The Shock Doctrine

We're all familiar with economic shock therapy, the idea that sometimes a massive destabilisation of the economy is the first step towards recovery. What Naomi Klein argues in her book, 'The Shock Doctrine', is that chaos is not just an occasionally necessary precursor of reform, but it rather exploited or at worst engineered by reform's proponents, because the consequences of the changes proposed would not be accepted by the people if offered to them a la carte in a less pressured environment. Michael Winterbottom's film develops Klein's arguments, and presents a fairly conventional alternative history of the world. But there are still some interesting details: I didn't know that it was Eisenhower, of all people, who first warned about the military-industrial complex; and it's welcome to see a different interpretation of what happened in Chile in the 1970s to the outrageous story told by Niall Fergusson in his recent BBC series, 'A History of Money'. Yet I still felt slightly disappointed by this film, because while it exposes the lies of the new right to be friends of freedom and democracy (by showing how they need to suppress freedom to get their ideas through), it doesn't address the other part of the argument, namely, whether their economic ideas are basically sound. Perhaps it does indeed take unpopular policies to rescue broken economies; one can dispute that this belief justifies coercion, but should a rational people accept shock as a price worth paying? There are lots of good arguments that say no, but the film doesn't make them; the case that equality is an aid to the efficiency of a country, as well as a moral good in itself, is here taken for granted, although this is arguably the key point of difference between left and right. I fear that this film will not convert anyone while the right's most insidious claim, that a competitive jungle is, however distasteful, the best of all possible worlds, goes unchallenged.

This documentary that looks at the concept of 'disaster capitalism' which is capitalism which feeds off and depends on natural disasters, war and terror in order to prosper. Famous early proponents of it were Augusto Pinochet's fascist regime in Chile and the neo-liberal conservative administrations of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the USA. Its name, 'the shock doctrine' coming from the way patients used to act after shock therapy, where immediately after this treatment they became far more pliant, easier to manipulate. If true, I guess some similar shock therapy will be in the pipeline off the back of the current pandemic. Interesting stuff on the whole.

After watching this film with a few friends (one of which was a former World bank employee), we had a rather mixed and somewhat heated conversation in the cinema bar. The film is basically a summary of the book, which talks about the ideas of Milton Friedman and how they have been used to influence world affairs. However, for those of you who may find the film 'superficial' I would recommend the book, as there is much more detail. Regarding the objectivity of the film, I don't believe that it's anti-American or anti-capitalistic (as my world bank friend remarked). Quite the contrary, it is very balanced and in my opinion Klein does not point a finger at a company without first presenting the facts. I think what a lot of pro-capitalists probably find annoying about Klein is that she brings the whole idea of multinational dirty dealings and currents affairs into the spotlight. After all, Halliburton, Shell, BP, the World bank etc. are far from angels when it comes to making money! I for one, commend the producers of this film and Mrs. Klein for a job well done!

Obviously, the opinions about this powerful documentary will be sharply divided. Liberals, and proudly I am one of them, will approve and cheer, and conservatives will call it communist propaganda and other such drivel. I lived in both communist and capitalist society. With the incredible youthful passion I fought communism and it's limits on free speech and artistic expression. And over 22 years ago I immigrated to the USA. And, it was a sobering experience. There is a freedom of speech, nobody limits the artistic expression( mostly because nobody gives a damn about art-the dying form). And there is the most troubling of all for me. The mighty dollar, the only pertinent thing. It really is all about money. Everything else takes the back seat. The extremes of socialism didn't work, because repression doesn't last forever, but, on the other hand, the extremes of ruthless, greedy capitalism, do not work either. The culture of ME,ME,ME is ultimately barren and lonely, and the impoverished will eventually rise up in arms, and who wants that. Nobody reads the dusty volumes of history books. If they were, we might be living in a different world.

This is a movie you should check out. Aristotle said that "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Well, going back to the start of the review, even if you think that what Naomi Klein is talking about is pure nonsense, "The Shock Doctrine" is a movie to watch, precisely even more if you don't agree with the ideas it presents.

Basically the movie talks about how capitalism aliments itself on conflict and shocks, meaning that it is very good at distracting the attention from the important to some event that is terrible, but not the most terrible. For example, it talks about how the United Kingdom got into the Falklands War, and how that distracted public attention from the strikes and the civil unrest that was ongoing in the country. Does it all sound a little bit conspiratorial? It does, but it is also true that when something like a war happens, people's attention will be centered on that event, and it will become a situation of "us" vs. "others". Even if you don't believe that happens on purpose, it is true that systems, being it capitalism or other, may take advantage of those situations.

But that's for a politics or international relations class. Going back to the documentary, "The Shock Doctrine" presents its ideas in a very clear and easy to understand way, and it gives enough examples to see why they say what they say. In that respects it does a very nice job. It also does a good job in making the viewer think and analyze situations. And it is very interesting to try to see things in a different light from the "official" view of things.

As Aristotle said, you don't have to accept it. Or agree with it. But it doesn't hurt to think.