The Shock Doctrine By Naomi Klein

An Eye Opener A Must Read No Matter What Party You Support

The Shock Doctrine

In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world– through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.
At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts…. New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters — to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.
Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock – did not begin with September 11, 2001. The book traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today. New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, “shock and awe” warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.
The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas through our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
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Featured Review:

“With a bold and brilliantly conceived thesis, skillfully and cogently threaded through more than 500 pages of trenchant writing, Klein may well have revealed the master narrative of our time. And because the pattern she exposes could govern our future as well, The Shock Doctrine could turn out to be among the most important books of the decade.”

- William S. Kowinski, San Francisco Chronicle

See the Research

Pro-Free-Market Ideas for Responding to Hurricane Katrina and High Gas Prices, September 13, 2005
Link
Paul Teller, the deputy director of the U.S. House Republican Study Committee, circulated this outrageous wish list of free-market reforms just a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina. Some of the suggested reforms, such suspending tariffs on Canadian lumber and allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, have nothing to do with Hurricane Katrina.

Resources

This resources section is intended to serve as a companion to The Shock Doctrine. It offers a full bibliography and filmography as well as declassified CIA reports, dozens of historical documents, and links to terrific online material, much of it organized by chapter so they can serve as supplementary readings. We all hope you find this to be a useful tool for your studies and research and welcome your feedback. Keep in mind that this is a work in progress, with new material going up regularly.

News

Read recent examples of Disaster Capitalism in Action.

Primary Documents and Chapter Resources

Read the original documents that support The Shock Doctrine. Among the myriad resources, you’ll find declassified government files, historical letters, news articles, NGO reports, and suggested books and films.

Naomi’s Articles Related to The Shock Doctrine

Read all of Naomi’s articles related to The Shock Doctrine since 2005.

Bibliography and Filmography

See the book’s complete bibliography and filmography.

Corrections / Clarifications

Since the publication of The Shock Doctrine in September 2007, some new facts have come to our attention.

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