"The Shock Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism." Anyone else reading it?

[Auggie]

I'm about a third of the way through it.

It's totally freaking me out.

[tech3149]

1. Don't freak out, just absorb it all and share it with anyone who'll listen

Naomi Klein is like Antonia Juhasz and Larissa Alexandrovna, so smart you can't help but be fixated on them. I've been freaked out since 2003, but that just makes me want to fight against the fascists that much more.

[Auggie]

2. It's such an eye-opening look at history

Chile... Argentina... Poland... China...

I never suspected, yet everything makes so much sense now.

Thanks -- it will definitely be shared.

[Jim__]

3. I've ordered it from Amazon.

Looking forward to reading it.

I read an essay in Harper's that was based on the book (I'm not sure if the essay was an excerpt or not), and I've heard Naomi Klein speak about the book.

I've been concerned for a number of years about the privitization of access to water. I know the IMF and the World Bank are basically forcing countries that need financial help to privatize access to water - that sounds like an application of the Shock Doctrine. Personally, I consider access to water to be a human right, and one worth fighting for.

[Auggie]

4. Indeed. The corporate world would like to control it all.

Water, the Internet, Social Security... Imagine the local fire department being owned by Halliburton. Or a police department run by Blackwater.

[bikebloke]

5. Finished it last night.

Boy, did that raise some ire. Milton Friedman's grave ought to turned into a pissoir.

[Yael]

6. Joining the thread. Hi all!

This link was posted in another thread about this book.

I LOVE it! As I said in that thread:

I purchased the book this week and can't put it down. While I have an undergraduate BS degree in Economics, I have learned more about the foundation of the various theories in 100 pages of Klein's book than I ever was exposed to in 4 years of college.

The thing I like best about this is how she is making the connection that few are willing to recognize -- and that is the fact that economic policy system change 'shocks' ARE intrinsically tied to police action and other nefarious policy system 'shocks'. How she ties these in and makes the case that one can't function without the other is simply mind blowing.

The additional breakdown of the definitions and goals of Freidman Capitalism , Marxist Communism and Keynesian Blended economic policies is a course all in its own.

My kudos to Ms. Klein on a book so very well written, I could and WILL say that it is the most important book of 2007, and a MUST read for anyone whose interests lend to fiscal/monitary policy and Economic theory.

Looking forward to finishing it.

:applause: to Ms. Klein!!

[CrispyQ]

8. I bought it & my husband picked it up first & he can't put it down.

And he never reads books of that type! So, I'm reading Naomi Wolf's "Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot" now. I think they are complementary topics.

[davekriss]

15. I've read Naomi Wolf's book...

...truly excellent. I went from that to Noam Chomsky's Failed States, which I highly recommend. Now I'm about a 1/3 through Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, a truly gripping book and recommended above all the others (and all of the others are excellent in their own right). Klein's work is probably the book of the decade, IMO.

[pscot]

7. It's on my list

along with many others.

[chatnoir]

9. That is on my list to read next...

Right after I finish reading Naomi Wolf's "The End of America".

[Political Heretic]

10. I want to read this book so bad! In fact this is how bad I want to read it:

I am in graduate school getting my MSW, and I convinced my professor for next semester's public policy class to let me read The Shock Doctrine and do a class presentation on it.

[Nay]

11. I am. I have to put it down after an hour--makes me so freeeekin'

MAD. But it's valuable and a great compilation of all the shit that's been going on for 50 years, mostly due to that ASSHOLE Milton Friedman and his coterie of verminous students who were sent out to infect the world. Arrrrrgh.

[ramapo]

12. Just finished it

I never realized how pervasive the Milton Friedman effect was. It explains much of what has transpired over the past 30 or so years.

[MountainLaurel]

17. My spouse had the same reaction

He can only read a little at a time. I'm listening to it on CD in the car, so I only get small doses.

But I here you on Milton Friedman. I hope he's smoking turds in hell now with disappeared Chileans poking him with sharp sticks.

[radiclib]

13. Maybe the most important book I've ever read

and I'm only halfway through. It's hard to take in large doses because it makes me so disgusted and outraged. God bless and protect Naomi Klein, a brilliant and courageous JOURNALIST. One of my favorite passages:

..Chile under Chicago School rule was offering a glimpse of the future of the global economy, a pattern that would repeat again and again, from Russia to South Africa to Argentina: an urban bubble of frenetic speculation and dubious accounting fueling superprofits and frantic consumerism, ringed by the ghostly factories and rotting infrastructure of development past; roughly half the population excluded from the economy altogether; out-of-control corruption and cronyism; decimation of nationally owned small and medium-sized businesses; a huge transfer of wealth from public to private hands, followed by a huge transfer of private debt to public hands. In Chile, if you were outside the wealth bubble, the miracle looked like the Great Depression, but inside its airtight cocoon the profits flowed so free and fast that the easy wealth made possible by shock therapy-style "reforms" have been the crack cocaine of financial markets ever since. And that is why the financial world did not respond to the obvious contradictions of the Chile experiment by reassessing the basic assumptions of laissez-faire. Instead, it reacted with the junkie's logic: Where is the next fix?

[sueh]

14. Mr Sueh is reading it now...I'm waiting for him to finish...

but, he keeps telling me everything he's reading. This book is a must-read.

[topaz_eyes]

16. I wish everyone in America would read this book.

It makes sense of the current state of our empire.

[Kashka-Kat]

18. Just started - its important to understanding of Politics/ Political Events

Not just of interest to Economics people.

Can only take a few pages at a time - the information is so "dense" - IE every sentence has so much information packed in.

Dontcha think that there's more to it than just Milton Friedman & certain individuals--I mean isn't a corporation's "prime directive" to make profits? A systemic problem in other words...?

[Kashka-Kat]

19. The chapter on 1950s-60s CIA financed experiments was absolutely horrific

Ive never read anything like this in my life. I knew about the CIA giving acid to unsuspecting subjects (some who killed themselves not knowing what has happening to them). But I never knew they’d gone so far beyond that, that there were people held prisoner in mental hospitals in total isolation for months, for years subject to such an onslaught of drugs and assorted torture techniques to the point where they were totally broken in mind and body.

I try not to use the word “nazi” lightly. I suppose we could debate whose scientists were the most evil but what would be the point. There’s a point where you can't really measure "horrific," it's just WAAAAYY off the scale...