C&L Book of the Month: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism By Naomi Klein
Men like Jonas Salk, Lenny Bruce and J. Edgar Hoover, these men thrive upon the continuance of segregation, violence, and disease. The purity they dost protest a need for, they dost feed upon. Thank You, Masked Man
Lenny Bruce
A divinely inspired work, Naomi Klein has tapped into the zeitgeist of modern day destruction capitalism. In 400-plus pages and extensive footnotes, she melts the myths surrounding the so-called global free market. Apparently, it is neither global, nor free and anything but a market. The Shock Doctrine, based on her historical research, and four years of boots-on-the-ground investigation by Klein, reveals the shocking truth that connects Pinochet’s Chile, the Falklands War, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Asian financial crisis and Hurricane Mitch all in terms of rapid fire corporate restructuring of these societies and their economies. Along the way, we go through Poland following communism, South Africa after apartheid, Sri Lanka recovering from the tsunami, Iraq after mission accomplished and New Orleans’ privatization post Katrina.
Enjoy the feeling of avoiding the usual hurricane evacuation nightmare. Help Jet Luxury Airlines of W. Palm Beach helps you avoid the next Katrina. : Actual ad pitch for Help Jet Luxury Airlines
The Shock Doctrine reads like an economic disaster film, Die Hard With a Calculator, if you will. Its antagonist is the late economist Milton Friedman and his gang of Chicago Boys, economic free marketeers trained by the University of Chicago to spread their gospel to an unreceptive and reluctant world.
Friedman argued that “only a crisis – actual or perceived –produces real change.”
The shocking truth is that most of the world’s economists now believe this. (He was given a Nobel Prize to make sure of the fact.)
At first you won’t believe this parallel history laid out by Klein and then later, near the end of the book, you will be unable to see the world in any other way than through the prism of Shock. It is the political equivalent of reading Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky for the first time. Whole swaths of recent history have been reinterpreted for the reader, who if you are like me, will be stunned that the connections hold up so solidly.
Klein flawlessly fuses the political torture of shock therapy with the economic torture of the shock doctrine. One of her themes is that these two techniques which originally operated on separate tracks, have now merged into one super runaway train.
Somehow global free market capitalism has become the new economic eugenics movement. How the hell did we get here?
In the 1950s an American psychiatrist by the name of Ewen Cameron performed barbaric experiments on thousands of unsuspecting patients at McGill University in Montreal. His theory was that massive amounts of shock therapy, LSD, paralyzing drugs and sensory deprivation combined for long periods of time, could strip the human mind of all its knowledge, memory and emotion leaving it as a clean slate on which he could implant new information. Aka: brainwashing. He placed his patients into drug-induced comas for months on end shocking them with 30-40 times the normal power of electroconvulsive charges.
Cameron had gotten the idea for these ghastly experiments following his involvement in the so-called Doctor’s Trials – the Nuremberg war crime tribunals for the Nazi doctors held following WWII.
Ironically, he was sent by the U.S. Army to sit in judgment of the medical crimes performed by the German doctors. Ironic, because as a secret operative for the OSS, Cameron himself was involved in scientific work during the war. We learned later that Dr. Cameron, along with British intelligence, was involved in the extensive interrogation of Nazi Rudolph Hess, who many felt was mentally incapacitated by his interrogators.
Cameron, fascinated by these techniques, decided to continue them upon his return to North America. Working at Albany State Medical School, Cameron carried out his heinous experiments just north of the border in Montreal to avoid U.S. law. For the record, this was not some rogue medical quack. This was not a college student like Josef Mengele had been at Frankfurt University. Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron was one of the most famous doctors in the world. He was President of the American Psychiatric Association, the Canadian Psychiatric Association and the President of the World Psychiatric Association.
We now know that Cameron’s experiments, from 1957 – 1964, were paid for by the CIA and later became part of Project MKULTRA, the CIA-directed mind control program. (In 2004, 77 of these victims received cash settlements from the government of Canada.) This led to the publication of the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation manual used throughout South and Central America in the 1970s and 80s to help repressive regimes implement the economic policies of the Chicago Boys. With the help of right wing ideologues like Bush advisor Elliot Abrams, (alleged torture tape destroyer) Jose Rodriguez Jr., the former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, and the British-born son of a Greek shipping tycoon named John Negroponte, listed on paper at the time as the U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, the Central American regimes implemented the KUBARK program with ruthless efficiency.
In fact, many members of these regimes learned how to torture while enrolled at the School of the Americas located at Ft. Benning, Georgia.
Today, we find the pages of this program dog-eared in the torture facilities of Guantanamo Bay and other CIA black sites around the world.
The blunt reality is that the American government tortures in our name every single day all around the world. (The so-called good German may have a modern day counterpart in the Americal liberal.)
In Chile in 1973, the CIA and US economic interests combined to topple the democratically elected president Salvador Allende and help install General Augusto Pinochet. Milton Friedman and his capitalist cronies seized the opportunity to try out their economic theories on an actual country for the first time. But according to Friedman’s theories, the collective memories of Chile would first have to be wiped clean by physical and economic shock therapy. Repression, financially and socially, was harsh and heavy. It took Chile decades to recover.
Klein takes us off-road through Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, El Salvador and Nicaragua. All the techniques are the same. Just the names are different. Military takeover, repression, forced capitalism, more repression. The results are the same. Hyper inflation, massive reduction in social services, elimination of democracy, immense wealth for a tiny elite.
The shock doctrine is shown taking hold in Poland, South Africa and even China, the perfect host as their state repression is already in place.
Klein shows the repeated pattern of hollowing out governments, selling off its resources, cutting off social programs, enriching the rich, and then enforcing it all with guns.
The post-disaster versions of the shock doctrine are possibly the cruelest of all. Klein shows that money directed toward tsunami relief in Sri Lanka is redirected to the construction of luxury hotels for the tourist industry. Its victims, fisherman and their families, are forced inland to makeshift camps where they are left to survive without access to their generational livelihoods.
The collapse of the Soviet Union is examined through the lens of disaster capitalism. From Yeltsin to the rise of the oligarchs to the ascent of Putin, the end of the Soviet Union has never been that closely examined. Klein lays out the scenario of the feeding frenzy following the fall of the Wall with numbers to back it up. In 1998 Boris Yeltsin’s approval rating fell to 6%. As this drunken bear was impeached and stumbled repeatedly on television, he was continually propped up by political capitalists in the West (including Bill Clinton), who salivated over the industrial wealth of the former Soviet state machinery.
Over 2 billion dollars a month in Russian wealth was moved out of the country. Billion dollar companies were sold for millions. Yukos, the massive oil company with more oil than all of Kuwait, was sold for 300 million bucks. (It grossed 3 billion a year in revenue prior to the sale.) In 1989, there were 2 million Russians below the poverty line. By the mid-90s, there were 74 million. 3.5 million children were homeless. (There were none recorded under the Soviets.) From 1994-2004 drug use has gone up 900% and alcoholism has since doubled. In 1995, there were fifty thousand people who were HIV positive. In 2005, there were one million reported cases.
Like its former client state Iraq who suffered under Saddam, the media mantra was repeated. “You don’t want to go back to Stalin, do you?”
Indeed for many, the answer, while under their collective breath, was yes.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Jeffrey Sachs, the hot young economist, called for a Marshall Plan to help prevent that nation’s descent into chaos and fascism. None of those pleas were answered. In fact, Sachs was laughed at. “The IMF just stared me down like I was crazy,” he said.
It was explained to Sachs that the whole point of the Marshall Plan, the massive post war aid to rebuild Germany, was because of the Soviet Union. Now that it was dead, who the hell needs a Marshall Plan?
West Germany was set up as a model capitalist state to drive a stake into the heart of socialism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the floor model was no longer necessary. The showcase home was not needed to sell other homes. In other words, the competition was gone. Macy’s had driven Gimbels out of business.
As long as there was a Soviet Union, there was a Gimbels and Macy’s had to offer more to attract customers. As soon as the Soviet Union went under, Macy’s was the only department store left in the world so it didn’t have to offer massive sales any longer. Nor for that matter, did it have to offer benefits, pensions, job security or health insurance.
Without Gimbels, Macy’s didn’t have to kiss customer ass any longer.
Macy’s grew colder. Less hospitable. Lazier. More arrogant.
Macy’s became the embittered divorcee that now lives alone, sleeps late, doesn’t shave and drinks a lot.
If I get really rank with the clerk, I walk. What can the guy do at Gimbels? He can always reject me from that store. But I can always go to Macy’s. Communism is like one big phone company. If I get too rank with that phone company, where can I go? I’ll end up like a schmuck with a Dixie cup with a thread: ’Hello, hello, hellooooooo.’
Lenny Bruce, 1959
Wow, if Lenny were alive today. He’d drop dead.
(Some of you may be too young to remember how polite the phone company got when Ma Bell was finally broken up into Baby Bells and they had to compete for your financial affection?)
I have made the argument for years that many of the world’s current political ills have been caused by the immense power vacuum left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union. This vacuum has been metaphorically filled by the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, which for better or worse, was being repressively dealt with by the Soviets over the past fifty years. Afghanistan’s resistance changed all that. The ripples were felt all the way back to Moscow and surfing that wave was Osama bin Laden. Obviously, bin Laden is a minor military foe compared to the mighty Soviet Empire, but with the vacuum he's the new Fidel.
See, its one thing to have a threatening enemy, but with the Soviet Union, it was also a threatening enemy economy. There is no Islamic militant economy, so they are merely a military threat. (And one without thousands of ballistic missiles for that matter.) This scenario while dangerous, is something that disaster capitalism can actually profit from.
Gimbels was a huge economic threat to Macy’s. They challenged Macy’s very existence as a department store. In the grand theme of things, the Islamic militants are merely the shoplifters.
What Naomi Klein calls disaster capitalism, I have referred to in recent years as Darwinian capitalism. Without the Soviet Union, capitalism was suddenly free to lapse into its more savage form. The survival of the fittest economic system. It trickles down to the corporate workplace where the guy in the next cubicle is your enemy. It is he you have to overcome. He who stands in the way of your raise. Your promotion. Your kid’s college tuition. Your co-worker is your enemy under Darwinian capitalism. You must destroy him if you are to survive in the economic jungle.
Today, it is indeed the survival of the fittest.
As Michael Fleischer, Paul Bremer’s deputy stated when he addressed a group of Iraqi businessmen, “Will you be overwhelmed by foreign businesses? The answer depends on you. Only the best of you will survive.”
In the end, we need a new Soviet Union. Possibly the European Union can get muscular and help keep us in check.
Lord knows we need it.
Buy this book. Steal this book. Somehow get this book. Do whatever you have to do, but Read This Book.
It just might save the world.
A WGA screenwriter/producer/journalist based in Hollywood, California, Mark Groubert is the Senior Film and Book Reviewer for CrooksandLiars.com. As a filmmaker he has produced numerous documentaries for HBO. Groubert is also the former editor of National Lampoon Magazine, MTV Magazine and The Weekly World News. In addition, he currently writes for the L.A. Weekly, L.A. City Beat, Penthouse, High Times and other publications while on strike.
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For a more fair and balanced review to go amazon and publishers weekly..
A NEW? Soviet Union? huh?
That looks like an interesting book. I'll have to check it out. However, no Soviet Union may be needed to act as a counter to the U.S. With the Bush Administration's reckless spending and foreign policies they are pretty much giving away the U.S. at bargin basement prices as we see from some of these headlines:
Foreigners Buy Stakes in the U.S. at a Record Pace
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/business/20invest.html?_r=1&ex=1358485...
Under the downgrade shadow
"Rating firm Moody’s on January 10 signaled its belief that the long-term credit rating of US government debt might have to be cut - downgraded - below AAA."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JA17Dj02.html
Fabulous book!!!! Opened my eyes. Made 4 other people read it too.
What the hell was that? Somebody call an editor, stat!
Wonderful fabulous book. Brilliant analysis, completely captures the world we live in and the venal greed destroying it. Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus and yes there are plans to make a killing from disaster. Including remaking the world in the image of present day Iraq.
I finally understand why they are fighting against stopping global warming and climate change. The wreckage will belong to them, and they can use their money to avoid the actual storm and crisis. You won't.
This stuff isn't new to any well read, literate and educated person.
Obviously the great difficulty in marketing this book is finding people who can actually read, that can be pried away from x-box or my space long enough to at least look at the cover, or who have an attention span of anything more then one minute before getting fidgety.
It is a shame the important books are disregarded by the masses for the most part.
Big shame.
This book, if widely read, will be as important in our time as Harriet Beecher's Stowe's, Uncle Tom's Cabin was to the 19th century. It outlines a criminal conspiracy against humanity that is so vast it has only been eclipsed by the Holocaust. It is an indictment against the criminals that have manipulated the world for their own despicable purposes. This book should lead to a movement that will bring the crooks that have committed these crimes for justice. Everything that has happened on the world stage suddenly makes perfect sense when it looked at with a new pair of glasses.
THE best non-fiction book in the last decade at least! It is an important book because it explains how and why this predatory form of capitalism exists. Once you understand it only then can you identify it when it appears(like a social cancer) and then resist with all your might, unless of course you enjoy being controlled and owned by the corporate elite. I know, I know, you already are. The point is, it can get worse, much worse, unless you are one of the victims of Katrina, then you know, you really know.
Great book, explains much of the strange policy in our world today. I gave copies to all my college aged children, nieces and nephews recently as gifts. Decided to help the new generation become as resistant to shock as possible.
This is the worst (fill in the blank) since the Great Depression. We are ar the doorstep of the deflation end of the inflation/deflation cycle. Destruction of capital occurs.
Anecdotal stories of greed and corruption abound. A natural cycle is completing itself through whatever human folly we can conceive of. There was and is corruption in the stock market. But as long as people's 401K's are going up in value, let's just party.
As long as people's homes are escalating in value, let's just party.
Corruption would be no big deal to anyone if stock prices or home prices or wages were only going up. But stocks went down. Homes went down. Wages went down.
The fall of the Wall equates to the end of WW1. A period of war inflation ended in both cases. A peace dividend of declining inflation- follwed by stock and property bubbles in both cases. The roaring 20's and the roaring 90's.
The details are different, but the cycle is the same.
The Osama economy may not exist, but the Soviet economy never offered anything of any value, either. I cannot remember buying anything made in Russia. But everyone has a house full of made in China.
The Chinese boom is deflationary in nature. China, producer to the world.
I wondered why OBL hit the world trade center and the pentagon. Now I know. Also read Naomi Wolf "The End of America" if you want a 1---2 punch of reality. Beginning to believe that the reason the Republicons go bat-poop over Hillary is because she understands international economics. It does not appear that any of their candidates can add 2&2 and get 4 every time.
http://www.flatustheelder.com
Great post, great book. Friedman et. al. are a black plague released on the face of the earth. Unfortunately, without a free press people in the United States will be the last to learn the truth.
I am so sick of Naomi Klein. I read her book. Her research is simply lacking and she making broad statements not supported by fact. No wonder she never debates anyone.
Naomi Klein: Shockingly Ignorant
Naomi Klein: Shockingly Ignorant Part 2
Naomi Klein: Shockingly Ignorant Part 3
Naomi Klein: Shockingly Ignorant Part 4, With Keith Olbermann
Milton Friedman Debates Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein: Shockingly Ignorant Part 6
Milton Friedman Debates Naomi Klein Part 2
Naomi Klein: Shockingly Ignorant Part 8
Naomi Klein is a Liar
These videos pretty much demonstrate how ignorant and hypocritical she is.
Test? I tried submitting comments before?
Site Monitor: The spam filter picks up your posts when you have more than five links in it.
Is C&L taking nominations for its Book of the Month?
If so, I'd like to nominate The Authoritarians by Robert Altemeyer, which is freely available as a downloadable PDF file at www.theauthoritarians.com. You can also buy a hardcopy at lulu.com.
In short, the books summarizes the author's 40+ years of research into the right wing authoritarian (RWA) personality. RWAs are those who score in the top 25% of the RWA scale (i.e., a survey). Here's how the author describes them.
Sound like any political group you may have heard of?
It's a fascinating read. Unfortunately, it is not as widely known as it should be, probably because it is not being distributed in the conventional way. Which is all the more reason for C&L to make it its Book of the Month.
Great book. And for those who don't want to wade through all 5oo plus pages (but it's worth the effort), can just read the intro and chapter one to get enough to appreciate the validity of the book's thesis.
Wow. That was weird. I couldn't submit anything for a second. Sorry about that.
See Milton Friedman Debate Naomi Klein.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2kTy7glZ9s
L.A. Confidential @ 7:
LA Confidential, you are the reason why people hate liberals. What a prick.
This next video demonstrates how Naomi Klein takes Friedman's statements out of context to create her theory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVUFyEY3gmo
The following books have greatly shaped my outlook on why America's and the world's economies do what they do and what must be done for the future:
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman
The Squandering of America by Rober Kuttner
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
The Big Con by Jonathan Chait
Collapse by Jared Diamond
The Great Risk Shift by Jacob Hacker
The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth by Tim Flannery
Screwed by Thom Hartmann
Also, (2) books on my future reading list and seem interesting:
Falling Behind: How the Rising Income Inequality Hurts the Middle Class by Robert Frank
Myths of Free Trade by Sen. Sherod Brown
Read and Enjoy the Enlightenment.
sundog @ 21:
This One book destroys them all.
Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy:by Thomas Sowell.
Devil's Advocate @ 22:
"Thomas Sowell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thomas Sowell (born June 30, 1930), is an American economist, political writer, and commentator. While often described as a "black conservative", he prefers not to be labeled, and considers himself more libertarian than conservative.[1] He often writes from an economically laissez-faire perspective. He is currently a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In 1990, he won the Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. In 2002 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholarship melding history, economics, and political science."
I think the Hoover Institution and the AEI are retirement homes for the "Chicago Boys." Sorry Devil's, but the numbers don't lie. America is slipping and institutions like these are a main reason for it. Time for better ideas from the reality based world.
I read the book in its entirety. The footnotes were often taken out of context, especially Friedman's involvement in Chile. Klein completely ignores immigration rates, poverty rates, inflation rates, unemployment rates, rates of famine, and even genocide rates.
The saddest thing with Klein's book, other than not being substantiated is that she thinks the world stared in 1970. Her lack of understanding of basic economics and history make her someone that should not be taken seriously.
If you want to see some comedy. Watch Klein act like a blatant hypocrite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AZ6XeTxUQw
A quibble.
Darwinian capitalism? Honestly, I hate that name. It takes what Darwin actually was, a natural philosopher, and changes him into something that he isn't. It also changes the idea of evolution is too, which isn't survival of the fittest.
I prefer Klein's name for it. Leave Darwin alone.
sundog @ 23:
The fact that you just pulled a paragraph from Wiki to substantiate an argument demonstrates you are someone who should not be taken seriously. Either you read the book and get back to me or make a substantive argument why I am wrong. Cutting and pasting is not engaging in debate.
Devil's Advocate @ 26:
That's funny, cut and paste works on my Mac. You ought to give it a try. Besides Devil's, my post is for all C&L's readers, not just for single concept Libertarians.
I thought game theorists had already destroyed the notion that unwavering self interest was a viable way to play the game of life. The prisoner's dilemma anyone? What about all the research done by people like Steven Pinker about altruism and greed? Milton Friedman was the one who was fundamentally wrong, and more and more research is proving that. His sophistry has done horrible damage to this world, and I wish his ideas had died with him.
Nice choice for a book! I'm glad that it's not some book about how we need to just fiddle around with this or that minor fiscal policy. It's a book that actually names the system that is at the fundamental root of the problem(s).
A serious, challenging, thoughtful work.
Phillipidies @ 29:
Evidently you don't understand how the Prisoner's dilemma factors into basic economics. The Prisoner's dilemma does nothing to disprove anything that Friedman ever said.
Devil's Advocate @ 25:
So how much are you getting paid to post here? Are you a professional ringer or what?
FreeDUMB @ 32:
Is this the typical way progressives argue today? You must be getting paid therefore anything you say is wrong? Why not try to make a substantive argument so I can bat it out of the park.
Devil's Advocate @ 31:
I do know that Friedman waved his hands on externalities. He admitted that it was a "problem". Like in a closed system externalities DOMINATE? Corporations are externalizing machines. The price of the products in a "free" market rarely reflects the cost. Prisoners dilemma is right, buddy.
FreeDUMB @ 34:
Allow me to be educational for a second. The world is made up of scarce resources. "Price" is the "measure" of the amount of scarce resource vs. the amount of the resource that people want. Now, government can lower the price to a "fair" value, but that doesn't create more supply of the resource. In fact, when governments lower the price to set a "fair" value, people simply produce less of that resource and there are shortages because the price is not sufficient to meet the expense of producing the resource. When you say it really doesn't reflect the cost, you simply do not understand what cost really means. If you are talking about pollution (which you may be), companies should have to pay damages in a court of law for pollution (even Friedman agreed with that). But, you don't need regulations to fix that problem. Corporations or people have an incentive not to pay the costs in court for devaluing others with pollution. If you are talking about anything other than pollution, please explain, because you are just demonstrating your ignorance.
FreeDUMB @ 32:
I would say 'A what'
DA's lost. She should go home.
We all love Naomi Klein, but where are the props for people like David Harvey, Neil Smith, Immanuel Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi and others who have been working this particular seam of knowledge for years without the applause (or book purchasing) of us lefties?
Give them some love too!
Kevin Simms @ 36:
For the love of god, can someone make a substantive argument??
Not just the Book of the Month but it is the Book of the Decade - required reading if you want to rise above the Fog of Politics.
KYHillybilly @ 39:
Really, can someone please tell me one "fact" of the entire book?
You just have to love the lassiez faire guys still getting paid by the hour.
unless you're stuck on a pacific island there isn't a place on the world anymore where *basic* economy applies. but authoritarians believed that the sun orbits around as well for a long time. critical thinking takes getting used to for some people.
first you gotta realize that economics is as scientific as social studies. there's more numbers involved, but that doesn't change that it's all just based on assumptions.
fiver @ 41:
I am still waiting for a substantive argument. Is this honestly the best you guys can do: "You must be getting paid, therefore you are wrong?"
I'm still listening to this beyond incredible 'Book-on-CD' in my car. It's been over a month now, but some days I can only listen to five minutes-worth before my blood is boiling, I'm pounding the steering wheel with all my might, and I have to switch over to the Classical Station while visualizing puppies and kittens playing to keep from taking a tire iron to the first republican I see.
As to Kristol, Pearle, Wolfowitcz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, Rice; a slow and excruciatingly agonizing death is waaaaaaayyyyy to good for them.
Milton Friedman is America's Hitler. He just is.
spiritcatcher @ 42:
Stuck on a pacific Island? What are you talking about?! You're an abject idiot. The world is made up of scarce resources, with alternative uses. The question that economics answers is what can be done with them. You nanny state liberals can say everyone has a right to just about anything, but as history demonstrates, that doesn't create more of the resource. In fact, it leads to shortages and rationing.
Devil's Advocate @ 43:
No.
It's the fact you are getting paid so little that makes you a fool.
Didn't teach subtlety in Freeper 101?
Newbie @ 44:
Name one thing, just one thing Friedman did to justify calling him Hitler. Just one thing that Friedman did. Name one thing that made your blood boil from the book.
fiver @ 46:
I'm not paid for posting, and none of you on this entire blog have been able to make a substantive argument. I'm sorry, Naomi refuses to debate anyone because nothing she says is true.
Devil's Advocate @ 43:
Sounds more like someone could point right to the sun as proof of it's existence and you would say, "Where? I don't see any sun. Prove to me it's there. Offer me up a substantive argument."
The whole book is one fact after another. Not opinion or viewpoint or even ideology. Facts, in context, one after another.
Devil's Advocate @ 31:
Let's use a modified version of the Prisoner's dilemma shall we. The goal is to get the maximum economic benefit for its citizens thus improving quality of life with the guarantees of civil rights. One choice would to base a society's economy on open Liberal democracies, and government sponsored social safety nets, let's call this Keyesian economics -- examples include the Scandinavian countries, Australia, and Western Europe.
Our second choice would be to base society on Authoritarian rule in order to channel the economy toward the economic elite, such as generals, rich large land owners, and foreign corporations, also known as Friedman economics -- examples include Penochet's Chile, and mainland China.
Now being the armchair economist that I am, I hereby declare Friedman economics the loser for weakening the cause of open democracy and ensuring that the rich get richer and the middle class become cowered and increasingly poor.
Devil's, today's economics is more than academic words. Economics effects the blood and guts of people. Economics can not be excluded from how it effects everything from the civil liberties of the people to the sustainability of the planet. Friedman had his time in the sun and in the process Friedman gave us a solar eclipse.
Learn it.
"Just one thing that Friedman did." He had a collaborative relationship with one of the worst 20th century dictators (Pinochet), helped prop up his regime, and he continued to push his free market fundamentalism long after its human costs were apparent. That's one thing.
This book is fantastic! I just finished last night (great timing C&L).
Newbie @ 49:
Well, let's See: Tienanmen Square Massacre had nothing to do with a "workers" revolt. It had to do with the fact that people thought economic freedom would lead to civil freedom. It didn't. In fact, her book lacks footnotes during almost the entire chapter of her talking about Tienanmen. Moreover, her entire books ignores immigration rates where people come from socialist/ statist/ and collectivist nations to Capitalist nations.
To add to the list, Friedman never advocated military dictatorships. He spoke to Pinochet once in his life to explain how to reduce inflation (a scientific law). Klein took he statement of "shock" which had to do with "inflation" out of context. The rest of her book is just filled with CIA interrogation techniques that have nothing to do with Capitalism.
temperance @ 51:
NO he didn't!! Klein even admits this in public interviews!! Friedman's understanding of inflation caused by increases in the money supply is why he won the Nobel Prize.
Friedman actually gave speeches in Chile before Pinochet about the dangers of Military dictatorships!! He spoke to Pinochet once in his life to explain how to get rid of inflation!!!
Devil's Advocate @ 26:
I agree. Like the YouTube videos you've been linking to, which are entirely cut and pasted.
I haven't finished reading Fair Game yet........not a very good read so far(I'm at chapter 7 now.But when I bought this book..2 weeks ago.I also bought two others,The Shock Doctrine and Broken Govt...by John Dean.I have read all of Deans current books.I like Deans way of telling it like ie is.
Devil's Advocate @ 47:
He lobbied for and was allowed by our government to negotiate with dictators [who used death squads in El Salvador, Chile, Argentina and Russia in order to "test" his unmerited theories] resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of 100% innocent civilians. He helped devastate the economies of all of those nations and more by helping their dictator leaders privatize national assets and then sold them to his buddies at a thousandth of their value who then turned around and sold them back to the people with a 1000% increased inflation.
His doctrines as applied to Iraq took one of our most ancient cultures on Earth and simply erased it the same way the Romans did when they burned the Library at Alexandria or the way the Spaniards erased the Maya civilization by burning and smashing every single written word they could find.
But I'm sure you find all that something to chuckle over.
it is....buh bye
sundog @ 50:
I'm glad you're trying to make an argument finally, but you are still just making stuff up. My favorite quote in history is from a Keyesian economist from Sweden. He said the fastest way to destroy a city other than bombings is rent controls. He realized this after rent controls and other price controls were tried in Sweden.
To address your other points, the only places in recorded history where the poor have been able to avoid terrible poverty is where there is capitalism and largely free trade. In fact, the poor in the United States are better off than the poor in Europe.
What you are talking about with China and Pinochet is to suggest that the laws of gravity are different in China, Sweden, Chile and the United States. Milton Friedman taught these countries about inflation. Those scientific laws can be used whether there is a dictatorship or a free country.
Lastly, the idea that the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer is just a fallacy. You're making that assumption that it is a zero-sum game where if the Rich get Rich, someone else must pay. The truth is that the poor are getting richer and the Rich are getting even more rich. You socialists simply declare, however, that if you take money from the rich and give it to the poor that they will be better off. It never happens that way because Real Purchasing power (the amount people can actually buy with their money) decreases when you do that. It also leads to shortages and a lack of competition and resources.
jorogo @ 54:
Yeah, the difference is that I made the videos. He didn't write the wiki article.
Only the scam artists try to apply "market" economics to monopolistic situations. There was some poster earlier who tried to lecture about "scarcity"- which is nice in high school econ. It is, however, foolish and misleading when talking about oil, for instance, where the scarcity is enforced. A market requires a multitude of sellers as well as buyers. When any seller is not a "price taker" and can raise their price just by turning the spigot tighter, there is no market, and Keynesian economics dictate the you will have an underproduction of the good at an inflated price.
I know most C&Ler's didn't need this laid out, especially in a thread about Disaster Capitalism, but sometimes, when a flea bites, I'll scratch.
Good idea mudshark. Have a nice day :) .
Newbie @ 56:
What that would be nice, but he didn't do anything you said. He didn't lobby anyone. He spoke to Pinochet once in his life to explain inflation. In fact, look at the facts, Chile has the best economy in all of South America with a thriving middle-class, and the lowest poverty rate.
What is happening in Iraq, is just Naomi Klein making up stuff. The truth is that the Iraqi economy under Saddam was not thriving. To suggest that is to ignore the facts. Now we could have bombed Iraq without rebuilding it, and then there would be complete misery. Yes, we are using American dollars to rebuild Iraq, and we are allowing foreign investment to allow the World to have a stake in the outcome of Iraq: That is a good thing.
If you want to talk about deaths of innocents: 110,000,000 people were murdered in the 20th century because of Statism, Socialism and collectivism.
Bye guys and gals, I've got to go on a date. ;-)
Devil's, please don't get too drunk tonight, while you're curled up with your supply and demand curves.
Libertarianism is a type of fever. It reminds me of a man cursing the rain.
Devil's Advocate @ 45:
Shortages and rationing can be positive things. Think conservation. It always tickles me that the people doing the most gnashing of teeth about rationing are the wealthy and powerful. Those of us in the middle and poor classes are used to doing with less or without.
The truth is, Mommy's darlings don't want to share. Not cricket and not very moral.
fiver @ 60:
I feel like every liberal should be forced to sit through an economics Class. The fact that we are not able to drill and refine oil in America is precisely why OPEC is able to limit supply and increase price when there is high demand. If we were able to drill and refine, the supply would start to meet demand and the price would decrease. So yes, this is economics, and yes, a monopoly is created, and yes, if there were less regulations, there would be more sellers. You still need to understand economics to see what is happening.
Devil's Advocate @ 35:
Hey, stupid, the problem with assessing damages in court is that:
1) Showing a causal link is very tenuous in a LOT of circumstances.
2) Corporations HIDE their wrongdoing under privacy protections.
3) You can't fix what was broken in court, just assign some dollar "price" to it.
4) You are the same guys claiming people file "frivolous" lawsuits.
An army of lawyers can't and won't fix the "free" market. Most of the lawyers are retained by corporations to fight just these kinds of battles. How long have we been after cigarette companies, something which is demonstably POISON? Your army of lawyers will deliver too little, too late.
Jo @ 63:
Really, name one place in history where shortages and rationing has worked in the long-term. In fact, it almost always lead to famine and the deaths of millions.
The truth is that conservation leads to a decrease of supply overall because less producers have an incentive to bring the products to the poor and middleclass.
Devil's Advocate @ 64:
Oil profits should be nationalized.
Devil's Advocate @ 64:
You're dealing with a liberal who understand economics right here, pal. Drilling for Oil might be a good idea if we didn't give a fuck about climate change. Until we find renewable energy sources other than fossil fuel we will be in freefall waiting for the supply to run out. Global climate change has only hastened that end. The Big Oil companies could give a fuck about alternative energy while still milking fossil fuels for all they're "worth". It is RETARDED to expect them to lift a finger until the shit hits the fan.
FreeDUMB @ 65:
Really. Everyday consumers make decisions on their own to take risk (cigarettes come to mind). Cigarettes are horrible for you, but individuals have a right to make decisions for themselves what is too dangerous. You could reduce your risk of death by simply never crossing the street.
In terms of pollution, if someone's home for instance is worth $100,000 and a refinery moves into the neighborhood and the home value drops to $80,000 because of the pollution, the refinery business can pay the homeowner $20,000 or figure out how to reduce pollution by $20,000. You don't need a regulation for that. Companies cannot hide any of these facts.
In terms of frivolous lawsuits. We are talking about suing Burger King for making you fat, and other absurd lawsuits.
Devil's Advocate @ 40:
Here's a fact, unfettered capitalism increases poverty.
http://www.flatustheelder.com
Excellent review of a must-read book
Devil's Advocate @ 66:
In England it worked during the war. In fact, it lead to the black market where many people were able to sell and buy goods not available through corporate controlled means.
Jo @ 67:
Okay, let's say we did that. Let's say we nationalized oil profits.
1) The cost of extracting oil would increase;
2) The price of extracting the oil would also increase UNLESS you rationed the oil and created shortages (remember the late 70 with lines around the block).
The reason for this is because Profits are actually the price we all pay for efficiency and the "decrease in actual Price" from what it would be collectivized.
The Soviet Union used completely nationalized products. What happened what that it actually cost more to produce that same goods in the Soviet Union as in America. Then the Soviet Union set price controls and shortages erupted. Even more interesting was the fact that the Soviet Union had surpluses of other goods that people did not want as much of at the same time. The reason was because centralized control of goods and services, while dictating price can never predict the future.
Jo @ 72:
It led to shortages and increases in cost.
audio book torrent file
Devil's Advocate @ 66:
This is probably the most retarded statement I have ever seen. You somehow have the basic misunderstanding that resources are UNLIMITED. For Oil, for example, the demand raises the price which allows more expensive means of extracting Oil out of the ground. There is a relationship between total demand and the cost. It does not just float in space and magically nullify.
What that would be nice, but he didn't do anything you said. He didn't lobby anyone. He spoke to Pinochet once in his life to explain inflation. In fact, look at the facts, Chile has the best economy in all of South America with a thriving middle-class, and the lowest poverty rate.
What is happening in Iraq, is just Naomi Klein making up stuff. The truth is that the Iraqi economy under Saddam was not thriving. To suggest that is to ignore the facts. Now we could have bombed Iraq without rebuilding it, and then there would be complete misery. Yes, we are using American dollars to rebuild Iraq, and we are allowing foreign investment to allow the World to have a stake in the outcome of Iraq: That is a good thing.
If you want to talk about deaths of innocents: 110,000,000 people were murdered in the 20th century because of Statism, Socialism and collectivism.
1. It doesn't matter how many times he met Pinochet. That facts is thousands were disappeared in order to implement Friedman's strategy and test his bogus theories.
2. Chile's economy is finally working again, which would not have been possible without the death of Friedman and the overthrow of Pinochet. Their policies towards the people of Chile were always one and the same: Take money from the poor and defenseless and erase them if they dared raise their voice.
3. In in no way matters what Iraq was like before. The only thing that matters is what the "Chicago Boys" & the Republicans did; and what they did was cause the death of over 4,000+ Americans, the maiming of nearly a quarter million Americans, instigate the death of over half a million innocent Iraqis and embezzle our citizens and theirs to the tune of over half a trillion dollars and counting while the poor in both our countries go unfed, unclothed, unsheltered, and left to die of wholly treatable illnesses.
Why? $$$
Cliff @ 70:
That quite possibly was the most objectively baseless video I have ever seen. Not a single Capitalist Country in the history of the world has experienced famine. The world poverty rates have decreased in every Country that has had Capitalism. China experienced one of the greatest famines in the history of the world until Deng said, "There is more than one way to skin a cat, " and implemented capitalism.
Newbie @ 77:
What that would be nice, but he didn't do anything you said. He didn't lobby anyone. He spoke to Pinochet once in his life to explain inflation. In fact, look at the facts, Chile has the best economy in all of South America with a thriving middle-class, and the lowest poverty rate.
What is happening in Iraq, is just Naomi Klein making up stuff. The truth is that the Iraqi economy under Saddam was not thriving. To suggest that is to ignore the facts. Now we could have bombed Iraq without rebuilding it, and then there would be complete misery. Yes, we are using American dollars to rebuild Iraq, and we are allowing foreign investment to allow the World to have a stake in the outcome of Iraq: That is a good thing.
If you want to talk about deaths of innocents: 110,000,000 people were murdered in the 20th century because of Statism, Socialism and collectivism.
1. It doesn't matter how many times he met Pinochet. That facts is thousands were disappeared in order to implement Friedman's strategy and test his bogus theories.
2. Chile's economy is finally working again, which would not have been possible without the death of Friedman and the overthrow of Pinochet. Their policies towards the people of Chile were always one and the same: Take money from the poor and defenseless and erase them if they dared raise their voice.
3. In in no way matters what Iraq was like before. The only thing that matters is what the "Chicago Boys" & the Republicans did; and what they did was cause the death of over 4,000+ Americans, the maiming of nearly a quarter million Americans, instigate the death of over half a million innocent Iraqis and embezzle our citizens and theirs to the tune of over half a trillion dollars and counting while the poor in both our countries go unfed, unclothed, unsheltered, and left to die of wholly treatable illnesses.
Why? $$$
Naomi's entire book is the worst form of guilt by association I have ever heard. If you had the knowledge to reduce inflation, and you spoke to a dictator and told him how to reduce inflation, according to you, that would make you guilty of Murder? And the fact that you call it bogus by fiat demonstrate that you are not looking at the facts of what happened in Chile including its decrease in inflation and the fact that it was the first to come out of the 1982 debt crisis of all South American Countries.
OVERTHROW OF PINOCHET!!!! YOU NEED TO READ HISTORY!!! HE TURNED HIS GOVERNMENT OVER TO A DEMOCRACY WHEN HE LEFT OFFICE, AND THEY CONTINUED TO VOTE FOR FREE MARKET POLICIES!!!! HE WAS NEVER OVERTHROWN!!!!
I didn't support the Iraq War, and it had nothing to do with Capitalism.
Devil's Advocate @ 69:
People make decisions based on what information they have, and the guilt of corporations is that they keep damaging information to themselves. Cigarette companies engaged on a black psyops campaign to keep people from knowing the truth about Cigarettes. ExxonMobile is doing the same with it's global warming deniers.
In terms of damage, how much is TEN YEARS off my life expectancy worth? No court of law will ever give me my life back.
Devil's Advocate @ 73:
Yes, the price would increase. This would spur the technology in other forms of energy. Of course, the oil companies would not stand for that. Look what they did to the electric car in California. They are afraid of competition. They took the cars and had them crushed in a Nevada desert.
More people were better off under Communism in the Soviet Union than they are now that the so-called "free" market has stepped in and raped it.
Corporations are all too eager to gamble with YOUR life.
Jo @ 81:
What world are you living on? Technology doesn't just increase by waiting. Technology increases when there are profit incentives fore people to pursue their own separate interests and provide people goods or services. You liberals have fantastical ideas on how things are created.
And don't give me nonsense about the electric car - You are one of those idiots who watched that nonsensical movie about the electric car and believed it. If the electric car can make you a profit YOU GO BUILD IT.
The fact that you think people were better off under Communism in the Soviet Union is just disgusting. Millions died in the Soviet Union because of famine. The rest of the people were murdered because socialism simply did not work.
FreeDUMB @ 82:
You make the assumption that this is a one-way game. Consumers make decisions on their own to risk their lives all the time. They eat too much. They drink too much. They drive. They fly. They cross the street. You could make a 100% safe car, but nobody would buy it because it would cost too much.
You make the false assumption that Corporations set prices; in truth, prices are set by supply and demand.
FreeDUMB @ 80:
Stop the nonsense. Everyone knows cigarettes are bad for you. If Consumers didn't want cigaretts, corporations would not produce them.
Did you care to notice that there are not more scientists would disagree with the IPCc than agree with it at the present moment. In fact, I read the IPCC, there is simply a correlative study of CO2 and temperature. Nobody cares to recognize that the CO2 lags behind temperature by 200 years, demonstrating that CO2 could not possibly drive temperature.
Devil's Advocate @ 83:
Calling me an idiot makes me realize I win. Socialism is much better for a larger percentage of the people than capitalism. It's just that the CEOs and fat cats get less. Everyone gets an equal piece of the pie.
Devil's Advocate @ 85:
"now more scientists"
Devil's Advocate @ 84:
Prices are set by having a monopoly on a product, such as medicine. People who produce medicine aren't interested in cures. They are interested in profit. Nothing else.
Ms Klein missed the big one tho. 911 was the first "shock" that enabled everything.
Devil's Advocate @ 85:
We are not only talking about cigarettes. We are talking about anything that could cause you harm. Increased use of antibiotics in livestock causes a rise in resistant bacteria. Corporations are likely to take risks, especially if their lives depend on it. All sorts of criminal behavior arises out of desperation.
With regards to CO2 we are talking about a closed system where there is positive feedback between temperature and CO2. It is not a strict one way relationship as the deniers would have you believe.
Jo @ 86:
I'm calling you an idiot because you have no understanding of basic economics. People don't get more of anything under socialism. Everyone gets less because the pie is smaller.
For example, you can say that everyone has a right to housing. But, that doesn't increase the number of homes. All it means is that everyone must share the number of homes that people have. In a free market, increases in prices cause more people to live together ("roommates" come to mind) to split the costs). When that happens, people build more homes to meet the demand. In actuality, free market capitalism causes people to share.
Under socialism, however, there is no longer an incentive to produce any more houses to meet the demand because nobody is allowed to make a profit. This leads to shortages of homes (Cuba has home shortages, and nobody is better off than they are in capitalistic society).
Devil’s Advocate, you are a very funny man (I presume?).
Very very very very very funny.
Devil's Advocate @ 79:
*********************
1. Okay, not "overthrown" militarily. However, pressure was coming from everywhere and he knew the only way to keep his loot was to give up his throne.
2. Iraq had nothing to do with capitalism? Ninja, please. Follow the money. Read your history.
Either way, I'm done trying to prove there's a sun to a guy who's squinting his eyes shut as hard as he possibly can. I get it: Friedman is a genius as innocent as a baby lamb. PNAC is the new Nicene Council. The Chicago Boys are heroes, one and all and if Jesus were alive, he'd anoint them as apostles.
FreeDUMB @ 90:
What do you mean by deniers? If you eliminated all the CO2 produced by humans and kept it at a steady rate for 50 years, it would not decrease the temperature.
An yes, I am also talking about anything that causes harm. I drink diet coke a lot. It may one day cause me cancer. I am taking that risk. Coke may know it is dangerous to an extent; but the risk is taken by both parties. Coke could spend billions of dollars on testing, and all that would happen would I would have to pay more for my diet coke.
Newbie @ 93:
There wasn't any pressure on him either. He we getting old and decided to step down. Iraq had to do with a horrible mistake. But, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to fix it by getting foreign investment to help rebuild the Country so everyone has a vested interest in the Outcome.
americangoy @ 92:
I guess?
Devil's Advocate @ 91:
People are allowed a fair profit, not a killing. Morality dictates that yes, everyone has an inherrent right to a decent home, food, education and a job that supplies the wages to earn these things. Unfettered capitalism ( which we have ) ignores people's needs and sucks the wealth of the many into the hands of a few. It leads to poverty, not just of the pocketbook but also of the spirit.
I think she is really on to something with this; I'll be buying it.
Devil, please come back when you have something substantial to offer. Though I watched several of the YouTube videos you linked to, I learned everything I needed to know about you and your politics when the very first video insisted that Abu Ghraib was neither torture nor intentional policy. Each video continues in this fashion, interrupting short clips of Klein to insert right wing talking points with no supporting evidence. Anytime someone stoops to quoting Ann Coulter to support their case, you know it's time to flush.
And Thomas Sowell? The same prince of douchebaggery who was obsessed with the Clinton's personal lives all through the 90's and who insisted Clinton be impeached but who has staunchly defended the GOP criminal cabal right down the line, sex scandals included? The Sowell who insisted that we could have won Vietnam, historical accuracy be damned? Sowell, the reality free supply side booster? Do I need to continue?
We'll have to agree to disagree on the whole gently stepping down because he was too tired do the good work of the people bit. He was an evil man through and through and there's not a word you can conjure that will alter that fact one iota.
But 'getting foreign investment to help rebuild the Country so everyone has a vested interest in the Outcome' =
* over nine billion in fraud, there's still no basic working infrastructure
* less than 10% of contracts have been fulfilled though 90% of the money has already been "spent"
* sub-sub-sub-sub contractors are the ones being held accountable while the original contractor retains 99% of the allocated funds
* there is no accountability for western companies [none] and they are taking FULL advantage of this fact
* these foreign "investors" are simply looting the Iraqi treasury and the U.S. national treasury and you damn well know it.
* And on and on and on.
I have to say, disagree with you and your entire world view with every cell of my body, yet never the less wish you well. Me? I'm off...
Jo @ 97:
First, who decides what is a fair profit.
Second, neither I nor Milton Friedman advocated killing.
Lastly, People cannot have a right to a home, food, education, or a job because there is no right to slavery. Someone has to build a home if someone else has a right to it. Someone else has to produce the food if someone else has a right to it. Education requires hard work and initiative, you can't have a right to something that requires personal effort. And a job -- provided by whom?
Look, if there are 10 pieces of corn for an 100 person society, having a right to food doesn't make more food. It just means that everyone has to ration the 10 pieces of corn, which is not enough for the 100 people. Moreover, if everyone has a right to it, then nobody is going to put forward the effort to produce more corn because that means that everyone can just take it. The result is starvation and famine.
If you allow the free market to work, however, people will compete to provide as much food and shelter as possible for everyone in society.
bill l. @ 99:
1) Abu Ghraib was absolutely not an intentionally policy to bring Capitalism to Iraq, and nobody who says such things should be taken serioulsy;
2) I agonized about quoting Coulter because even I disagree with her, but the statement I took was correct;
3) You attack Sowell for his stance on Clinton lying under oath, but make no justification why understanding basic economics is not desperately needed by people on the Left.
Ack! Sorry, I can't let this one go. A better analogy is that there are a hundred people and a thousand pieces of corn. Under Friedman economics, one man ALWAYS ends up with 900 pieces of corn, fifty go to his enforcers and the the remaining ones are sold off to the highest bidder at a hundred times their real value.
Sorry, but it's true.
Good night.
Devil's Advocate @ 15:
Interesting. I see the exposure of Milton Friedman as a fraud and his theories debunked. Funny how two people can look at the same picture and see something completely different.
Devil's Advocate @ 101:
Your outlook on humanity is as bleak as your philosophy. Ayn Rand would be pleased.
Newbie @ 100:
You start by attacking Friedman and then go into United State's incompetence in Iraq. That was a nice slight of hand, but you cannot substantiate anything you have said about Friedman, unless you just want to declare you socialistic belief a religion.
I'll accept every of your bullet points as true.
While not invading Iraq would arguable be the best option for American, you are suggesting that because there have been failures at rebuilding it, we simply should not rebuild it or encourage foreign investment?
Devil's Advocate @ 85:
Did you care to notice that there are not more scientists would disagree with the IPCc than agree with it at the present moment. In fact, I read the IPCC, there is simply a correlative study of CO2 and temperature. Nobody cares to recognize that the CO2 lags behind temperature by 200 years, demonstrating that CO2 could not possibly drive temperature.
Absolute rubbish. Most climate-scientists agree with the IPCC AR4.
You have not read the IPCC AR4. If you did you didnt understand a word. Its NOT "simply a correlative study". The science behind the fact that increasing CO2 increases temperature is based on very well known physics. We've known for at least a 100 years that increasing CO2 in Earths atmosphere will increase the temperature. And the heat-trapping properties of CO2 has been known for close to a 150 years. The lag of which you speak does not disprove anything.
This is what happens when we feed trolls - they successfully derail the discussion. Devils Advocate is obviously not here for a real discussion. He (or she) is here to engage in name calling and bullying. And undoubtedly is terrified of Naomi Klein and her very compelling ideas. I have to say it is refreshing to see a troll curled up in the corner in a puddle of cowardice, flailing every which way, but overall it is best that they be ignored.
Fact is, Klein's book is very powerful precisely because it makes people like Devil's Advocate feel threatened in a very credible way. That's why he (she) went after the footnotes and claimed them to be taking stuff out of context. That's a lie. Klein is right on target and the proof in the pudding is the trollish drewel presented here.
Now. On to the job of composting Milton Friedman's catastrophic and repugnant ideas. His extremist free market fundamentalism is not capitalism - it is feudal oligarchy, and demonstrably unamerican and contrary to the basic values underlying Western Civilization. Klein persuasively proves this. The most prosperous time in our history was the mixed economy of the 40s through the 60s. The best way forward is to recover that - a combination of free and regulated markets. Regulated! So in other words, e.g., no more damaging speculative bubbles that cause stagflation and kill the purchasing power of the middle class! And yes, no more market distortion by corporations externalizing their filth to the community, meaning the taxpayers. What a concept! No wonder desperate free marketeers have no choice but to perpetuate the lies that equate regulation with socialism and taxation with larceny. They have lost the argument.
Sorry DA, we're going to re-regulate the economy, one way or the other. Get over it, and if you dont like living in America there are plenty of feudal oligarchies out there ripe for the pickin', if you get my drift.
Devil's Advocate @ 105:
How about rebuilding New Orleans for a start.
Devil's Advocate @ 94:
Climate change deniers claim that Man has no control over the climate, that it is ALL driven by Solar activity. The "free" market only works in an open system where man's effect on his environment is not significant. That is why all laissez faire capitalist apostles are climate change deniers. The ideology PRECEDES the evidence. It is no different than the christian church denying the earth orbits the sun. Ackowledging the effect man has on his environment destroys your believe system.
Jo @ 108:
What about New Orleans. Naomi Klein in her book for whatever reason is angered that Milton Friedman before he died advocated helping the poor in New Orleans. For decades, the educational system, along with overtaxation and overregulation, created a localized poverty crisis in New Orleans. Milton Friedman before he died advocated doing something about the school system so that parents would be given more control over educating their kids. He wanted poor parents to be able to send their children to whatever school they wanted to to be able to take their children out of poverty.
Klein, trashed Friedman and asserted that he took advantage of them because she cares more about the teachers unions that her own integrity or the children of New Orleans.
Jo @ 81:
You would not be blogging in the Soviet Union I can tell you that. Mainly because they did not have the advance technology that we have. WHY you ask, because there was no incentive, computers, printers etc. You really need to think about what your saying...
FreeDUMB @ 110:
Well, the main difference is that I have looked at the data. In fact, there are now more scientists that disagree with the IPCC than agree with it. The truth is that Socialists advocate Global Warming because it is the only way they can attempt to intellectually attack Capitalism.
But, when it Snowed in Iraq this week, it is a good thing that Al Gore changed 'Global Warming' to 'Climate Change' because that would be embarrassing.
chris @ 112:
Holy CoW!!
I found the first sane person on this entire blog!!!
A fantastic book, I highly reccomend it.
Devils Advocates argument is based on false choice. It's not either/or with capitalism, it's regulated market or freebooting piracy as we have now. Free Trade is to economy as bushco is to the environment. Friedmanism leads to monopoly, so it is anti competition and anti consumer.
The first thing you must admit if you are a capitalist is that the first step in privatization is stealing from everyone else.
If any of you would like to have an HONEST interpretation of empires, capitalism, and the current debacle in Iraq, please watch this video.
It is a short summary of why empires fail. It connects nicely with Naomi Klein's book because her book, while well-researched, totally distorts and misrepresents what free markets are all about. If you want to know some HONEST answers, just watch:
http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=22624
He summarizes why empires need expansion in numbers in order to survive, and why empires and free markets are ANTITHETICAL, not two sides of the same coin. Klein's book, as expected, has been completely swept up and accepted those who hate markets and want more oversight then we already have. This video shows that empires are the entities that hate free markets, not the people.
Devil's Advocate @ 114:
Devil's Advocate @ 113:
Oh YOU have looked at the data? What data is that? And please by all means provide a source for your statement that "more scientistis disagree with the IPCC than agree with it."
Shredder @ 108:
You call me a troll and then assert that I engaged in name calling. During my discussions, I have explained economics, addressed clear examples, and discussed history. You on the Left call anyone a troll who disagrees with you.
Moreover, I can talk about two specific foodnotes come to mind. When she says that "only a crisis actual or perceived produces real change." She left out the fact that one of the changes was an abolition of the military draft. Naomi Klein's parents fled the United States because of the Draft, which is why she left it out and took the quote out of context to claim he advocated economic crisis in Chile.
The other quote out of context what the letter that Friedman wrote to Pinochet where he spoke about inflation. That was the only time he used the term shock was saying that inflation was so high it would create a shock to get the country out of it. Inflation is a scientific law. Klein stretched it attack Friedman after he died and she should be ashamed.
Your statement about a feudal oligarchy is baseless considering that Chile now has a thriving middle-class and the lowest poverty rate in South America.
There I addressed specifics and it was all substantive. You need to get over it. Or, of course, YOU can namecall by claiming I am a troll.
Most major markets in the US are no longer competitive. Defense, communication, media, commodities, banking are all virtually monopolies or at best cabals with price fixing. These mega corps compete only for the politicians they control and legilature they can write
Drew @ 118:
This is a meme popular with the Libertarians. There is some truth to it, however, incomplete observations lead to incorrect conclusions. Getting rid of the government will get rid of State centric empire, but multinational corporate empire will not be long in following. Libertarians are almost religious in their belief in the "free" market and the "EVIL"s of government. It is too bad for them they need a police state to enforce property rights.
I've been recommending this book to all my friends and family for weeks. This book puts the notion that Bush is an incompetent idiot to rest once and for all.
Bush defines freedom differently from the rest of us. He defines a good economy different from the rest of us. He defines patriotism and democracy different from the rest of us. Once you realize how he thinks and what he believes, you realize he has been one of the most successful presidents -- for his base anyway -- in history. He won't be successful for the USA, but for the rich, that's a very different story.
He and his ilk have been trying to repeal the 20th century and go back to the 19th, when the masses had nearly zero rights, the rich paid nearly zero in taxes, and corporations could do pretty much what they wanted. And Bush is succeeding, and his ilk may yet succeed. The only hope is a progressive president with a veto and filibuster proof congress of similar progressives. And the likelihood of that is near nil.
Read this book!!!!
Devil's Advocate@121
Chile...has a thriving middle class...lowest poverty rate in South America. Thats one of those Bill O'Reilly facts isn't it DA? You know the ones mouth breathers make up when their point is indefensible.
galmud @ 120:
What data is that. How about the IPCC. Look at the damn chart. CO2 lags behind temperature by 200 years.
Then if you want to get to the scientists.
http://www.junkscience.com/ByTheJunkman/20071108.html
Don’t forget that many scientists don’t participate in the IPCC because they perceive it as biased. The Pasteur Institute’s Dr. Paul Reiter, for example, resigned from the IPCC because he and a colleague found themselves “at loggerheads with persons who insisted on making authoritative pronouncements, although they had little or no knowledge of our specialty.” There’s also the Petition Project, where 19,000 scientists have endorsed a statement questioning the scientific basis of climate alarmism.
The whole idea of a consensus in science is dubious. As economist John Kay recently wrote in an op-ed entitled “Science is the pursuit of truth, not consensus” (Financial Times, Oct. 9), “Statements about the world derive their value from the facts and arguments that support them, not from the status and qualifications of the people who assert them.”
Al Gore even attacked IPCC-er John Christy for a Nov. 1 Wall Street Journal op-ed in which Christy questioned the global warming orthodoxy. Appearing on NBC’s Today, Gore described Christy as an “outlier” who no longer belonged to the IPCC and who is “way outside the scientific consensus.” Gore also said that it was wrong for the media to pay any attention to opinions outside the consensus.
Christy said that, as far as he knows, he remains part of the IPCC process. As to being an outlier, it just so happens that Christy’s survey responses were within the 50% who didn’t think that a 1-degree Celsius rise in global temperature was uniformly undesirable and the 86% who didn’t think there was any such thing as an ideal climate.
Then add the the interesting fact that even Al Gore doesn't agree with the IPCC because he overrestimates the severity.
FreeDUMB @ 119:
Which I'm guessing was for military purposes, ofcourse under you we would not be spending the money for it. Anyway DA, its hard to read these post I know, its like these people have never taken an basic micro/macro economics course. Shredder wants to regulate the economy but I'm betting he will be the first one to complain at the inefficiently of it! No matter though because nobody is going to regulate the economy, not Hillary or Obama, these guys can't figure out that the politicians are just saying whatever they have to to get into office. Americans reject this anyway... HELLO JOHN EDWARDS!!!
moondancer @ 125:
It is an objective fact. Just like the fact that Hugo Chavez and the brilliance of socialism are causing Caracas to run out of Milk, Eggs, cooking oil, and sugar.
chris @ 127:
Actually, I agree with John Edwards that there are two Americas: 1) Those who understand basic economics; 2) those who don't.
Devil's must have read Atlas Shrugged in college, and never grew past it.
Bloomberg is reported that Wall Street bonuses for those "at the top" reached a total of $39 BILLION in 2007, while those CEO's were running their companies into the ground and investors all around the world got screwed. European investors, including Barclay's of England (a very traditional, conservative group) claims it can prove willful fraud in the "poisonous" (their word) securities investments they were sold that were rated AAA by Moody's, but included 40% of the suprime mortgages---NOT mentioned in the investments prospectus.
Word is, America's national debt may have to be downgraded too, given the Wall Street greed that is causing worldwide markets to crash.
Milton Friedman's theory idealistically assumes that all operators are doing so ethically and honestly. A very NAIVE idea.
It also assumes that managers are controlling spending consecutive with reducing taxes.
I think we all know how well that went under the Bush administration.
In the long run, Friedman's idea is THEORY only, and does not consider the GREED of those succeeding through its imposition.
Doesn't work in the real world.
Only in the academic world of college professors talking maybe's.
Klein is much more realistic than Friedman ever was.
Mark @ 124:
Democrats continued to claim that President Bush pushed tax cuts that only benefited the rich and repeated the mantra that "the rich got richer while the poor got poorer." THIS IS A FLAT OUT LIE.
Did the tax cuts benefit the rich? Yes. Of course they did. They should have. The rich are the one's who pay taxes. According to the IRS the top 50% of all tax payers payed nearly 97% of all taxes. What this means is that the bottom 50% barely paid any!!! In fact, from 1986 till now, the top 1%'s share of the tax burden has risen from 25% to 37%. The top 1% of wage earners pay 37% of the taxes !!!!!!! During this same time period, the burden shared by the bottom 50% shrunk in half from 6.5% to 3.3%. Is it this 3.3% that so offends Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?
The reality is that over the last 2 decades, the rich have paid more and the poor have paid less. To make this clearer, note that in 2004 the government collected $832 in personal income taxes. The top 50% paid $804 billion.
Of course Democrats will claim that the rich pay more because they make so much more. There is some truth in this statement. Nevertheless the "progressive" structure of of the tax code ensures that they pay more then they should. The fact that the rich pay so much more proportionally is irrelevant given the fact that the rich pay 97%, while the "poor" pay 3%. It is simple common sense that the rich should benefit from tax cuts. How can the poor pay less? They don't pay any!!!!!!
According to the IRS, a family of 4 was considered poor if they earned less then $19,350. This family can claim the standard deduction of $10,000, as well as an additional $3200 for each of the four family members. What this means is that the family can claim $22,800 in income deductions. THEY PAY NO FEDERAL TAX!!!!!!!!!! It should be patently obvious at this point that the poor are not getting poorer.
Moreover, according to the US Census Bureau, the lowest 1/5 of US wage earners earned 4% of the nations income in 1967. As of 1998, they earned 3.6% of the nations income. At the same time, the top 1/5 saw their share of wages rise to 21.4% from 17.5%.
Now Democrats will claim this clearly shows that the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. This is simply not true again. It is completely possible that everyone got richer. Think about it this way: Say the poor earned $100 and the rich earned $1000 and few years later the poor earned $200 and the rich earned $2000. Thus, while the poor's share of the wealth has declined, its income has doubled. Because their share of the pie is smaller does not mean that they are worse off or that they are poorer.
In the face of facts the left will respond that the rich have always been rich. This is another lie. The fact is, fortunes rise and fall in America. From the Poorhouse to the Penthouse in a generation. A quick look at Forbes 400 list should tell us something. Very few of the people on the list did not earn their wealth. Most of them had a standing start or inherited a small business (the same small Democrats seek to destroy by reinstating an oppressive estate tax) and made it a giant.
A look at the Forbes lists from other nations would paint a very different picture of aristocracy and inherited wealth. The oppressive regulatory and tax policies of these nations, the same one's Democrats keep trying to enact here, ensure their richest stay the richest and that their poor stay poor.
Devil's Advocate @ 128:
Chile is a two class society. If you want to call the haves middle class fine but there is the poor and the Pinochet elite, nothing else. Spin all you want but that is the fact.
Devil's Advocate @ 131:
OKAY now I know you are a troll. If you are going to defend the chimps tax cuts, your just a run of the mill wingnut. No sense talking to someone that defends Bill Gates paying seventeen percent wage tax when I pay thirty. Warren Buffet, Jimmy Cayne both said Bush tax structure was obscene.
Friedman is a ZIONIST HITLER.
Mary @ 130:
What is Greed?
You think any country in the world is not run on Greed?
The world runs by individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of the world did not come from governments. Einstein and Ford didn't revolutionize anything because the government told them to do it. Who are the angels that are going to make us all virtuous? You? Hillary? Barack? Edwards?
Lastly, Friedman certainly doesn't assume that people operate ethically and honestly. In fact, he says just the opposite.
Let me give you an example. If you want to buy a really expensive car (e.g. Lexus and Mercedes), you don't need to know anything about cars at all. But, how do you know that each company is not trying to screw with you? You can trust that if they were trying to screw with you, the other competitor would point that out to you. That keeps them honest.
The fact is that with a multi-trillion dollar United States economy, the fact that there are so few instances of businesses screwing their customers is remarkable, because someone will find out about it in the long-run. The Market keeps them in check.
This has nothing to do with the fact that Bush is incompetent, which I agree. But, that is also another argument for limited government.
the libertine @ 134:
Glad we could get your reasonable debate added to the discussion.
BILL GATES NEED TO BE TAXED TO DEATH.
moondancer @ 133:
I address facts, and you come back by calling me a troll? You tell me what a fair tax should be.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH,ASSHOLE.
the libertine @ 137:
Really, for what?
For producing a product that we all want? For revolutionizing how information is brought to everyone, rich and poor? What is it that Bill Gates did that make him so evil?
FORBES SHOULD BE BLOWN UP.
moondancer @ 132:
Chile has the lowest percentage of people below the poverty rate in South America.
What about STEVE JOBS,ASSHOLE.
Bill Gates stoled every idea from Steve Jobs.
the libertine @ 143:
What about it?
Stole what from steve jobs?
Because of Bill Gates, you and I are having this conversation. He produces a product that people want. You're not answering my question on why he needs to be taxed to death.
Bill Gates is right-wing nut job,who gives blow jobs to Bono.
Nice try, no cigar.
The Friedman model says those companies screwing their investors will go out of business in a free market model?
Not really. In America, they get bailed out with taxpayer dollars.
You see, we don't really HAVE a true free market economy.
Adam Smith never mentioned corporate subsidies or corporate bailouts. His free market theory said those companies not well-managed go out of business.
Perhaps our little quibble is how the so-called "free market" Republican Party in office has bastardized the "free market" theory, spinning gobbledegook for its simple-minded AM radio supporters, who don't understand economics.
And for Milton Friedman's system to work, spending must be controlled, which the Republican Congress did not observe.
So...for all intents and purposes, dear, your Atlas Shrugged, Milton Friedman theories just flat didn't work, except amongst idealistic academic dreamers.
All they did , in modern day America, was to give the top managers on Wall Street an opportunity to take $39 billion in bonuses, while being held even less accountable than college kids on affirmative action scholarships. Your "corporate giants" took the money and ran, under a system that had been SOLD as capitalism.
Human nature doesn't change. Free market without oversight is just greed, pure and simple.
But I wish you luck on your Eco exams.
Once you get out in the real world and deal with more than just college theoretical dreams, you'll deal with reality.
Study hard, Devil's.
the libertine @ 147:
How is he right-wing. Explain to me what he has done to make him right-wing. Again, why should we tax him to death?
EVERTHING,YOU BILL GATES LOVING CAPITALIST PIG.
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