This is the secret history of the free market. It wasn't born in freedom and democracy. It was born in shock.-- Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine
Only a crisis -- actual or perceived -- produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.-- Milton Friedman
This short film by writer-narrator Naomi Klein and filmmakers Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón will première this evening at the Toronto Film Festival and tomorrow at the Venice Film Festival. It is a companion to Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine, published on Wednesday.
Torture reconceived as a form of therapy. Disasters both man-made and natural re-framed in the same way, as opportunities to restructure entire societies that would otherwise have resisted the ministrations of the opportunists.
Klein's reading of the story of true capitalist believers since the Second World War is compelling and convincing, a distillation of the logic behind many of the most significant political coups of the last three generations -- and if you think that political coups happen only in other countries on other continents, Klein will convince you to think again.
Unbelievable as it seems, as it should be this late in an American administration whose credibility is now more tattered and torn than that of any in history, many North Americans are bracing themselves each night of this lovely autumn against the news that an exhausted and overextended imperial power is raining down creative destruction on yet another distant and vulnerable nation. If Dick Cheney has done the world any good in these last years of his appalling life, he has done it by ripping away all the sentimental masks that the apologists for empire have exploited and befouled for generations. The Bush administration isn't taking democracy anywhere else, and they've spent seven years sniggering with delight at how much of it they've stolen at home. What they know about the rest of the world is that destruction and disaster pay -- it has become impossible to read American foreign policy any other way.
Well, that's my way of putting it. Here is a more graceful presentation of her own metaphor from Naomi Klein:
From Chile to China to Iraq, torture has been a silent partner in the global free market crusade. But torture is more than a tool used to enforce unwanted policies on rebellious peoples; it is also a metaphor of the shock doctrine’s underlying logic. Torture, or in CIA language "coercive interrogation," is a set of techniques designed to put prisoners into a state of deep disorientation and shock in order to force them to make concessions against their will. ...The shock doctrine mimics this process precisely, attempting to achieve on a mass scale what torture does one on one in the interrogation cell. ...The original disaster – the coup, the terrorist attack, the market meltdown, the war, the tsunami, the hurricane – puts the entire population into a state of collective shock. The falling bombs, the bursts of terror, the pounding winds serve to soften up whole societies much as the blaring music and blows in the torture cells soften up prisoners. Like the terrorized prisoner who gives up the names of comrades and renounces his faith, shocked societies often give up things they would otherwise fiercely protect.
Full disclosure: For joining in the blogburst for Shock Doctrine today, the POGGE collective have earned a review copy of the book, which I promise we shall review in days to come.
By pure coincidence, on Wednesday morning, just before I heard about the crossover release of the book and the film, I was watching and listening to Naomi's August speech to the American Sociological Association, which you can watch or read here, at Democracy Now. She was speaking to the topic "Is Another World Possible?" which, as she notes early on, had not been a question at Porto Alegre in 2001. I was simply riveted by this speech and I urge you to watch it. It is a superb performance, and these lines are to be remembered:
We did not lose the battles of ideas. We were not outsmarted and we were not out-argued. We lost because we were crushed. Sometimes we were crushed by army tanks, and sometimes we were crushed by think tanks. And by think tanks I mean the people who are paid to think by the makers of tanks.
Oh this is so good. Must rethink what I can add to this topic.
A most excellent post, skdadl! Thank you for your clarity and your wisdom. And thanks to Naomi Klein for her courage to speak truth to power.
This is bracing and exciting stuff. Naomi Klein appears to have made a major contribution to progressive thinking with her new book. And a major contribution to re-establishing the left's traditional pre-eminence in intellectual analysis and discourse. Can't wait to read Shock Doctrine.
This is the most ridiculous things I've ever seen.
Creating a war or revolution for the purpose of profits is contrary to free market theory, especially Friedman's works. It's got to be more than just a coincidence that Naomi Klein waited until after Friedman died to print/produce such fallacious logic, since Friedman would have instantly defeated her claims about him had he still been alive today.
The main falsehood that Klein attempts to perpetuate is that when somebody makes a profit, that is "capitalism." No interference in the markets by government, by means of torture or whatever else Klein claims the government has done on behalf of businesses, is considered "capitalism." The reality is that money changing hands does not create capitalism--a government that stays out of the private lives and wallets of individuals does.
A few things I noticed about the film:
-An 80-something per cent increase of the wealth of the "rich" was indicated in Chile. "Rich" was left undefined and the statistic without a source.
-45% of the Chilean population is listed as having been in poverty. Poverty is left undefined, and the statistic without a source. Perhaps the Chileans wouldn't have been so poor had they not been shooting each other in the streets instead of working in productive jobs.
-Iraq is mentioned as being a "privatized" war. Since no war, by the definition of a war being a state versus a state, can be private, the war is not privatized at all. What the film ought to say is that private businesses are receiving funds for security forces in Iraq. The very fact that an overseas, world policing mission is being fought in Iraq is anti-capitalist.
-China is said to have "embraced free market capitalism." I'm sure that one's new to the Communist Party that rules China.
If anything fits the definition of Orwellian doublethink it's this book/film. Capitalism, which is defined as an economy without government interference, cannot be considered to be the economic system used by politicians who create wars for profit, as they are using the government to intefere with the economy. Friedman's works all oppose the idea that the government should use force such as torture against its citizenry.
Perhaps the most telling aspect about Klein's credibility is that she fails to define the actual concept of free market capitalism before opposing it. A viewer new to the subject is unable to determine what free market capitalism is, thereby realizing that the idea that war, famine, and manufactured crises are the polar opposites of capitalism. I'm sure that's why Klein failed to define capitalism.
Went to hear Naomi Klein the other night at Concordia University. She is magnificent.
A question sernesr - have you read the book, or are you just using talking points?
If your chief complaint is that the trailer for the movie lacks sources/citations, then I'd suggest following up by reading the book.
Neil, you wrote:
"Creating a war or revolution for the purpose of profits is contrary to free market theory, especially Friedman's works. It's got to be more than just a coincidence that Naomi Klein waited until after Friedman died to print/produce such fallacious logic, since Friedman would have instantly defeated her claims about him had he still been alive today."
Maybe, maybe not. I'm not familiar enough with Friedman's theory to dispute this, but clearly there are many other thinkers who have questioned Friedman, or more accurately, the consequences of Friedman's thinking. It is much more than a coincidence that Klein is criticising Friedman only now. It is a kind of historical thing - Friedman died recently, wrote his most influencial work some time ago, and Klein is a fairly new voice. Unless death bestows permanent immunity from criticism.
"The reality is that money changing hands does not create capitalism--a government that stays out of the private lives and wallets of individuals does."
Say again?
"-45% of the Chilean population is listed as having been in poverty. Poverty is left undefined, and the statistic without a source. Perhaps the Chileans wouldn't have been so poor had they not been shooting each other in the streets instead of working in productive jobs."
This combines rascism, first world arrogance and ignorance in equal proportions. If you had a better understanding of Chilean history you would understand more fully why Chileans were "shooting each other in the streets." It is generally recognized and admitted by all serious historians and American government agencies that the CIA initiated and perpetuated the atrocities and murders and torture and other human rights abuses under Pinochet.
"-Iraq is mentioned as being a "privatized" war. Since no war, by the definition of a war being a state versus a state, can be private, the war is not privatized at all."
There is a term for this, it is called "sophistry." I'm replying at such length on the off-chance that you might be reachable, but comments like this make me feel like I'm wasting my time. But I'm already too deep into this, so let's keep going.
"-China is said to have "embraced free market capitalism." I'm sure that one's new to the Communist Party that rules China."
But China is in fact becoming a total "free-market" player, despite their antiquated formal government stances. I don't understand? Do you see the changes happening in China as all pre-ordained as some part of a master plan by the communist overlords? Come on, get with the program here - are you here to educate, be educated, or simply obfuscate?
"Capitalism, which is defined as an economy without government interference" .. now friend, not even your better informed allies could support this one. Capitalism without government interference has another name - fascism. It is precisely the lack of "government interference" ie: the will of the common people, that turns capitalism into a cancerous disease destroying all of us. It's not necessarily capitalism per se which is the problem.
Capitalism (allowing people to individually keep the fruits of their labours and schemes) seems to lead to higher life expectancies, better environmental management, a lower incidence of kids dying from preventable childhood disease, and many other benefits. It is only when it is completely divorced from the constraint of the people that it becomes malignant.
Klein is quite shrewd and responsible, I think in not attacking more broadly concepts of private ownership and capitalism. She is against a particularly destructive form of capitalism.
I think Klein has defined a particular form of capitalism quite well.
Brett, that's sernesr you're quoting, not Neil. Otherwise, you have some good points.
My apologies, Neil. Thank you, Holly.
Capitalism is in no way defined as "an economy without government interference" (for one thing, outside Somalia there is no such thing). Technically, capitalism isn't normally defined even in terms of markets--it is easy enough to have markets without capitalism, as in feudalism, and I can envision a scenario of capitalism without markets. Capitalism is defined by the prevalence of private ownership of the means of production. That is, if factories and shops and so on are owned by private individuals, not accountable for their actions to, say, the state, or the nobility, or the workers, or the priesthood, or the football players, or whatever, then it's capitalism. If those private individuals set the rules among themselves such that they never compete for contracts and all firms are monopolistic in their field, and so if you want to buy an X there is one and only one kind you can get from one outlet at one price (not what would normally be considered a "market"), that's still capitalism. If the government is an intrusive dictatorship which mandates that every man, woman and child shall own precisely three plastic ducks (which they must purchase from Mammoth Monopoloid Plastic Toys, inc. for $300 each) it's *still* capitalism as long as the owners of Mammoth Monopoloid Plastic Toys, inc. are private individuals, such as stockholders.
Similarly, if some state starts a war in Iraq for the benefit of certain corporations and the private individuals who own them and derive profits from them (known as "capitalists" because they own "capital"), that indicates that the state is captive to the interests of those capitalists. It does *not* make that country somehow *less capitalist*. Quite the reverse--it indicates that capitalists are very powerful in that country. It may say something about the degree to which markets are interfered with in that country. But in general, far from the naive notions of most non-elite right wingers, markets are if anything less likely to behave in a "free" sort of way, in the sense of level playing fields for all, the farther right and more "pro-capitalism" a country's government moves. Far right governments consistently stack the marketplace in favour of the most wealthy--the biggest corporations with the highest profits capable of rewarding the politicians best. These are the ones who get the subsidies, the favourable environmental and labour rules, the no-compete cost-plus contracts, the special prosecution deals allowing them to illegally leverage their monopolies, and so forth. Smaller businesses, for instance, and other market actors get consistently hosed--the marketplace rules tend to be stacked against them. And then they tell you it's all for the "free market", and you're foolish enough to believe it.
As to whether capitalism is about "allowing people to individually keep the fruits of their labours and schemes"--well, Brett, I dunno. It's certainly about letting *some* people individually keep the fruits of their labours and schemes. But it's specifically about extracting part of the fruits of *other* people's labours, and increasingly schemes. The whole point of capitalism is for the labour of employees to generate a surplus retained by the capitalist. "Intellectual property" laws and contracts increasingly ensure that this applies to the ideas of employees as well, often even ideas they have after they leave employment, which are assumed in the courts to have originated in some proprietary knowledge belonging to the firm for which they previously worked. So, the boss gets the fruit of his labours and schemes (and above all of his initial outlay of money, which may, particularly in the case of stock ownership, be enough to get fruits without either doing labour or forming schemes), but the wage worker only gets a part of the fruits his labour, and often none of the fruits of his schemes. One may say the wage labourer could quit and become a small businessperson. But the capitalist economy would stop functioning if everyone did that--wage labour is needed for the system to work.
To this day, I don't know whether to be grateful or regretful that I didn't take a single economics course in university. At some point I did discover Doris Lessing, however, and in the course of a summer re-reading of her - especially Shikasta, an astounding masterwork of imagination, and the surrounding books in the "fantasy/science fiction" quintet - I came across this observation of hers - Marxism is a way of not thinking. I'll dig out the exact quote if anybody wants.
I'll second the positive Shikasta review, at least. I particularly like The Sirian Experiments. The last two novels in the series left something to be desired, though.
See my review of The Shock Doctrine at The Tyee: http://thetyee.ca/Books/2007/09/11/ShockTherapy/
...and my comments on the brilliant marketing of the book on my politics blog, The View from Seymour. The success of the book is implied in the principles of the free market: So many people hate the free market that they've created a huge demand for something better, and the market has obeyed.
Very good review, Crawford. It makes me even more eager to get my hands on this book.
Thanks for those links, Crawford, and a very good piece of writing at the Tyee. Like you, I've taken a certain amount of criticism for helping to promote what is in fact a popularization, but as you say, that doesn't bother me if what Klein is prepping for a broad audience happens to accord with what I know.
For a long time it has been hard to get many North Americans to notice, much less care, about foreign policy or how global systems work. If Klein can come up with a meme that catches on and opens minds beyond those of the usual suspects, then that's a good thing in my book.
Speaking of my book, I'm still waiting ...