5 thoughts on “Naomi Klein Embraces “The Shock Doctrine””
Doesn’t she also accuse the Right of engineering these crises specifically to create the opportunityto implement their agenda? Granted that part of her argument was outlandish and truthery, but it was at least seemingly supported by much of Bush’s first term.
Much as she may have hated the way things were, I’m pretty sure she didn’t actively try to bring about an economic collapse (and couldn’t if she’d wanted to.)Report
Joseph good points.
Still, as a kind of Neo-Marxist (or really a Keynesian with Frankfurt flair for social criticism) she has to be interested in the application of technocratic managerial top-down power. For all her stuff around No Logo and power to the people street democracy, etc., really she’s of the school that the state needs to be impose mass power across the board. I think it is true to say that she secretly (or maybe not so secretly now) is attracted to and repulsed by the Friedmanite followers mostly because they have done what in some ways she wish she could.Report
Doesn’t she also accuse the Right of engineering these crises specifically to create the opportunityto implement their agenda? Granted that part of her argument was outlandish and truthery, but it was at least seemingly supported by much of Bush’s first term.
Much as she may have hated the way things were, I’m pretty sure she didn’t actively try to bring about an economic collapse (and couldn’t if she’d wanted to.)Report
Joseph good points.
Still, as a kind of Neo-Marxist (or really a Keynesian with Frankfurt flair for social criticism) she has to be interested in the application of technocratic managerial top-down power. For all her stuff around No Logo and power to the people street democracy, etc., really she’s of the school that the state needs to be impose mass power across the board. I think it is true to say that she secretly (or maybe not so secretly now) is attracted to and repulsed by the Friedmanite followers mostly because they have done what in some ways she wish she could.Report
Oh absolutely, I just think that there are far more potent criticisms of her book that that one, such as Jon Chait’s (which being a year old, you’ve probably already read.)Report
It’s worth noting that this post from Norberg was by no means his first foray into attacking Klein’s silliness. He takes her book apart much more thoroughly here:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/128903.html
and here:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9384Report
She’s a statist just like Bush and co. were statists. Both sides are majority statists — they merely want state power for different reasons.Report