Review: The Shock Doctrine

Klein (Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate, 2002, etc.) tracks the forced imposition of economic privatization, rife with multinational corporate parasites, on areas and nations weakened by war, civil strife or natural disasters. The author follows John Perkins (Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 2004) and others in pointing an alarmed finger at a global "corporatocracy" that combines the worst features of big business and small government. The difference is that Klein's book incorporates an amount of due diligence, logical structure and statistical evidence that others lack. As a result, she is persuasive when she links past and present events, including the war in Iraq and trashing of its economy, to the systematic march of laissez-faire capitalism and the downsizing of the public sector as both a worldview and a political methodology. Klein fully establishes the influence of U.S. economist Milton Friedman, who died in November 2006, as champion of the free-market transformations that occurred initially in South America, where Friedmanite minions trained at the University of Chicago in the 1960s worked their wiles on behalf of some of the 20th century's most repressive regimes. On to China's Tiananmen Square, then to the collapsed Soviet Union, where oligarchs soared and the underclass was left to starve in the 1990s. More recent developments include forcing private development on the tsunami-ravaged beachfronts of South Asia and junking the public-school system in favor of private charter schools in post-Katrina New Orleans. Just as provocative is Klein's analysis of the Bush administration's rampant outsourcing of U.S. government responsibilities, including the entire "homeland security industry," to no-bid corporate contractors and their expense-laden chains of subcontractors. Her account of that methodology's consequences in Iraq, as mass unemployment coincided with the disbanding of a standing army whose soldiers took their guns home, leaves little doubt as to why there is an enduring insurgency. Required reading for anyone trying to pierce the complexities of globalization.

There’s a fire raging in the underground caverns of the 21st century Homo Sapiens soul. Sweeping quickly through tunnels of doubt and around bends of confusion, past artificial boundaries of nation states and man-made laws, over hills of fallen empires and valleys full of rotting gold, it is searching…searching. Searching for that spark of Truth that will set it free. It knows…it…is…there. … Somewhere.
It re-members. When there was no Fear.
Only Love.
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Great synthesis & great job in reporting what you GNO and FEEL...
Sometimes things really ARE that simple...Rock the Planet 2012...DeSales 

Review: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

This book was very thought-provoking and informative, and it challenged some assumptions I held about the motivations behind government involvement in different situations. Naomi Klein argues that US ... Read full review

Review: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

I won't give you a real summery, instead here is a personal analogy that I think relates to this book. I grew up in a Muslim household, and growing up I was certain Islam was the one true religion and ... Read full review

Review: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Fascinating history of neoliberalism. I do think at times she gets carried away with the word "shock," but this book provides a new framework for looking at events. Any book that can do that is a ... Read full review

Review: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Excellent book that explains a lot of how the parts of the world came to being so impoverished and exploited today. My only concern is that it is extremely one sided and I feel like it simplifies a ... Read full review

Review: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

One of the most important books I've read in recent years. Read full review

Review: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Probably one of the most important books of the last decade. Read full review

Review: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

There are many detailed and eloquent reviews of this book already; however, I still feel like I have to write a review about this important book. I've wondered for years why the world is the way it is ... Read full review

Review: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

One of the problems with Klein's bestselling jeremiad against the progressive global implementation of so-called free market policies over the past four decades is her attempts to link them, as a ... Read full review