Book Review: The Shock Doctrine
(Naomi Klein)
Gordon Munro
The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein)
Reviewed by Gordon Munro
This is a big book. Not just because it’s over 460 pages with another 60 containing notes to back up quotes. But don’t take my word for it take the word of Tim Robbins:
“The Shock Doctrine is so important and so revelatory a book that it could very well prove a catalyst, a watershed, a tipping point in the movement for economic and social justice.”
Yes, it is that important.
The subtitle of the book is ‘The rise of Disaster Capitalism’. So what is ‘disaster capitalism’? It is “orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting opportunities”, p.6. Sounds familiar? That’s because you’ve seen it recently on TV. Think New Orleans or the Tsunami in Sri Lanka.
So how did this begin? It starts off with a connection made by the author between the torture techniques used by US forces in Iraq. Klein notices a similarity between these and the experiments by Ewan Cameron in attempting to make people’s minds blank by the use of electro shock therapy. The CIA would use these experiments and their techniques to hone torture technique written down in user manuals produced by the CIA.
The other input to the shock doctrine was the ideology pioneered by Milton Friedman. He observed that “…only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”
This reached its apogee in Pinochet’s Chile. Friedman used this as an example of his economic theories in practice. Chile was extolled as a good example of the ‘free-market economy’ in practice which was admired by Thatcher amongst others. However this came at a price. The democratically elected government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by military coup. Torture straight from the CIA manual with helpful input from American operatives was used in Estadio Chile on 3,000 citizens rounded up in the immediate aftermath of the coup. These were brought to areas outside the capital by the ‘caravan of death’ to a further 30,000. Chile was ’shocked’ into obedience to the new military and economic order. Friedman visited Chile to witness and encourage the ‘economic miracle’. Friedman and his admirers turned a blind eye to the terrible human cost of their ‘pure capitalism’.
But this ‘pure capitalism’ is just an ideological smokescreen for the new robber barons. New Orleans is a new market opportunity for real estate now that the people have been taken way from what was left of their neighbourhoods. The beach fronts at Sri Lanka are another opportunity to expand the tourist trade with beachfront hotels now that the local fishermen and their families have been removed by natural disaster.
Naomi Klein does not just provide a descriptive history of the dominant economic ideology of the day neo-liberalism and its pervasive influence throughout the globe. She finds hope beyond the cynical world of realpolitik. In the final chapter ,’Shock wears off’, she reveals ‘the dirty secret of the neoliberal era..’ that “Democratic socialism , meaning not only socialist parties brought to power through elections but also democratically run workplaces and landholdings , has worked in many regions from Scandinavia to the thriving and historic cooperative economy in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region.”
This book is ‘Impassioned, hugely informative, wonderfully controversial, and scary as hell’ according to John le Carre. It’s not just that it is also an invocation to act. Join the resistance.
Cllr Gordon Munro
Edinburgh Leith Ward
The Shock Doctrine
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Published in paperback by Penguin.
ISBN: 9780141024530