The Shock Doctrine

The Shock Doctrine
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism  
Front cover of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Author(s) Naomi Klein
Country Canada
Language English
Subject(s) Economics
Genre(s) Non-fiction
Publisher Knopf Canada (first edition)
Publication date 4 September 2007
Media type Hardcover, Paperback
Pages 672 (first edition)
ISBN 978-0-676-97800-1 (hardcover)
OCLC Number 74556458

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is a 2007 book by Canadian author Naomi Klein, and is the basis of a 2009 documentary by the same name.[1]

The book argues that the free market policies of Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman have risen to prominence in some countries because they were pushed through while the citizens were reacting to disasters or upheavals. It is implied that some man-made crises, such as the Falklands war, may have been created with the intention of pushing through these unpopular reforms in their wake.

Contents

Synopsis

The book has an introduction, a main body and a conclusion, divided into seven parts with a total of 21 chapters.

The introduction sketches the history of the last thirty years where economic shock doctrine has been applied throughout the world, from South America in the 1970s to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Klein introduces two of her main themes.

  1. That practitioners of the shock doctrine tend to seek a blank slate on which to create their ideal free market economies, which usually requires a violent destruction of the existing economic order.
  2. The similarities between economic shock doctrine and the original shock therapy – a psychiatric technique where electric shocks were applied to mentally ill patients.

Part 1 begins with a chapter on psychiatric shock therapy and the covert experiments conducted by the psychiatrist Ewen Cameron in collusion with the Central Intelligence Agency: how it was partially successful in distorting and regressing patients' original personality, but ineffectual in developing a better personality to replace it. Parallels with economic shock therapy are made, including a digression on how government agencies harnessed some of the lessons learned to create more effective torture techniques. Torture, according to Klein, has often been an essential tool for authorities who have implemented aggressive free market reforms – this assertion is stressed throughout the book. She suggests that for historical reasons the human rights movement has often portrayed torture without explaining its context, which has made it frequently appear as pointless sadism. The second chapter introduces Milton Friedman and his Chicago school of economics, who Klein describes as leading a movement committed to free markets even less regulated than before the Great Depression.

Part 2 discusses the use of shock doctrine to transform South American economies in the 1970s, focusing on the coup in Chile led by General Augusto Pinochet. The apparent necessity for the unpopular policies associated with shock therapy to be supported by torture is explored.

Part 3 covers attempts to apply the shock doctrine without the need for extreme violence against sections of the population. The mild shock therapy of Margaret Thatcher is explained as being made possible by the Falklands War, while free-market reform in Bolivia was possible due to a combination of pre-existing economic crises and the charisma of Jeffrey Sachs.

Part 4 reports on how the shock doctrine was applied in Poland, Russia, South Africa and to the tiger economies during the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Part 5 introduces the Disaster Capitalism Complex where the author describes how companies have learnt to profit from disasters. She talks about how the same personnel move easily from security-related posts in US government agencies to lucrative positions in corporations.

Part 6 discusses the occupation of Iraq, which Klein describes as the most comprehensive and full-scale implementation of the shock doctrine ever attempted.

Part 7 is about the winners and losers of economic shock therapy, how narrow groups will often do very well by moving into luxurious gated communities while large sections of the population are left with decaying public infrastructure, declining incomes and increased unemployment.

Conclusion is about the backlash against the shock doctrine and economic institutions that propagate it like the World Bank and IMF. South America and Lebanon post-2006 are examined as sources of positive news, where politicians are already rolling back free-market policies, with some mention of the increased campaigning by community-minded activists in South Africa and China.

Critical response

Praise

Paul B. Farrell from the Dow Jones Business News stated "you must read what may be the most important book on economics in the 21st century".[2] 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." and described the book as "both timely and devastating" [3] William S. Kowinski of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Klein may well have revealed the master narrative of our time,"[4] and it was named one of the best books of 2007 by the Village Voice,[5] Publishers Weekly,[6] The Observer,[7] and the Seattle Times.[8] The Irish Times describes Klein’s arguments as "compelling" with Dr. Tom Clonan reporting that she "systematically and calmly demonstrates to the reader" the way in which neocons were intimately linked to seismic events that "resulted in the loss of millions of lives". Near the end of the review Dr. Clonan’s offers a précis for Klein’s central argument—that the neoconservative project is not about "implanting of democracy" but a repressive prescription for the maximising of global profit for a small elite. "Neocons see the ideal ratio of super-rich to permanent-poor as consistent with an uber-class of business oligarchs and their political cronies from the top 20%". The remaining 80% of the world’s population, the "disposable poor", would subsist in "planned misery" unable to afford adequate housing, privatised education or healthcare.[9] The Independent called the book "a compelling account of the way big business and politics use global disasters for their own ends",[10] while Stephen Amidon of the New York Observer calls it a "compelling study of the dark heart of contemporary capitalism."[11]

Mixed

Nobel Laureate and former Chief Economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz wrote a review of The Shock Doctrine for the New York Times, calling the parallel between economic shock therapy and the psychological experiments conducted by Ewen Cameron "overdramatic and unconvincing" and claiming that "Klein is not an academic and cannot be judged as one. There are many places in her book where she oversimplifies." Nonetheless he claims that, "the case against these policies is even stronger than the one Klein makes" and that the book contains "a rich description of the political machinations required to force unsavory economic policies on resisting countries."[12] Shashi Tharoor in the Washington Post says that The Shock Doctrine takes Klein's criticism of capitalism an important step further, but also says that Klein "is too ready to see conspiracies where others might discern little more than the all-too-human pattern of chaos and confusion, good intentions and greed".[13]

Criticism

In the London Review of Books, Stephen Holmes criticized its perceived naïveté and for conflating "'free market orthodoxy' with predatory corporate behaviour."[14] John Willman of Financial Times describes it as "a deeply flawed work that blends together disparate phenomena to create a beguiling—but ultimately dishonest—argument."[15] Tom Redburn in the New York Times states that "what she is most blind to is the necessary role of entrepreneurial capitalism in overcoming the inherent tendency of any established social system to lapse into stagnation".[16] Jonathan Chait wrote in The New Republic that Klein "pays shockingly (but, given her premises, unsurprisingly) little attention to right-wing ideas. She recognizes that neoconservatism sits at the heart of the Iraq war project, but she does not seem to know what neoconservatism is; and she makes no effort to find out." [17] Robert Cole from The Times said, "Klein derides the “disaster capitalism complex” and the profits and privatisations that go with it but she does not supply a cogently argued critique of free market principles, and without this The Shock Doctrine descends into a muddle of stories that are often worrying, sometimes interesting, and occasionally bizarre."[18] Economist Tyler Cowen, who called Klein's rhetoric "ridiculous" and the book a "true economics disaster", says that the book contains "a series of fabricated claims, such as the suggestion that Margaret Thatcher created the Falkland Islands crisis to crush the unions and foist unfettered capitalism upon an unwilling British public."[19] Fred Kaplan said that Naomi Klein's depiction of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis as a "clash between Chicago-style capitalists and honorable, fledgling democrats" is ludicrous.[20] Johan Norberg of the Cato Institute criticizes the book, saying that "Klein's analysis is hopelessly flawed at virtually every level". Norberg finds fault with specifics of the analysis, such as of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, which he claims did not crush opposition to pro-market reforms, but in fact caused liberalization to stall for years.[21] Klein responded on her website to both Norberg and Chait claiming both had misrepresented her positions. Klein claimed Norberg had erected a straw man by claiming that her book is about one man, Friedman, but that it is in fact about a "multifaceted ideological trend".[22] Norberg again responded that Klein "actually defends only one of her central claims that I criticized. Instead she gives the impression that I have just tried to find small mistakes here and there in her book."[23]

Awards

  • Winner of the Warwick Prize for Writing (2008/9)

See also

Notes and references

  1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1355640/
  2. ^ Farrell, Paul (2007-10-16). "War, Terror, Catastrophe: Profiting From 'Disaster Capitalism'". Dow Jones Business News. http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews/profiting-disaster-capitalism. 
  3. ^ Gray, John (2007-09-15). "The End of the World as We Know It". The Guardian. http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews/end-world-we-know-it. 
  4. ^ Kowinski, William S. (2007-09-23). "Klein alleges U.S. used 'Shock' tactics to privatize public sector". The San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/23/RVGHRVRCQ.DTL. 
  5. ^ village voice > books > The Best of 2007
  6. ^ PW's Best Books of the Year - 11/5/2007 - Publishers Weekly
  7. ^ "That's the best thing we've read all year". The Guardian (London). 2007-11-25. http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2216467,00.html. Retrieved 2010-05-25. 
  8. ^ "Seattle Times book reviewers pick 2007 favorites". The Seattle Times. 2007-12-14. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2004068070_greatbooks16.html. 
  9. ^ Clonan, Tom (2007-09-29). "Making capital out of fear". The Irish Times. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2007/0929/1190938505497.html. 
  10. ^ Guest, Katy (2008-08-23). "Milton Friedman’s Afterlife". London: The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/paperback-the-shock-doctrine-by-naomi-klein-832704.html. 
  11. ^ Amidon, Stephen (2007-09-19). "Milton Friedman’s Afterlife". New York Observer. http://www.observer.com/2007/milton-friedman-s-afterlife. 
  12. ^ Stiglitz, Joseph (2007-09-30). "Bleakonomics". New York Times. http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews/bleakonomics. 
  13. ^ "Doing Well by Doing Ill". The Washington Post. 2007-11-25. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/21/AR2007112101919.html. Retrieved 2010-05-25. 
  14. ^ Holmes, Stephen (2008-05-08). "Free Marketeering". http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n09/holm01_.html. 
  15. ^ The profits of doom - John Willman, Financial Times, October 20, 2007
  16. ^ It’s All a Grand Capitalist Conspiracy - Tom Redburn, New York Times, September 29, 2007
  17. ^ Chait, Jonathan (2008-07-30). "Dead Left". The New Republic. http://www.tnr.com/article/books/dead-left. Retrieved 2009-11-26. 
  18. ^ The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein, The Times, October 12, 2007.
  19. ^ Cowen, Tyler (2007-10-03). "Shock Jock". http://www.nysun.com/article/63867?page_no=1. 
  20. ^ Kaplan, Fred (2007-10-02). "Blame Yeltsin". Slate. http://www.slate.com/id/2175133/pagenum/2/. 
  21. ^ "The Klein Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Polemics". Cato Institute. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9384. Retrieved 2008-08-28. 
  22. ^ "One Year After the Publication of The Shock Doctrine, A Response to the Attacks". http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2008/09/response-attacks. Retrieved 2008-10-27. 
  23. ^ "Three Days After Klein's Response, Another Attack". Cato Institute. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9626. Retrieved 2008-09-05. 

External links

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