Shilling for Naomi Klein

Yesterday morning I was listening to CBC One and I heard an interview with Naomi Klein, who has just published her third book. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is a look at how so-called "neo-liberal" economic policies such as privatization of government services, clear cut social spending, and free trade have been implemented in countries as diverse as Chile, Russia, and Iraq. It is also a look at how neo-liberal policies are tied to deliberate strategies to destabilize the cultures of the economies being transformed.

I have not read the book yet, but I can guess that the neo-liberal (i.e. radical right wing) apologists will complain that Klein's arguments are either too far fetched, too simplistic, or too reminiscent of the paranoid conspiracy theories that drove The X-Files into the ground. That doesn't mean she is necessarily wrong in her argument that proponents of bully capitalism (my phrase, not hers) manufacture and encourage the undermining of foreign social structures and the destruction of national economies.

These arguments are not, of course, entirely new ground for Klein. A few years ago she wrote a very interesting article in Harpers that examined some of the same ground. If you are interested, you can find that article by clicking on the following link: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/09/0080197.