Something Can Taste Worse than Buckley’s

The Shock Doctrine – The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Naomi Klein
Random House

If you have been following this blog for even the briefest period, you’ll have noticed that, quite frankly, I read an awful lot of crap. While I don’t believe that you have to read/eat/be good all of the time, I do think that everyone has a social responsibility to try to improve themselves and in doing so, improve the quality of life of those around them. That said, every once in awhile, I try to read a book that I know will be “good for me” even though I might not like it.

Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine is a thoroughly researched, thought-provoking look at the rise of free-market fundamentialism of the last half-century and how various governments and regimes (from Pinochet's Chile, to Yeltsin's Russia to Bush's privatized war on Iraq) have followed the principles of shock and awe to re-make their respective economies. Sometimes, as in the case of New Orleans or Sri Lanka, the shock and awe is due to an overwhelming natural disaster that presents a "reconstruction" opportunity too good to be missed. In other cases, like the coup against Allende or the invasion of Iraq, economic shock therapy is directly tied to violence, torture and abuse. Regardless of the source, the disturbing trend in all cases is that the economic makeovers serve only to line the pockets of the already rich. Sure, it might be free market capitalism at its best, but is it moral?

I could go on at length about all the upsetting things that I read in this book. I have to say, though, that it was Klein's examination of present-day war profiteering that bothered me the most. To read the chapters in her book about Rumsfeld, Blackwater, Lockheed Martin, and Halliburton literally made my stomach hurt. So much so, that I wanted to stop reading. Like a good girl, I took my medicine and I'm better off for it. I'd suggest that you take it too. Four and a half cough drops out of five.