Shock doctrine
Front cover of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
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| Author | Naomi Klein |
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| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Economics |
| Publisher | Knopf Canada (first edition) |
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Publication date
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2007 |
| Media type | Print, e-book |
| Pages | 672 (first edition) |
| ISBN | (hardcover) |
| OCLC | 74556458 |
| Preceded by | Fences and Windows |
| Followed by | This Changes Everything |
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is a 2007 book by the Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein. In the book, Klein argues that neoliberal free market policies (as advocated by the economist Milton Friedman) have risen to prominence in some developed countries because of a deliberate strategy of "shock therapy". This centers on the exploitation of national crises to push through controversial policies while citizens are too emotionally and physically distracted by disasters or upheavals to mount an effective resistance. The book suggests that some man-made events, such as the Iraq War, were undertaken with the intention of pushing through such unpopular policies in their wake. Some reviewers criticized the book for making what they viewed as simplifications of political phenomena, while others lauded it as a compelling and important work.
The Shock Doctrine is the basis of a 2009 documentary by the same name directed by Michael Winterbottom.
The book has an introduction, a main body and a conclusion, divided into seven parts with a total of 21 chapters.
Part 1 begins with a chapter on psychiatric shock therapy and the covert experiments conducted by the psychiatrist Ewen Cameron in collusion with the Central Intelligence Agency. The second chapter introduces Milton Friedman and his Chicago school of economics, whom Klein describes as leading a laissez-faire capitalist movement committed to creating free markets that are even less regulated than those that existed before the Great Depression.
Part 2 discusses the use of "shock doctrine" to transform South American economies in the 1970s, focusing on the 1973 coup in Chile led by General Augusto Pinochet and influenced by a prominent group of Chilean economists who had been trained at the University of Chicago in the Economics department, funded by the CIA, and advised by Milton Friedman. Klein connects torture with economic shock therapy.
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