Book Review: Naomi Klein- The Shock Doctrine

Naomi Klein- The Shock Doctrine
Penguin Books
32.95 RRP

Milton Freedman’s death was greeted by a tide of obituaries in the mainstream press in support of the world reknown “libertarian” economist. Yet very few cared to mention the various example countries he had made his work over his life.

Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine takes a look behind the work of a man that has helped bring neo-liberalism into the lives of millions- with devastating results.

Klein tracks the history of Freedman and his Chicago school’s exploits throughout the world and their attempt to create a blank slate model country on which to impose their neo-liberal agenda. A shocking comparison is drawn between the use of shock therapy on humans to what the Freedmanites tried to impose on countries.

The idea of disaster capitalism comes from the way first world capitalists now use disasters like hurricanes, tsunamis and war as an opportunity to create more business for themselves. Today, many industries, like vultures on a dead carcass, thrive on such misfortune and therefore have an interest in its continuance.

Despite the rhetoric of Libertarianism, Freedman’s politics relied on sacred and insecure people and often required dictatorships, like that of Pinochet in Chile, to be imposed. Millions have been murdered or disappeared as a direct result of upholding this very anti-democratic ideology. Despite this, Freedman is for some reason held up as a demi-god to economics students through out the world.

As Klein points out many people would like us to believe that these shocking examples of capitalism at its greediest, from Iraq to New Orleans to Russia to South Africa and beyond, are simply caused by a few bad apples or maybe even part of an elaborate conspiracy but these ideas give no credit to the people who created the ideas and whose interests they were serving.

The ramifications of such a disaster situation has also been used as an opening to the ideologists with money, otherwise known as the IMF and World Bank. For these institutions, they know it is only a matter of time before they get their way even if they have to go to war to do so.

The shock doctrine shows us how far capitalism has come and how truly unsustainable the idea of unlimited growth truly has proved. I would be truly surprised if someone could walk away from this book and not want to change the world in which we live. A must for all economics students and those that are yet to grasp the devastating nature of the (capitalist) world around us.