwater… After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts… New Orleans residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be re-opened.' Klein not only kicks butt, she names names, notably economist Milton Friedman and his radical Chicago School of the 1950s and 60s which she notes 'produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today.' Stand up and take a bow, Donald Rumsfeld.

There's little doubt Klein's book--which arrived to enormous attention and fanfare thanks to her previous missive, the best-selling No Logo, will stir the ire of the right and corporate America. It's also true that Klein's assertions are coherent, comprehensively researched and footnoted, and she makes a very credible case. Even if the world isn't going to hell in a hand-basket just yet, it's nice to know a sharp customer like Klein is bearing witness to the backroom machinations of government and industry in times of turmoil. --Kim Hughes

Customer Reviews

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- The Ida Tarbell of Our Time
Naomi Klein has exposed Milton Friedman and the "Chicago Boys" just as Ida Tarbell exposed John D. Rockefeller in an earlier time. In other words, beware of those who worship "markets"--usually such worshippers leave out the fact that the only capitalistic enterprises they worship are the ones they control. Any competing companies (or schools of thought) must be destroyed.

Is it any wonder that Friedman became a god at the University of Chicago, the House that Rockefeller built? Rockefeller destroyed the lives of his competitors, and was anything but a free market man. He and men like Carngegie didn't believe in capitalism for others--they were monopolists, and used government to protect their monopolies, just as the multinationals do today.

Klein does an excellent job of ripping off the "free market" mask of Friedman, just as Tarbell did of Rockefeller. You can bet that she has made herself ... Read More

Rating:

- The Dark Side of Unrestricted Capitalism
The Shock Doctrine is a fascinating exposé on the dark side of unrestricted capitalism when it is implemented through blackmail, extortion, military force, and the suppression of democracy. Naomi Klein provides numerous examples over the last 50 years of countries who upon falling into financial and economic crises, desperately turn to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund for financial and economic assistance to stabilize and rebuild their economies. These countries soon discover that the World Bank and IMF are staunch promoters of capitalism and free-market economics, and will only provide aid on the condition that unrestricted capitalist policies be instantaneously and shockingly adopted by these countries, using lethal force if necessary, to suppress existing socialist ideologies and organizations, and even to suppress the will of the countries people who may be democratically opposed. This is what Klein ... Read More

Rating:

- Nothing new here, move along
The only thing that is true, and has been known in fact for a century, is that dramatic events cause change. On this I can agree with Ms. Klein, and only that.

Where this book careens off into left field, is by blaming this all on Milton Friedman and labelling it Friedmanism - all on the basis of a quote, and completely ignoring the history of the Nazis and the Kristallnacht, or the Marxists and the July Days in Russia. Milton Friedman made an observation (why certainly - he's Jewish, the people who suffered disproportionately from the effects of such kinds of propaganda under both regimes), but he surely did not invent the method. Blame the Marxists and the Nazis for perfecting that.

Do yourself a favour, and buy the The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, his thesis is free of partisan politics and delves far further with laser sharp understanding, into how change through improbable events ... Read More

Rating:

- Eye opening
I would describe myself as reasonably well informed, economically literate, a Wall Street investor and Democrat. I found this book eye-opening, although I believe Klein is pushing a point of view which is frequently incorrect; e.g. privatization is not always bad, and Great Britain under Thatcher did achieve prosperity, while the Chinese middle class is vastly expanding. It is not so clear as Klein seems to imply that if the US had done the right things, the Iraqi invasion would have resulted in a democratic country.

What Klein does is draw lots of things together, and show the extent to which the extreme free market ideology of Milton Friedman and his many disciples dominated US foreign policy in so many countries, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and also the conduct of government under George W. Bush. Once again ideology, untempered by evidence and practicality, when given free reign, ... Read More

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