BOOKHYPE: The Shock Doctrine

One craaazy-ass bee-yatch!















I found this excerpt from and short film based on political commentator Naomi Klein's new book "The Shock Doctrine" to be... welll, shocking. I also came across her previous book, which I had heard of, but never read, "No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs". Damn! You mean I gotta stop wearing them Jordans?!?

Klein:
In one of his most influential essays, [famed economist Milton] Friedman articulated contemporary capitalism's core tactical nostrum, what I have come to understand as "the shock doctrine". He observed that "only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change". When that crisis occurs, the actions taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. Some people stockpile canned goods and water in preparation for major disasters; Friedmanites stockpile free-market ideas. And once a crisis has struck, the University of Chicago professor was convinced that it was crucial to act swiftly, to impose rapid and irreversible change before the crisis-racked society slipped back into the "tyranny of the status quo". A variation on Machiavelli's advice that "injuries" should be inflicted "all at once", this is one of Friedman's most lasting legacies.

If you want to understand how you are being manipulated (and make no mistake, you are), this is a critical lesson.


The Shock Doctrine A Film by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein, directed by Jonás Cuarón
An edited extract from The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein at Truthout