The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein

Come join Triangle Common Good in reading The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein.

Naomi Klein is an author, activist, and filmmaker who first reached public awareness for her book No Logo, which critiqued modern branding and the power logos hold as symbols today. Most recently, her book Doppelganger received attention for its unique story of the impact of epistemic rabbit holes on changing ideologies by comparing herself to a right-wing parallel she is often confused with.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism looks critically at the history of implementation of neoliberal economic reforms in countries that had recently experienced the shock of war or disaster. This includes looking at the testing of economic policies in Chile after the CIA-backed coup of their democratically elected leader resulted in the installation of dictator Augusto Pinochet. Milton Friedman would serve as an advisor to Pinochet, with several of his students serving as economists on Pinochet's administration, as Pinochet implemented a series of reforms that privatized and deregulated their economy. Pinochet would go on to be responsible for the "disappearances" of thousands of political and social critics.

In her ground-breaking reporting from Iraq, Naomi Klein exposed how the trauma of invasion was being exploited to remake the country in the interest of foreign corporations. She called it "disaster capitalism." Covering Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, and New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment" losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq...

Alfonso Cuaron Directed Companion Short
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7fWRoHLf6Q