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A review by ethanhedman
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein
4.0
I think if there is one work that I would have someone read that explains why we have reached the point we have, it would be this book.
Klein masterfully traces the steps that liberalism, neoliberalism, neocolonialism, and capitalism took beginning in the postwar period and how that came to influence policy, and then become policy.
Klein’s central argument is that Milton Friedman founded a school of unfettered capitalism as the best path, and combined this with the “shocks” that people around the world feel; from natural disasters, to war, to abrupt changes in government/way of life. Friedman’s school of thought, named the Chicago School of thought, was adopted by the global economic community and by world leaders in the West. She then details how these forces upended life for billions of people throughout the world in the US (New Orleans after Katrina), Latin America, Sri Lanka, the Soviet Union turned Russian Federation, the occupied territories of Palestine, and Iraq.
This book is heartbreaking, infuriating, and crucially important. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to begin to find out how we all got to where we are, why things are crumbling, and why it feels like there’s no stopping it.
Klein masterfully traces the steps that liberalism, neoliberalism, neocolonialism, and capitalism took beginning in the postwar period and how that came to influence policy, and then become policy.
Klein’s central argument is that Milton Friedman founded a school of unfettered capitalism as the best path, and combined this with the “shocks” that people around the world feel; from natural disasters, to war, to abrupt changes in government/way of life. Friedman’s school of thought, named the Chicago School of thought, was adopted by the global economic community and by world leaders in the West. She then details how these forces upended life for billions of people throughout the world in the US (New Orleans after Katrina), Latin America, Sri Lanka, the Soviet Union turned Russian Federation, the occupied territories of Palestine, and Iraq.
This book is heartbreaking, infuriating, and crucially important. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to begin to find out how we all got to where we are, why things are crumbling, and why it feels like there’s no stopping it.