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Klein's thesis

blames Milton Friedman for encouraging

Introduction

reform by stealth. To do so, she engages in one

is that economic

of the most malevolent distortions of a thinker

liberalization

that has been done in a major work in recent

Since its publication last fall, Canadian

is unpopular

author Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine:

years. Klein tries to portray the mild-mannered

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism has already

and freedom-loving Dr. Friedman as a cold-

and, therefore,

hearted, war-mongering Mr. Hyde.

become a bible for young anti-capitalist

can only win by

activists. Established reviewers have praised it

deceiving or

as well. As philosopher John Gray explains in

Dr. Friedman and Mr. Hyde

The Guardian: "There are very few books that

coercing voters.

really help us understand the present. The

Shock Doctrine is one of those books."1 In the

According to Klein, Milton Friedman wel-

New York Times, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz

comed crisis as a way of making people dis-

writes that it is "a rich description of the polit-

oriented and confused. With the public thus

ical machinations required to force unsavory

preoccupied, the economy could be drastical-

economic policies on resisting countries."2

ly liberalized without any concern for the

According to Amazon.com's editors, it is one

human costs. Klein's Exhibit A against Fried-

of the 10 best nonfiction books of 2007.

man is a quote from "one of his most influ-

Klein's thesis is that economic liberalization

ential essays":

is unpopular and, therefore, can only win by

deceiving or coercing voters. In particular, free-

Only a crisis--actual or perceived--pro-

market ideas rely on crises. In a time of a nat-

duces real change. When that crisis

occurs, the actions that are taken depend

ural disaster, war, or military coup, people are

disoriented and confused and fight for their

on the ideas that are lying around. That,

own immediate survival or wellbeing, setting

I believe, is our basic function: to develop

the stage for corporations, politicians, and

alternatives to existing policies, to keep

them alive and available until the politi-

economists to push through trade liberaliza-

tion, privatization, and lower public spending

cally impossible becomes politically

inevitable.3

without facing any opposition. According to

Klein, "neoliberal" economists welcomed

This is "the shock doctrine," according to

Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Indonesian tsuna-

Klein, the very source of inspiration for all

mi, the Iraq War, and the South American mil-

those reformers who apparently welcome

itary coups of the 1970s as opportunities to

conflicts, disasters, and war. In the not very

erase past policies and introduce radical free-

subtle short film that accompanies the book,

market models. If wars and disasters aren't

Klein shows this quote over images of pris-

enough to shock the citizens, neoliberals are

oners being tortured and given electrical

purportedly happy to see the opponents of

shocks, to give the impression that this is the

reform being attacked and tortured into sub-

kind of crisis Friedman would welcome.4

mission. The chief villain in Klein's story is

But the quote is not from one of Fried-

Milton Friedman, the Chicago economist who

did more than anyone in the 20th century to

man's most influential essays. It's from the

popularize free-market economics.

very brief introduction to the 1982 edition of

Capitalism and Freedom (which was originally

To make her case, Klein exaggerates the free-

published in 1962).5 And it's not about wel-

market reforms that take place in times of crisis,

often by ignoring central events and rewriting

coming disasters, it's about pointing out the

chronologies. She uses loose metaphors and

relatively uncontroversial fact that people

wild distortions to claim that free markets are a

change their ways when it seems like the old

form of violence. She confuses libertarianism

ways fail--something Klein does not contra-

with corporatism and neoconservatism and

dict. In fact, from the example that Friedman

2