I read Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein in about 2 and 1/2 days. It was incredibly hard to put down as it was written with so much info constantly coming at you. I love books that don’t skirt around topics in an attempt to build the anticipation of information. SD just goes straight in, with the obvious reporter-style of storytelling.
The first section I started to question why it had to be put in, since it seemed to be nothing about what I had thought the book was, but then you realize that she’s putting the foundation for why the events in the rest of the book happen. And once you get into the rest of the book, the info flows like nothing.
Shock Doctrine explains how many disastrous events in the world in the past 50 years are seen as gifts to the wealthy, governments and companies ready to exploit the need of the people. It’s a story of how companies and governments have learned to use terrorism to change countries and disable laws for the betterment of only themselves. Naomi goes into depth in the privatization of all but 4 New Orleans schools in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, the overturn of the government in Chili in the 70s and its US roots, the shock therapy used on the Russian economy, and Washington’s plan for Iraq before, during and after the ‘war on terror’.
Naomi opens your eyes to what you thought was ‘help’ for people in disasters and lets you see what is actually taking place. The amount of research that had to go into this book is amazing. The connections she finds between people, governments and companies makes outrageous thoughts make sense. Some of the stories of people behind entire economies ruined just blew my mind.
If you’re into business, social justice or a human enjoying your current freedom, I strongly suggest you read this book.
Here is the Amazon listing for it: “Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” (not an affiliate link, I make no money off of clicking this.)
If you’ve read it, what are your thoughts?