This book challenges the myth of the infallibility of neo-liberal, free market theory, aggressively advanced by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School since the 1960s. Privatization, deregulation, free trade, and decreased social spending comprise the package of neo-liberal economic policies, but, she argues, as these are impossible to be instituted without massive public resistance owing to the insecurity it causes (loss of jobs, social security, etc), political upheavals and natural disasters, in short, periods when the society is most vulnerable, have become the pretext to coerce governments to adopt these otherwise inadmissible policies.

By citing numerous well-researched examples from Latin America (during the era of US-propped dictatorships in the 1970s) to Eastern Europe and Russia (after the fall of Communism), and right on to the US's own backyard, New Orleans after Katrina, and to the biggest mess disaster capitalism has wrought, the Iraq War, Klein makes vivid and and convincing her argument that unfettered capitalism has and will not hesitate to have blood in its hands. ( )

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
(Rahm Emmanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff)

This motto has been applied before, and this book tells you what the effects were. ( )

Klein builds the book around different kinds of shock, which she argues are increasingly exploited by powerful corporate interests at the expense of the lives and well-being of everyone else. Briefly, the collective shock of a disaster, Klein argues, is analogous to the shock which in individuals results in post-traumatic stress disorder. It is in this vulnerable state that a society is vulnerable (or "ready" if you're Milton Friedman) to the radical free-market "shock therapy" which was first put into practice in Chile following the CIA-backed coup of Pinochet, by the direction of economists from the University of Chicago led by Friedman. This therapy basically involves privatization of industry, opening trade barriers so US corporations can take over industry, and massive layoffs as a necessary consequence of it all. (Klein goes into much more gory and engrossing detail.) The result, in every country this neoliberal program has been successfully instituted, has been massive transfers of public wealth into the hands of US corporations and poverty and desperation for the objects of the therapy. Klein recounts the stories of Chile, Argentina, Mexico, China, the former Soviet republics, and others that support her thesis. She uses the Iraq invasion and reconstruction and the responses to Hurricane Katrina as examples as well.This book is a great synthesis of several decades of major global economic and political events which the US has initiated and benefited from and about which most American are completely ignorant. ( )

Klein (http://www.naomiklein.org) describing Obama's dismantling of the American economy. "The idea that market crashes can act as catalysts for revolutionary change has a long history on the far left, most notably in the Bolshevik theory that hyperinflation, by destroying the value of money, takes the masses one step closer to the destruction of capitalism itself (p. 175, referring to "The ABC of Capitalism," p. 613, no. 35).

After describing how dismantling has worked elsewhere the same procedure is applied to the U.S. with Obama. Klein (http://blogsmithconsulting.blogspot.c...) has stated that there is a continuity between the Bush and Obama economic policies.

Good idea, but the book drags on a bit. ( )

Klein does not disappoint as she expands her reportage of global capitalism to span the entire history of Chicago school economics. Searing in her criticisms of laissez-faire ideology, she forges a vision for a new left in a new century ready to tackle the issues presented by the "victory" of the "free-market." ( )

A penetrating look at the evolution of corporatism, and it's current state in the world. Klein introduces the theory of a three staged shock process: disorientation (via poor economy, natural disaster, terrorist attack, etc.), followed by economic shock, which is finally enforced by a structural shock requiring citizen compliance.

An insightful read for anyone interested in the state of modern democracy, and the adverse effects of combining privatization, government deregulation and deep cuts to social spending. ( )

is it all true?
good reader ( )

The free market ideology of the Friedman school of economics as observed under Naomi Klein's microscope. What might look on the surface to be a miracle cure for all that ails the world economically under that microscope appears for what it is--a cancer causing agent. In the final pages of the Shock doctrine she points to some of Friedman's original adherents in the Southern Cone of South America dying in disgrace or going to prison. Pinochet, Videla, Massera, Bordabery, Sanchez de Lozada.

Her book shows how over the span of time between the early 70's and the present--Friedman's disciples have taken over the IMF, the World Bank and subverted the purposes of those institutions--breaking down the social safety networks whereever they've gone--with the mantra of privatization of public institutions, deregulation and cutting social programs and spending. It's an economic theory intent on making already wealthy people fabulously wealthy at the expense of middle and working class and poorer people--intent on exploiting and expanding the income gap between the haves and the have nots. It tends towards elitism, it tends toward racism as well. It is an idea that whereever it goes puts people out of work and undermines existing infastructure.

One might wonder what some of these so called highly placed economists who subscribe to these theories do on a normal day. It seems mostly that they pray for rain--better yet hurricanes, earthquakes, forest fires, tsunamis--best of all wars and civil wars. For they see in every kind of catastrophe and/or natural disaster an economic opportunity to enrich themselves and their multi-national corporate friends. That so many of these economists, politicians, bureaucrats and multinationals are at least nominally 'American' should give people here in this country of mine a lot to pause and think about. Well--we are finding out for ourselves right now the benefits of deregulated financial markets and it's mostly boo-hoo and how did this happen? We're also finding out that what is technically legal is not necessarily ethical and/or moral--a concept by the way which is completely abstract to the Chicago school of economist acolytes of Friedman's theories. To continue what the book points out time and again is that whenever disaster strikes a window appears for those willing to exploit others--that emergency situations can be used anti-democratically to justify most anything--from stealing the land of tsunami victims to selling off public energy and water companies to private for profit entities to changing already existing economic laws by which a country--any country goes about its business.

As well we cannot separate economics from politics. Friedman apparently thought that you could--for instance his theories which enabled the dictatorships of Pinochet and the Argentine generals had nothing at all to do with the disappearances and the torture of some of the most vocal critics (to say nothing of the thousands who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time) of those regimes. As it happens though without those original dictatorships, without the antidemocratic sneakiness his ideas would have never got off the ground. Klein's book as well focuses on Bush 2's invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation and the rampant corruption that followed in its wake. Whatever the opinion on the need for removing Saddam and his regime--the subsequent events of the occupation has darkened the reputation of the United States all over the world. That so many fall for the kind of bullshit that Bush, Cheney and Friedmanite friends peddled cannot sadly be denied. The Katrina disaster did have that one silver lining of waking a number of people up to the horrible nature of that administration though unfortunately by that point in time it was just beginning a second term and we had another 3 + years to finally be rid of them once and hopefully for all.

FWIW I don't necessarily like to read things that make me angry and that is exactly what this book does. What that means in a larger sense is probably not a lot as after all is said and done I am just one voice out of somewhere around 300 million other voices in this country and a lot of those 300 million voices still believe crap like 'markets will correct themselves on their own' and that 'money makes money makes more money'. A lot of them as well look up to our own homegrown elite of wealth and priveledge and down on those lower on the economic scale. A lot of people don't concern themselves with wage or wealth equality--are only ever intent on more. Real human attainment is not reaching such atmospheric heights as if you're looking down from a mountaintop on everyone far below you --what we should strive for is the realization of our connectedness to each other since as a species (except in the case of certain aberrant individuals) we share the same biology and all need as well some kind of emotional, spiritual and intellectual sustenance. A society isn't just for a few but is meant for all to share and take their part in.

Anyway as I said--it's not a happy look at (mostly american inspired) events that play out from the misuse of contemporary events but IMO a very necessary one. ( )

Klein makes a compelling and convincing case. ( )

Naomi Klein argues her premise well. Absolute free trade, the kind that destroys workers' wages and benefits, massively increases unemployment, eliminates government programs, wrecks economies, and fattens the profits of big multinational corporations, can only be - and has only been - successfully imposed on countries in times of great crisis, in a dictatorial manner, and enforced through intimidation, mass arrests, disappearances, torture, and killings. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm stocking up on guns and ammo! ( )

Excellent book. Gives a clear overview of the worst face of capitalism (does it have a nice one?). ( )

The Shock Doctrine is a true masterpiece, not only in terms of economic and political thought, but in terms of sociological theory as well. This is because Klein has cogently explained what amounts to a treatise on human vulnerability: humanity (whether individual or societal) is most vulnerable to massive change while suffering from shock.

From the first CIA backed experiments on torture to the economic shock-therapy of Milton Friedman, Klein painstakingly pieces together a comprehensive picture in which neoliberal economics has positioned itself to profit from disasters - whether natural or man-made. Armed with pristine, empirically accurate data, Klein's latest work should be read not only by the intellectually curious and socially responsible, but by the unwitting citizen as well.

Reviewed here.

I am so looking forward to reading this book. ALthough I haven't read her first, No Logo, I remember her from her Toronto Star column that she used to pen in the 1990's (I think). It was a great column. ( )

Socialist DRIVEL. Don't read this unless you want to be told over and over again through emotional appeals how "evil" Milton Friedman is and how the free market is an unconscionable concept. Horrible. ( )

Pretty convincing and thorough story from the historical background(s) of U.S. foreign policy and economic theory. Like the name says: the history of the disaster economy. ( )

Should be read in conjunction with Peter Gosselin's "high wire." Documents the privitization of so many previously government functions, even the Iraqi war. Especially revelatory of the cynical economic exploitation of the "ownership society" myth and the abuse of world "Aid" organizations. Vilifies the University of Chicago's economic school's (Milton Friedman's) philosphy.

It is obvious that Klein is a disciple of Noam Chomsky.

The first chapter--the ECT analogy--is very weak.

I am looking forward to reading this book. I saw Naomi Klein speech in chicago, on Democracy Now. She was good. From my uninformed view she seems to be pointing out the tragic results of the trickle down theory and privatization. It seems that Obama is going to run into more Nos than Yes you can when he gets in and starts wanting to actually fund programs . Aparently all the money has gone to save the banks - not much left to work on building our infrastructure and basic need......Can He save us.....

Brilliant! A thorough, well-researched and compelling look at the ways in which the IMF and World Bank have taken advantage of extreme social and political circumstances to push free market economies on exposed nations. The premise of "shock treatment" brought out in the firwst few chapters is interesting but possibly a little shaky when extended to the scale of entire nations. The book really comes into its own when discussing the past 30 years of free market imposition in South America, Asia, and Russia, regardless of the political bent of such nations. I particularly liked that the book provided comprehensive references to sources of claims, as many books of this type end up being hyperbolic and without any susbstance. Scary but (or thus?) worthwhile. ( )

In this book torture is quite openly attempted superimposed on laissez-faire capitalism, it's really the theme of the book, so any qualms about the argumentative decency of this must have been nonexistent. The need for torture is explained as dispensed by the economics department of the University of Chicago; torture itself as something taught by the CIA.

I find it significant that she describes those that betray their friends under torture not as acting egoistically but as "acting individualistically." Presumably she then sees those that do not as acting “collectivistically”? That sort of fascist newspeak the book is full of.

The greed of this world, its brutality, and the resultant horror is here, well depicted, - the source of it, as explained in this book, I see as a simplistic delusion when I'm benevolent, merely as something marketable to the believers in comic book political analysis: heroes battling evil with crashes and explosions, when in a more cynical mood.

And the main argument, that unwelcome free market politics can be, and will be attempted, imposed on a people in shock works both ways; WW1 spawning Communism in Russia, 30'es depression spawning massive state intervention in the US economy by FDR , and now the totalitarian collectivists coming alive again with the bursting of the latest state produced easy money bubble. ( )

In "The Shock Doctrine," Naomi Klein provides a probing, insightful window into the troubling phenomena known as 'disaster capitalism.' Klein traces this trend back to the unrestrained free market capitalist ideals of Milton Friedman and the University of Chicago school of Economics. Klein shows how this concept, known as the 'shock doctrine' has been been used as a tool by conservatives in recent decades to seek to deconstruct distributive economic systems, patterned after the Keynsian, distributive model, and radically, swiftly, reshape them into orthodox, free-market economies.

One of the prime examples Klein offers is that of Chile, which in 1973 was taken over in a coup by repressive dictator Auguste Pinoche. She further connects how regime change and economic shock, has often been followed by a subsequent shock wave of torture, human rights abuses and repression of anyone in the society who speaks out against the new movement.

She further connects the dots to the corporatization/privatization undertaken by the Bush administration in Iraq, as well as the torture and human rights abuses of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

This is an excellent, very well-written book by an articulate, knowledgeable writer. Highly recommended. ( )

The Shock Doctrine is an antidote for ideological thinking. In this book Klein describes how zealous reformers sought, and often deliberately created, blank slates upon which to create free-market economies. In their conviction these economists, statesmen, and business leaders became inpatient with democracy and became willing to use economic and social shock therapy in order to disorient communities and quickly push through free-market economic reforms. Klein concludes the book with a vision of change that does not rely upon first sweeping away the past. Rather than start from scratch, we can start from scrap, building the future from what lies at hand. We can avoid the terrors of ideological conviction by taking the present for what it is and improving the world through gradual, publicly-acceptable changes. ( )

This is a scary book, but well worth reading. If you're trying to work out what's been happening over the last 10 or so years, then this book sets out the patterns of privitisations, wars and IMF meddling in stark light. It doesn't make for a pleasant read, but if you want to know what's going on, this is for you. ( )

Klein's book offers a very plausible explanation for how global economics and geo-politics result in exploitation often in environments of ruthlessness and cruelty. She argues that catastrophies of any sort, natural, political, economic or otherwise represent an opportunity for global corporations to expoit. She also explores how the power of these global corporations has resulted in the takeover of many functions of government including security and national defense once thought to be an expclusive realm of public administration. This book should be read by anyone who seeks to understand how the modern capitalist stae works in a global corporate environment. ( )