A review by jsdrown
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

4.0

The took me a while to get through. Not because of it's length(672 pages), but because it infuriated me so much. The thesis of the book is that conservatives operating under neoliberal ideology pass unpopular laws during disasters. This is because people are distracted by the scale of loss and destruction around them. Usually this means Republicans tend to privatize against public interest. It It also goes into great detail in how governments use shock tactics like torture(techniques discovered by the CIA) to create a blanket of fear surrounding anyone who oppose the shock doctrine. I was horrified of just how little I knew of the 1973 coup in Chile. I actually had to put the book down and find other sources because I was in disbelief.

Reading this is pretty timely because Elon Musk was just in the news openly suggesting using The Shock Doctrine on Puerto Rico, which is reminiscent of how a the Bush administration privatized the New Orleans schools system during Katrina. But I guess the internet loves Musk because space travel and ignore pesky facts like the factory conditions of Tesla and his love of Union busting.

Highly recommended and I will go out of my way to read more Naomi Klein in the future.