Naomi Klein on remaking people by shocking them into obediance
The Thought Kitchen has a short video made by Alfonso Cuaron, who directed Children of Men, about the ideas in Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
LinkNaomi Klein has just published a controversial best seller entitled The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. In it she defines shock doctrine as “the use of public disorientation following massive collective shocks—wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters—to push through highly unpopular economic shock therapy.”
The metaphor of “shock” is important because her thesis stems from a contention that what works on a person also works on a nation. Think 9/11 and fear-induced politics that have eroded some of the fundamentals of what we knew as American democracy. To peer into her thinking, check out the short film by Alfonso Cuaron, who made Y Tu Mama Tambien and Children of Men. Klein was hoping he’d send her a quote for the book jacket, but instead he assembled a team of artists and this short film. Sweet indeed.
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I heard Naomi interviewed on the BBC, and I can't say she came across very credibly. When disaster strikes, are we supposed to suspend commerce until we've all regained our bearings? I simply can't understand what alternative she would advocate.
There's a good rebuttal of Wolf's thesis in this NY Times book review, "It’s All a Grand Capitalist Conspiracy":
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/books/29redb.html?pagewanted=print
Okay -- sorry about the double-post, but I just watched the video, and I'd like to add: it is shocking. It's hard to seize on its arguments, because they come in a sensory barrage that seems designed, by a very talented director, to overwhelm the viewer.
The video ends inspirationally, "information is shock resistance. Arm yourself." If we are to resist shock, the first order of business would seem to be arming yourself in defense against this video.
So ... my question now is, is it intentionally ironic? Or accidentally?
btw, it's interesting to consider global warming as an example of "disaster socialism." GW is potentially a natural disaster, and many left-leaning entities are attempting to use it as a point of leverage to cause re-organization of economies and increase the power of trans-national governing bodies at the expense of national sovereignty, etc. The same tactics that Wolf decries are used, e.g. fear, crisis, "everything is different now," "the old rules have to be suspended," "we must do something immediately before it's too late," etc.
I simply can't understand what alternative she would advocate
Well, Hezbollah, as related in this--just one of the many negative reviews. This book has been roundly panned by critics of all political backgrounds. Hers is the ideology of the college freshman who just read a book by Noam Chomsky for the first time, and should be ignored or confronted by sensible liberals.
I read the beginning of the book. Massively dishonest. Paints Friedman as if he was licking his chops at the possibility to ram capitalism down throat of Chile using an evil dictator.
Reality is that Chile today would be the same as Zimbabwe today if Pinochet hadn't listened (at least partly) to the free market crowd.
Evil dictator + increased economic freedom > Evil dictator + socialism/populism, and it also *tends* to lead to more social freedom and democracy over time. Compare China over last 10yrs vs Venezuela's current direction.
This is the second time this SHOCKING COMERCIAL has been featured in BB! I don't get it (not the book, I got it, and dissmised it, right away), why?
Apologies for my snafu in #2, I meant Klein, not Wolf.
I'm waiting for her to claim that Reagan violently overthrew the Carter administration in the nationwide chaos that followed the Three Mile Island disaster...
This was lame when it was posted the first time. Let's see if things are different now.
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Nope, still lame.
No respect for Naomi Klein here. None...
Here's a more positive review of Klein's book in the NYTimes book review, by Nobel-prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/books/review/Stiglitz-t.html
Klein is not an academic and cannot be judged as one. There are many places in her book where she oversimplifies. But Friedman and the other shock therapists were also guilty of oversimplification, basing their belief in the perfection of market economies on models that assumed perfect information, perfect competition, perfect risk markets. Indeed, the case against these policies is even stronger than the one Klein makes. They were never based on solid empirical and theoretical foundations, and even as many of these policies were being pushed, academic economists were explaining the limitations of markets — for instance, whenever information is imperfect, which is to say always.
Klein isn’t an economist but a journalist, and she travels the world to find out firsthand what really happened on the ground during the privatization of Iraq, the aftermath of the Asian tsunami, the continuing Polish transition to capitalism and the years after the African National Congress took power in South Africa, when it failed to pursue the redistributionist policies enshrined in the Freedom Charter, its statement of core principles. These chapters are the least exciting parts of the book, but they are also the most convincing.
...
Some readers may see Klein’s findings as evidence of a giant conspiracy, a conclusion she explicitly disavows. It’s not the conspiracies that wreck the world but the series of wrong turns, failed policies, and little and big unfairnesses that add up. Still, those decisions are guided by larger mind-sets. Market fundamentalists never really appreciated the institutions required to make an economy function well, let alone the broader social fabric that civilizations require to prosper and flourish. Klein ends on a hopeful note, describing nongovernmental organizations and activists around the world who are trying to make a difference. After 500 pages of “The Shock Doctrine,” it’s clear they have their work cut out for them.
Haven't had a chance to look at this book, but I've been impressed with her earlier works. Favorable review at theGuardian.
Here she is getting fed her own vitriol by a calm, measured, and academically rigorous Alan Greenspan:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/24/1412226
No, she wasn't fed her own "vitriol". Alan didn't really address her question and just said that as far as he knew the Federal Reserve didn't know about the billions being thrown around in Iraq. He didn't know about it or was out of the loop.
He basic premise seems to hold. Even if the trolls here say otherwise.
@Noen
It sounds like you didn't read the whole discussion. Near the end, Greenspan gives a more substantive criticism of Klein's approach. It boils down to: governments that pursue capitalist programs focused on long-term growth leave their citizens better off than than those that pursue populist programs focused on short-term benefits (at the expense of long-term growth). Historically, this is true, even if it doesn't address Klein's entire argument. Klein believes that there is "another way," but in the interview, she doesn't do a very good job of describing just what this other way would entail. It would be interesting to see if she presents a clearer picture in her book, with data to back it up.
@Phasor3000
Do you seriously think that your "disaster socialism" interpretation of climate change policy holds any more water than Klein's "disaster capitalism" interpretation of development policy? Or are theories about vast international conspiracy only imaginary when they come from the left?
Crap. Now I don't know who to be afraid of - the people who are telling me to be afraid, or the people who are telling me not to be afraid...
phasor3000, you call that a rebuttal? though the author, tom redburn, makes it clear he disagrees with the book he makes no effort to demonstrate that any of her points were wrong. redburn condenses and interprets klein's core message, acknowledges some truth, then spends most of the rest of the article feebly defending milton friedman. it seemed like redburn basically agreed with klein's points but he felt she went too far. but again, he doesn't address anything she wrote.
eventually, he sets up a strawman that she is opposed to entrepreneurial capitalism. but she believes in a mixed economy, capitalism along side government. that the market is not the solution to everything. that fundamentalist capitalists are just as bad as any other fundamentalist.
this interview with klein is pretty good.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=13725
I support Klein's work but I have to say this video comes across as amateur propaganda. The graphics are way too influenced by 1990s Radiohead album art and the message is too heavy-handed. It's frankly embarrassing and I'm surprised it's getting so much play across the web. Shouldn't people like Klein be trying to convince with superior arguments and not art-school films?
tyler cowen's review sums up that book pretty well
Heh, IdEAL ORDER Psychic TV has been 'shocking' the corporate new media for decades.
http://proxy.arts.uci.edu/~nideffer/_SPEED_/1.3/product/harrington/harrington.html
A fine posting and therefore worthy of appropriate presentation -- to give the good Naomi her proper due, please tweak the headline to read "obedience" not "-ance"
Klein didn't have an "answer"? I do: quit using disaster and debt to steal our money and our future, assholes.
Gotta give these guys credit: the cows don't realize they're being milked.
I simply can't understand what alternative she would advocate.
Klein recommends Keynesian economics.
Wow, you'd think Klein was saying Jesus was a cross dresser by the evangelical way folks are attacking what she is saying about this particular style of abuse of economic power.
First of all, I doubt 90% of the people commenting on Klein's work actually know what capitalism means or that our society in the US is not a free market system. The United States never has and never will advocate for open and unregulated trade. If you are saying "hunh?" at this point look at sugar, steel, lumber, the hot button issue of immigration or any other of multitude of examples.
What all the G8 powers want is protection and advantage for their markets and economies against the other G8 members, while emerging nations seek to gain a foothold for theirs.
Labeling it "free market" is just propaganda designed to dupe people into thinking its a random occurrence when they get the shaft economically and not part of a deliberate decision to favor one side over another. Klein's work is just pointing out this fact.