My Unrequited Love for the Business Press
On a recent visit to Calgary, Alberta, I was taken aback to see my book on disaster capitalism selling briskly at the airport. Calgary is ground zero of North America's oil and gas boom, where business suits and cowboy hats are the de facto uniform. I had a sudden sinking feeling: did Calgary's business class think The Shock Doctrine was a how-to guide -- a manual for making millions from catastrophe? Were they hoping for tips on landing no-bid contracts if the U.S. bombs Iran?
When I get worried about inadvertently fueling the disaster complex, I take comfort in the response the book has elicited from the world's leading business journalists. That's where I learn that the very notion of disaster capitalism is my delusion -- or, as Otto Reich, former adviser to President George Bush, told BBC Business Daily, it is the work "of a very confused person."
Many publications have seen fit to assign business journalists to review the book. And why not? They are the experts. Unabashed fans of the late free-market evangeliser Milton Friedman, these are our primary purveyors of the idea that ballooning corporate profits are on the verge of trickling down to the citizens of the world in the form of freedom and democracy. So in the Times, for instance, the book was reviewed by Robert Cole, who writes the paper's personal investor column and is author of the volume Getting Started in Unit and Investment Trusts (Chapter 7 -- Taxing Questions: Pepping up Your Prospects). Cole was none too pepped by The Shock Doctrine, which disappointed him as "too easy to dismiss as a leftist rant." In The New York Times, the task of explaining why "it's all a grand capitalist conspiracy" fell to Tom Redburn, author of its Economic View column. "That's a lot to lay on poor Milton," Redburn sniffed.
No one took it quite as hard as Terence Corcoran, the business editor of Canada's National Post. Disaster capitalism is apparently my "fevered creation." And how could I have said those things about Friedman, a man Corcoran has described as "the last great lion of free market economics"? In the Financial Times, the unbiased dissection was carried out by John Willman, the paper's UK business editor (who, on the side, advocates shifting healthcare costs to families in Britain and tuition increases in Scotland). Willman declared the book "a polemic" and warned "impressionable readers" not to be fooled by my 60 pages of endnotes. While Cole claims I rely on "partisan contributions from the cuttings library," Willman accuses me of a far greater crime: relying on cuttings from the FT. "She quotes the Financial Times when it suits her, for example, but not when it would be inconvenient."
It's true. I do, in fact, quote the FT when it suits me. In The Shock Doctrine, I cite the paper 26 times. And this is what hurts most about the attacks from the world's business editors: even as they find new ways to dismiss me, I remain a devoted reader of their pages. Sure, financial editors have to do PR for capitalism. Their reporters, however, have a crucial market role. Investors require reliable information, and it's their job to supply it. Without this honest reporting, I would never have understood how economic shock therapy programmes relied on external disasters -- the very disaster capitalism I now learn, from these same pages, does not exist.
It was from the FT that I learned of the so-called Davos Dilemma. Columnist Martin Wolf describes it as "the contrast between the world's favourable economics and troublesome politics." He explains that, in recent years, the economy has faced "a series of shocks" -- from the dotcom crash to September 11 to chaos in the Middle East. And yet the market is in "a golden period of broadly shared growth."
A great deal of light is shed on the Davos Dilemma by the FT. For instance, it reported that Lockheed Martin -- the biggest single winner from the economy of disaster -- has begun "buying companies in the $1,000bn-a-year healthcare market". It's just one glimpse into the exploding economy of privatised disaster, with Lockheed poised to profit not only from making weapons but also from treating the people injured by them -- a new era of morbid vertical integration.
The FT has long explored how politicians harness disasters to push through unwanted economic policies. In 1998, for instance, the FT published an article by Jeffrey Sachs outlining how the IMF took South Korea's democracy hostage, withholding a desperately needed loan until all presidential candidates committed in writing to a harsh austerity plan. Some months later, Hurricane Mitch swept Central America. I learned from the FT that, with countries still knee-deep in rubble, foreign lenders were demanding privatisations.
In the first months after the U.S. "shock and awe" attack on Iraq, the FT reported on U.S. envoy Paul Bremer's shock therapy programme. The paper stated his decrees "make Iraq one of the most open economies in the developing world and go beyond even legislation in many rich countries." It's a concise summary that I often draw upon.
But now, after all these years of fruitful (if one-way) collaboration, the FT calls my thesis "ultimately dishonest." Stinging as this may be, I stand behind the honesty of the FT's reporting, which has been so very helpful in the evolution of my world view.
I wish disaster capitalism were a product of my fevered imagination. I have recently, however, come across more evidence to support its existence. It comes from Paul B Farrell, author of publishing sensations such as The Millionaire Code and The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing. "Hot tip: Invest in 'disaster capitalism'," begins his review in Dow Jones Business News. Farrell acknowledges that an economy built on disaster "is a hot-button political issue. But for the moment, let's put aside partisan politics ... Let's look at this strictly as investors and briefly consider what may also be a guide for aggressive investors." Many unmentionable stock tips follow.
It is just as I had feared -- The Shock Doctrine as a how-to-guide. At the end, however, Farrell shows some misgivings. "Is 'Disaster Capitalism' merely a hot short-term investment opportunity for you? Or is it a national 'crisis,' a warning bell, a 'shocking' call to ... rein in the 'military-industrial complex' mindset that's pushing America into a disastrous, self-destructive future?"
Moral confusion in the business pages? Where am I supposed to get my news now?
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I see you're scheduled to speak at my school in a few weeks.
Looking forward to seeing you there!!!
I can't help wondering how the GOP crony corruption machine is going to cash in on the San Diego fires. My brother-in-law was the California State Air Fire Marshall for several years and in charge of the air fleet to fight fires. He tried to get members of Congress in Washington to wake up and modernize the fleet of WW2 and Korean War planes that really aren't up to the job. He even briefed John McCain and wrote a 20-page thesis on this. The result was McCain was on to something else and supported Bush's cuts in fire protection. He's got all the documentation to show this, and laments that all this money is going into Iraq and Afghanistan, and meanwhile half the California air fleet is grounded, and there's no money to replace it.
"He tried to get members of Congress in Washington to wake up and modernize the fleet of WW2 and Korean War planes that really aren't up to the job."
MostlyMagic - Your brother might benefit from researching "Operation Evergreen" a Reagan era caper by CIA.
This website is a good place to start:
http://www
Maybe all this fire and clean-up soon overwhelms state agencies, especially given that equipment and personnel which might have been sent in via the California national guard is presently busy elsewhere, and private contractors must be brought in to augment their efforts. Maybe extra planes will have to be rented, extra trucks, extra backhoes, etc., from republican-friendly corporate folks. Folks just like your neighbors, who work for KBR and Halliburton.
Who will receive state contracts for construction and related materials to rebuild and clean up state properties? Who will receive money to house people whose homes have been destroyed? For more possible beneficiaries of this tragic windfall, look no further than Naomi Klein's book and extrapolat
.....hi...
The Arts & Letters Daily of the Chronicle of Higher Education has mentioned the book only once, where they link to a review in which Naomi is called 'A friend to Hezbollah, and an enemy of logic' at
http://www
I don't think the smear campaign is working and I don't think people are buying Shock Doctrine as a how to get rich manual. This book is too well researched and too disturbing for that.
Ms. Klein, your book is great, and I doubt it is anymore a "How To" than Orwell's "1984". I think it reflects a reality that many already had a sense of.
Years ago I was taking Philippine Studies in San Francisco and we ventured into a discussion on how US AgriBusiness in Mindanao, during the Marcos years, would have the Philippine Government declare the Filipino farmers in barrios adjacent to their property "Communists", so the Army could move in and run the villagers out, thereby allowing the businesses to expand the size of their Plantations. Not exactly an example of "Shock Doctrine" but surely an example of how Governmental and Corporate Moral Bankruptcy could ultimately evolve into "Shock Doctrine" methodologies.
Exposing a system like "Shock Doctrine" to the light of day is important, even though there are some who will try to find a way to exploit the possibilities it affords. Having information on Disaster Capitalism available for citizens to contemplate provides millions of more eyes directed at the system and will cause caution on the part of those who would exploit "Shock Doctrine".
Like the experiments of Dr. Cameron, crimes of "Shock Doctrine" magnitude are always best committed in the Shadows.
By the way, Naomi. Great book.
The delusions will go on about Friedman and his Economic Wonderland experiments 'til the cows come home. Same can be said for the "Free-Trade Miracles" of Chile, Poland, Russia, Argentina, Iran, Bolivia, Brazil, and (of course) Iraq.
The fact that so many of Friedman's Chicago and Berkeley proteges still work hard at putting a candy coating on these disasters is telling. To many of those in that world, as well as the world of the political neoCon, the facts.... even the truth, doesn't matter.
If the experiment doesn't work (wrecks economy after economy and causes untold suffering), it is the VERY reason to keep on repeating the same method. Maybe one day in the distant future, after millions starve or die in torture cells, Free Market neo-liberalism will get it right.
Pigs will fly too.
Friedman's thesis is a fig-leaf over greed, a cover story without any value beyond its use as a cover story. The fact that this thesis facilitates the predations of its enthusiasts is its reason for existence.
But no matter. Serious academics will continue as long as possible to take it seriously, or until adherence to its illogic no longer generates chairs or grant money or consultant fees. Serious business press writers will continue to tout it seriously until the subjects of their feature stories, their social and moral betters, direct them to a newer, shiny thesis which privides a fresh intellectual underpinning for continued pillaging.
The thieving is a constant in corporate capitalism, but from time to time it becomes necessary to hatch a theory for the delectation of both its victims and its practitioners, which shows that theft is a kind of complicated giving, complete with delicate mechanisms the government should never attempt to control.
Dear Naomi,
I loved your book. I had a bad feeling about where things were headed in the world when Allende was murdered. That made a huge impression on me, and I've watched in horror ever since as various countries have been raped and pillaged. I didn't have a clear idea of what was happening and why, but now I do, thanks to your meticulous research.
One small note on the subject of poverty in Mexico: Although I agree with you on the effect of the trade agreements, one can't ignore the influence of the Catholic Church in creating the poor underclass of Mexico. Also, one can't ignore the influence of the Catholic Church on the illegal immigrant problem. I don't think the reluctance of Americans to accept millions of mostly uneducated Mexican workers is based on xenophobia; I think it's based on the fear that uneducated Mexicans are so much under the influence of the Catholic Church that they will have very large families that will place a burden on services. This is a real, valid fear. I lived in a rural part of New Mexico for a while, and many Mexican immigrant families had 10 to 14 children. This led to poverty even if both parents were working. The losers were the children.
Also, newsman Lou Dobbs doesn't just blast illegal immigrants; he also blasts the businesses that hire them and constantly denigrates the Bush administration for allowing the situation to continue.
Fascism doth protest too much.
Great work, predictable response.
very good proverb, thanks
Naomi, I think your book is the most important book of this era. It is possible that it could do for capitalism what Solzhenitsyn's Gulag book did for Stalinism.
When I lived in the UK a trade union official who was a devout communist told me that he only read two newspapers. The communist Daily Worker and the Financial Times. When I queried the FT he told me it was because he needed to know what the capitalists really thought.
So Naomi you are right to quote the FT reporters as they tell like it is. Their columnists just repackage the information to delude the masses. Also Friedman's influence on the lives of ordinary citizens has been malign at best. When Thatcher implemented his "Money Supply" theory of inflation she destroyed whole sections of the UK manufacturing industry and with it thousands of jobs and families.
Poor Milton, my arse!!
If you listened to all the denials you would have to believe we live in a loving, caring, ethical world.
If you can find GREED in the mix, it is probably true.
Thanks for a great piece of investigative journalism. Sometimes truth makes it's way into the light.
Looks like Naomi Klein will join I.F. Stone and Noam Chomsky in the margins. In the media world, there are always two sides to every question, the right and the left. Few are interested in research, in the pursuit of truth, just balance. So, when someone comes along with something on target to say, the talking heads marginalize them.
Substance is just not important to the 'experts' paraded before us by the various media outlets. Genuine information is just too dangerous in the hands of ordinary folks, they might 'get it'. Ordinary folks might get upset, they may notice that the 'experts', the 'leaders' have no clothes. Oh, what a sight! Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Dick Cheney, George Bush in the nude.
I watched Chris Matthews interview two lightweights the other day as experts, then Keith Olbermann recycled them a few minutes later. The two had nothing to contribute. If there are experts, and I seriously doubt that, they certainly are not on TV, no experts just partisans.
Free market fundamentalists are just as deluded and dangerous as any other kind.
Keep up the good work, Ms. Klein.
Guess that Bushco are in for their money in disaster capitalism, what a bounty Iran will be;
&0 million peoples and a sizable portion looking to the US for "salvation".
The predators are already "lurking in the bush"
waiting for the first bunker busters to drop and then the party starts.
What a business opportunity.
The Ferenguys (look into Star Trek) are mmassaging their earlobes.
Great visual, JelcoCathlon! Utterly Apt!
The worst scenario for these captains of industry is for the little guy to read Naomi's book - fortunately, most people don't read book reviews by these corporate parasites, and if they do, all the more reason for them to buy the book.
Thanks Naomi - the truth hurts, especially when the corporate fascists realize that we are on to them.
If only you could have a formal debate with some of these folks in the same manner that Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris have been methodically exposing how religionists actually are complicit with the disaster capitalists! Does such a forum exist? Can you go beyond sound bites to discuss contemporary economics?
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