Elliott Bignell

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Elliott is Currently Reading

Elliott Bignell is currently reading

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

by Naomi Klein

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in January 2015

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Elliott Bignell said: " Klein is one of our most valuable journalists and political commentators, and once again provokes a rage fit to storm the gates of heaven. I took a long time getting around to read this work, which proves convenient as her treatment of the rape of Ir Klein is one of our most valuable journalists and political commentators, and once again provokes a rage fit to storm the gates of heaven. I took a long time getting around to read this work, which proves convenient as her treatment of the rape of Iraq benefits from the perspective of hindsight. It is the mildest understatement, with ISIS knocking at the gates of Baghdad, to say that her excoriating critique has been vindicated. The new rulers created their disaster, retreated behind blast walls to butcher the country's laws and then scarpered in the belief that the gentle attentions of corporate governance would work hands-off neoliberal magic. In a way, they have.

The book does not deal with a single war, or even with military aggression per se, but with a broader philosophy of sneaking radical marketisation into countries and regions temporarily stupified by disaster. The economic-political philosophy underlying this is the Chicago School of free-market fundamentalism, also known as the Washington Consensus, but the book's title refers more narrowly to a philosophy of implementation. The School associates its model of unrestrained and unregulated marketisation with political freedom, but the painful irony is that it is almost impossible to drive through radical marketisation by democratic means. As the rise of Syriza currently shows, and the battles over closure of mines in the UK scarred into the public consciousness, political resistance to the liberalisation of formerly secure industries and utilities is inevitable.

As Klein documents, the solution has been to forgo democratic freedoms for the sake of freedoms for corporations. The strategy takes its first form in Latin America, where a series of violent coups were followed, literally, by shock treatment. Political opposition is eradicated by disappearances and brutality, torture centres for union activists set up on corporate premises and Big Bang marketisation driven through while the country, both metaphorically and concretely speaking, has its trousers pulled down and electrodes attached by way of distraction. By the time the shock wears off, a fait accompli has been achieved.

While this strategy was most fully realised in the annihilation as a modern nation of Iraq, it is also opportunistic and brought into play in the face of natural disasters. Villagers rinsed from their fishing villages by tsumani rapidly find their return barred by razor wire. New Orleans residents numbed by the ravages of Katrina find their water cut off by newly empowered corporate utilities. Disaster Capitalism, as Klein names it, is nothing if not enterprising.

Klein writes with grace and clarity, but above all she props up her case with assiduous scholarship. This book is likely to render one apoplectic. But one ought to read it. ...more "

Jan 16, 2015 04:03AM · see review