The Shock Doctrine

Naomi Klein is an author who i really like. She’s doesn’t talk to radicals, but rather tries to explain globalization to the wider world. She does a really good job at it. A few years ago she did a documentary in Argentina called The Take about how workers were transforming collapsed capitalist industries in Argentina in to worker owned and run cooperatives. It did a good job at explaining what was happening without using ideological language.

Now she’s got a new book out, The Shock Doctrine about how economies are reformed and civil rights shredded when we are distracted by disasters. No one in congress read the Patriot Act before it was passed in the weeks following 9/11. It was a law sitting in waiting. That’s the way we loose our rights, when we are distracted and mourning. It’s when people fail to resist and advocate for a positive, cooperative, just world.

To accompany the book, Naomi co-produced a short video about the concepts in the book and posted it to youtube.