Kleins theory is that fundamentalist capitalists pray on disaster stricken countries to take advantage of the chaos to sell out the public sector.
📝 Disaster capitalism: “Orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events”.
📝 Laissez-faire: A economic system with a minimum or no interference by government.
📝 When the government buys homeland security services from the private sector… Isn’t it in the companies interest to keep the war on terror going? Maybe even encourage terrorism? Is homeland security turning into a powerful sector invested in continued violence?
📝 “Conservatives don’t make great government, because if you believe that you are called upon to do is wrong then you are unlikely to do it well.” Hmm.. interesting take on it 🤔.
📝 One third of Americans think that the government had a hand in, or did nothing to prevent, the 9/11 attack’s.
⭐️ TAKEAWAY:
The problem with Milton Friedmans take on free market capitalism was that voting citizens don’t actually want any of those neoliberal policies.
Times of disaster and crisis are great opportunities to slip though policies that otherwise would be rejected by the people. People in shock are less likely to put up a fair fight.
⚖️ VERDICT:
I did not like this book. I wanted to be educated but I felt that I was propagandized instead. Maybe I was I disengaged because I don’t need to be convinced that laissez-faire capitalism is a problematic proposal, just like full blown communism would be on the opposite side of the spectrum. Maybe it was what I experienced as the rant style of writing and lack of nuance..
Would you rather live in a communist society or a laissez fairer free market society? 🤔
2/5
Photo credit: @robparrett
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