The Shock Doctrine

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein Journalist Klein gives us a superbly researched history of modern economics that ranks among the most disturbing things I have ever read, on par with the literature I read for the Theology of the Holocaust class I took in college. Once again, reading a book that was dense and important makes for a long review, even leaving out lots of very important bits, so a cookie for anyone who makes it through.

In the good old days after World War II, there lived an economist by the name of Keynes. He theorized that people who felt economically insecure and victimized would turn to fascism and extremism. To protect from this as well as communism, he advocated strong government to ensure social equality and regulate business. This was the theory behind the Marshall Plan, which helped Germany recover economically when popular sentiment would have left the evil Nazis to suffer.

The current popular theory of economics started in parallel with two seemingly unrelated people. One was a psychologist named Ewan Cameron, who theorized that if mentally ill people could be stripped of their personality with electric shocks and drugs, their personality could be rebuilt. The research was carried out in Canada but funded by the CIA. It turned out that Cameron was half right: it’s possible to strip personality away. It’s not possible to rebuild it – you’re just stuck with a shattered person. At the same time, a man named Milton Friedman was developed a new theory of economics. Instead of controlling businesses and taxing businesses and people to level society, Friedman claimed that capitalism left to itself would regulate itself, and become a thing of abstract beauty. He used early computer models to “prove” this and tried to move economics from a “soft” to a “hard science”. Friedman believed that the way to do this was to shock a people or a nation into acceptance, either by the sheer economic shock of making massive changes all at once or using whatever means were necessary. Friedman died just last year, having won the Nobel Prize in economics and revered by many.

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