“The Shock Doctrine”
Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” is an indictment of American institutionalized globalization. It’s a disturbing look at how the neoliberal economic tenets of Milton Friedman have been implemented across the world over the last thirty-plus years.
Simply stated the author’s thesis is: that neoliberal economic programs have repeatedly been implemented without the consent of the governed by creating and/or taking advantage of various forms of national shock therapy. Ms. Klein asserts that in country after country, Friedman and his Chicago School followers have foisted their economic prescription of privatization, deregulation, and cutbacks in social welfare spending on an unsuspecting populace through democratic means. Initially, the primary vehicle was dictatorial military force and accompanying fear of arrest, torture, disappearance, or death.
Over time, new organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were employed to create impossible debt burdens to force governments to accept privatization of state-owned industries and services, complete removal of trade barriers and tariffs, forced acceptance of private foreign investment, and widespread layoffs. Recently, terrorism and its response as well as natural disasters like hurricanes and tsunamis have wiped clean enough of the slate to impose these Friedmanite policies on people too shocked and focused on recovering to realize what was happening until it was too late.
One can only marvel at our government’s behavior, the grievous callousness of it all, the massive human despair and suffering created for no other reason than economic imperialism, and the nauseating greed of mostly Republican politicians, former political operatives, and corporate executives who prey like pack wolves on people’s powerlessness and insecurity.
“The Shock Doctrine” makes it very clear why people around the world hate us and nothing can erase the facts and consequences of behavior that we as a country have implicitly or explicitly endorsed.
Simply stated the author’s thesis is: that neoliberal economic programs have repeatedly been implemented without the consent of the governed by creating and/or taking advantage of various forms of national shock therapy. Ms. Klein asserts that in country after country, Friedman and his Chicago School followers have foisted their economic prescription of privatization, deregulation, and cutbacks in social welfare spending on an unsuspecting populace through democratic means. Initially, the primary vehicle was dictatorial military force and accompanying fear of arrest, torture, disappearance, or death.
Over time, new organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were employed to create impossible debt burdens to force governments to accept privatization of state-owned industries and services, complete removal of trade barriers and tariffs, forced acceptance of private foreign investment, and widespread layoffs. Recently, terrorism and its response as well as natural disasters like hurricanes and tsunamis have wiped clean enough of the slate to impose these Friedmanite policies on people too shocked and focused on recovering to realize what was happening until it was too late.
One can only marvel at our government’s behavior, the grievous callousness of it all, the massive human despair and suffering created for no other reason than economic imperialism, and the nauseating greed of mostly Republican politicians, former political operatives, and corporate executives who prey like pack wolves on people’s powerlessness and insecurity.
“The Shock Doctrine” makes it very clear why people around the world hate us and nothing can erase the facts and consequences of behavior that we as a country have implicitly or explicitly endorsed.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home