The Shock Doctrine was total garbage.

in naomi •  3 years ago 

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Naomi Klein wrote a 720 page lie in 2007 called The Shock Doctrine. In the book, she took a quote by Milton Friedman in his forward from Capitalism and Freedom out of context in which he said that, "Only in time is crisis does real change occur."

In full context, all Friedman was saying was that bad policies lead to bad results and that it usually isn't until things go badly wrong that people demand reforms. Klein claimed that Friedman was calling to exploit or even manufacture "shocks" in order to manipulate people into supporting free market reforms.

I'm not going to dismantle the book beat by beat; but, she did make some false claims like that Friedman supported the war in Iraq - he didn't; and that he served as an economic advisor for Pinochet - the only truth to that is that Friedman wrote a letter to Pinochet asking him to liberalize his economy because his people were suffering.

What she got right is also what Friedman got right - crisis can facilitate change; but, it can also be exploited for change.

Covid is a textbook example of a crisis being exploited; but, it throws Klein's narrative out because, in real life, crises are exploited to take away freedom.

Somehow I doubt that Klein is going to write a book about the Covid Shock Doctrine because the outcome is exactly what she wanted - less freedom.

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