‘The Shock Doctrine’, Naomi Klein (2007) – A Book in Five Minutes no.19
Channel: ramblinactivist
Date: 2022-10-26

Ramblinactivist’s Videos, 2022/33, 26th October 2022.

Though written 15 years ago, ‘The Shock Doctrine’ still has a lot to tell us about events today. It charts how a radical lobby created the neoliberal economic model which dominates the world; how that model was introduced from the 1970s; and how it was supercharged after the Millennium through natural and deliberately manufactured ‘disasters’.

Klein also links the foreign wars of the military-industrial complex to the abuse of human rights ‘at home’. Key amongst these examples is the work of psychologist Ewan Cameron, and his extreme experiments in Canada for CIA-funded ‘psychological warfare’ programmes. Klein draws parallels between the rise of Friedman, and his promotion of neoliberal economics, with Cameron’s systematisation of torture for the CIA.

Reading this book today it’s possible to see the process it maps-out at work all around us. Of course, identifying that is only the first step; allowing everyone to understand this process is critical to countering its attack on our freedoms and economic well-being. That is why, fifteen years on, the book is still worth reading.

For the referenced text and an audio podcast of this post, goto:
http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/reviews/019/index.shtml

You can find more of these reviews in ‘A Book in Five Minutes’ here:
http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/reviews/index.shtml

Finally, it would really help to promote this work if you could follow, subscribe, or like my social media presence – which can be accessed from the link above. In today’s digital analytics popularity contest, all that button-pressing means something in this messed-up world.

#politicalscience #shockdoctrine #neoliberalism #naomiklein #inequality #trickledown #economics #hegemony