08 July, 2008

Disaster Capitalism -- the Shock Doctrine

Naomi Klein comes out with some hard hitting assertions in "The Shock Doctrine". "Free Market" Capitalism, especially that espoused by Milton Friedman's Chicago "School" has been using opportunities in countries outside of the US to conduct economic "experiments". These ventures have caused great hardship to citizens of the affect countries -- Latin America in the 60s and 70s to Iraq in the past few years. Along the way, "Shock"s have been used as a cloak to introduce radical economic change or transfers from Government to Private Corporations -- whether it is in Homeland Security and the War on Terror, whether it is military actions in Iraq, whether it is the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina or the 2004 Tsunami.