The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

One of the worst books on politics and economics I've ever read.

The book starts out with how the Katrina disaster represented the common saying "crisis brings about change" and how this change was introducing the concept of "charter school vouchers" to taxpaying citizens rather than forcing a public school system on them. First, it is common knowledge that crisis brings about change, which can be for both good (e.g., the American Revolution) and bad (e.g., the rise of Hitler). Contrary to the author's arguments, there is nothing inherently evil about this. Second, there is nothing inherently evil about the concept of private charter schools replacing public schools. As the US private university system is the admiration of the world, the US public secondary school system is generally viewed as weak and even corrupt, largely due to protected tenure granted by a teacher's union. Is it so bad to let secondary schools also compete? Lastly, the author should consider a course in basic economics. The Govt doesn't create value. High union teacher wages are paid by the people, not by Govt. Competition is, or at least should be, a part of life. Some social engineers like the author wish it was otherwise. Being a long time and avid reader of social, economic and political history, I'm truly perplexed as to why this book received such rave reviews. To me, it was painful reading by a naive author.

5 out of 29 people found this review helpful.

Overdue Awakening.

Absolutely brillant. It will reinforce what what many of us only suspected. For too long we have regarded the new prosperity of the few in the developing world as evidence of the success of the free market forgetting the majority whose living standards have often been diminished. The true effects of the trickle down theory are laid bare. Eric

5 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

Shockingly Bad

This may well be the worst piece of economic 'analysis' I've ever read. Klein's argument consists of not much more than a single, bizarre, analogy: as electroshock therapy was used to 'reform' individuals' thought processes, so too was economic crisis and political dictatorship used to reform economic policy. According to Klein's paranoid vision, policies to eliminate runaway inflation--commonly called 'shock policy'--literally require something like electroshock therapy to the body politic as a precursor. Klein argues, illogically, that since some--but far from all--rightist dictatorships instituted free-market reforms after seizing power, and since those regimes used electroshock torture to consolidate power, then they must have seized power and used electroshock torture for the sole purpose of instituting free-market reforms. This is the logical fallacy 'post hoc ergo propter hoc,' a favorite of conspiracy theorists everywhere. It will surprise no one familiar with this style of argument that the CIA figures prominently in Klein's vigorous efforts to connect the dots leading from 1950s pyschiatric labs to 1970s Santiago by way of 1960s classrooms at the University of Chicago. Given her apparent sympathy for Marxist regimes, it is surprising that Klein fails to apply the most basic feature of Marxist analysis--cui bono? That is, she spends 400+ pages ranting about Milton Friedman's alleged agenda to impose his views on the world by means of political shocks, but she devotes not a single sentence to explaining just why it was in his interest to do so. The simple alternative explanation is that, just as he wrote during the entirety of his professional life, Friedman sincerely believed that free markets were essential to free societies. Klein completely misrepresents the meaning of his observation that fundamental reforms come about most commonly during times of crisis--as in the case of Klein's beloved New Deal. She--willfully or stupidly--misinterprets a historical observation as a policy prescription. Friedman never, anywhere, advocated that a crisis be precipitated in order to induce economic reforms. For Klein to imply anything other than this is, as far as I'm concerned, defamation purely and simply. This book would be laughable if it weren't viewed by so many uninformed people as a serious piece of scholarship.

4 out of 13 people found this review helpful.

An Ugly Reflection in the Mirror

Klein uses historical research, as well as anecdotal descriptions and interviews, to bolster her thesis that America's often hidden foreign policy has systematically supported brutal, undemocratic dictatorships and carefully used its clout with the IMF and the World Bank to extort US-friendly policy from other nations, even when it is not in the best interests of those nations' populations. For those of us who would like to be proud of our country, it's an ugly reflection in the mirror. For those Americans who can't understand why so many around the world hate us, it's a wake-up call.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

A chilling and eye-opening read

In this chilling history of deregulated capitalism gone wild, Naomi Klein shows how Milton Friedman and his followers have taken advantage of chaos--caused by coups d'etat, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters--to transform tragedies into lucrative profit ventures.

The strategy? When the population is in a state of shock and trauma, quickly push through your desired economic policies: privitization, deregulation, and cuts in government services. If some brutality is required along the way, so be it.

While this topic has been covered by others, Klein offers a detailed chronicle of "shock treatment" doled out by Friedman and his friends from the Chicago School of Economics (with help from the World Bank and the IMF) over the last several decades, beginning in the wake of Pinochet's bloody coup in Chile, then moving on to other South American countries, followed by countries in Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In case after case, she offers a peek at the players behind the scenes and the heartbreaking human costs.

Klein gives nods to Keynesianism here and there (wish that would have been explored more), but her own orthodoxy does bleed through in parts, thus the deducted star. It's only a few pages before the end of the book that she briefly acknowledges, for instance, that pure socialism has also often been implemented and maintained using brual methods.

Still, it's a compelling book and a must-read for anyone who wants to understand more about the innerworkings of this ongoing phase of history.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

A lot of material

I thought the book was very informative. The topic covered filled in a lot of blanks that I had in history. It completely explains why most of the world hates America and rest doesn't trust us. But that more than echos my personal opinions of corporate America. Pure greed, with the money squeezed from the lives of its workforce and customers. Hopefully more people will read this book and others like it. So if you are one of the 1% of Americans that own 95% of the wealth of this country, you probably wont like this book.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Why the world hates the US

There are some aspects of this book that are a bit of a stretch. But all and all it is an interesting explanation of what has happened in parts of the world, via US monetary Policy with the IMF and world bank and how they have raped countries in the name of capitalism. It also explains to me how the middle class came under attack, and how it is being destroyed by former US administrations, and no one is apt to save it.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

The most important book on the bookshelf

This gripping, fast-paced book is probably the most important book anyone can read right now. It explains why Washington will stay the course no matter what and fly our democracy straight into a cliff. They've done it for many other countries - I had no idea 'economics' was such a bloodthirsty subject. Just read the introduction - you won't be able to put this book down even if you can barely balance a checkbook.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Essential

On a disaster tour of the world's wrecked economies, Naomi Klein uncovers the deliberate sacking of sovereign states as intrinsic to the beloved trickle-down economics of the Chicago School. From Chile under Pinochet to Iraq under Bremer to New Orleans under water, Klein explains the wholesale corporate takeover of governments and it's aftermath. A primer for today's economic meltdown.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

A reviewer

This is an exceptionally researched book that for the most part provides a great depth of information about the history of 'shock treatment' going back to the 1950's and detailing through today. The beginning of the book is quite disturbing reading about various torture treatments performed in the 50's and carried on today. Kline does a great job of exposing the governments of the world for changing laws to benefit the few, while taking advantage of the poor and average joes. Shock Doctrine makes you disgusted about the things that went on and continue to go on. A must read.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Should be required reading.

Naomi Klein has done an outstanding job researching, documenting, and writing the unbelievable history of what she has termed 'The Shock Doctrine'. Much of what she reveals comes from Senate investigations and other public documents - and yet it is one of the most underreported stories of our time. The United States CIA has worked with proponents of Milt Freidman's free market theory to overthrow democratically elected leaders, and then to install brutal dictators. These leaders then followed the advice of certain US-trained economists,and allowed global corporations to come in and develop their oil and other natural resources. It is a tale where free market only means that the profits went to the giant corporations leaving the leaders of these countries rich, the countries themselves despoiled, and the people impoverished and oppressed.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Poor Economics

This book is full of pontificated 'facts' and libelous attacks on great economists such as Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger. It seems more like a place for the author to vent her frustration with capitalist economists than an actual analysis of the inception of markets.

2 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

Great Book

This book was really great and in debth with detail. When buying this book another book "Life After Foreclosure" by Dean Wegner came up and together I feel both books have taught me so much about the nation we live in.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Beware of that which you do not know

This is a very enlightening book and also very disturbing. I learned a lot from it and it is full of history I did not learn and gives me a new
perspective on world governments' economies, including our own.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

great book

From the start it is stimulating to find someone who shows you the other side of economics. Those who are unaware of real business tactics and what has almost decimated the economy read this. It is not too difficult to understand. She is very good in explaining the process of naked capitalism.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

A Wonderfully Zany Fictional Tale

A Wonderfully Zany Fictional Tale¿.Milton Friedman¿s contributions to humanity are well documented. In this tale Naomi demonstrates her unquestionably lacking skills as a researcher in this off the wall paperweight... Friedman's 'Capitalism and Freedom' would serve the reader well!

1 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

Best book I've read in years

For decades, we've been baraged with the idea that the free market is a force of nature, as incontestable as the law of gravity, and that it somehow represents the natural extension of free democratic societies. We've heard this so often, we've all but ceased to question it, yet the history of unfettered free market policies fails to support empirically their proponents' idealized predictions. This is the blindfold that Naomi Klein's work seeks to lift from our eyes. Ms. Klein chronicles the repeated efforts of free market advocates to impose radical free market policies around the world and observes that, in stark contrast to the joyous choruses of freedom on the march offered by the architects of such policies, the reality has been far less promising. In every instance, 'free' market policies have been forced upon populations which did not desire them, and with the uniform and predictable consequence of making a tiny minority richer than kings, at the expense of impoverishing the majority of the population. Critics fault the quality of Ms. Klein's eocnomic analysis, which I find telling. Ms. Klein is not an economist, nor does she pretend to be. Rather, she is a journalist who is chronicling events, none of which, interesting enough, do her critics wish to discuss. I also am not an economist and I do not presume to speculate whether Milton Friedman and his disciples are as sinister as Ms. Klein suggests, but it matters little to me what their intentions may or may not have been: what does matter is that their experiments in radical free market policies have produced catastrophic human costs. It is therefore far from having reached the level of an established truism that the 'free market' represents some benevolent force of nature and thus the only sensible goal of every policy maker. Quite the opposite: the costly and bloody track record of such policies demands a serious evaluation of the theory's basic assumptions. Yet, as Ms. Klein points out, proponents of radical free market economics share with other fundamentalists a faith in their ideology which denies any admission of error. Like religious fundamentalists, they have created a logical closed loop, whereby any evidence conflicting with their world view, no matter how overwhelming, is invariably dismissed as the fault of external influences and tamperings with the idealized workings of the free market as they understand it. I find it ironic that these economists like to think of themselves as scientists describing a natural phenomenon, when the first rule of the scientist is to find hypotheses which can explain what they empirically observe, whereas the first rule of the free market economists seems to be to begin with a hypothesis, and then try to force reality to conform to it, no matter how poor a fit it may be. That Dr. Friedman and his followers are unable or unwilling to acknowledge the reality of their misguided hypotheses is regretable. If the rest of us are to have any hope of avoiding repetitions of the same mistakes and failures to which those flawed ideas have led us, it is crucial that we begin to look rather more critically at what fruit those policies have in fact born. Ms. Klein's work is an important first step in that direction.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Insight into deceit-based foreign affairs

Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine is absolutely wonderful! Filled with insight, thought-provoking failures in American foreign policy, including that of the ill-conceived Bush Administration. Careful, the content of this book will reinforce what what most American's know by experience: trickle down economic theory is a failure. Trickle down only to the have's as evident in the exceptions the GOP Congress gave to Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour so he could shell out to his friends.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

subcontracting the gov't away: at our expense

The most convincing argument in Klein's book is that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the gang set out to privatize as many government functions as possible, and were immensely successful: they've created a 'hollow' government, in which huge chunks of YOUR tax dollars go straight to the palms of CEO's and corporations, freed from government oversight. As Klein argues, with strong supporting evidence, there are less checks on this government than ever and more power in the hands of select corporate bosses, due largely to the zealous application of subcontracting. It's safe to say that government subcontracting is out of control, and we are paying dearly. This isn't trickle down, it's trickle out and out and out. You may not fully agree with Klein's thesis that this is all by grand design, but after reading this book, you certainly will see that the Bush administration doesn't exactly fight the chance to subcontract any chance they get. And very few people seem to benefit.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

An Important, Necessary book

One of the most important book of the 20th century. Klein's researchis impeccable, and though some of her conclusions aren't necessarily where I mighthave thought to go, it doesn't change the fact that she proves the overall thesis of the book. This is a horrifying look into the twisted results of glorifying greed, the people who benefir from it and the people qho ultimately pay for it. I am, of course, over simplifying things, but this is the kind of book that is changing the way people look at the world and waking them up fro ma long slumber.