The Shock Doctrine

Have you ever come across 'The Shock Doctrine' by Naomi Klein? Naomi Klein is an author and left-wing activist who first came to prominence with her book 'No Logo', which took a critical look at globalisation. In her book 'The Shock Doctrine - the rise of disaster capitalism' Klein showed how neo-liberal free market fundamentalists have exploited crises to force privatisation and deregulation onto countries which would have resisted if it the population had not been in a vulnerable state. A well known example of this is in Chile, where the Pinochet coup against the democratically elected Allende government created a situation in which global corporations were able take over the economy at the expense of the Chilean people. Its well worth reading the book or at least watching the documentary film. For a starter try this clip on Youtube.

The point is that we are now the victims of the latest 'shock'. The global economic crisis is being used here to impose cuts on public services and the welfare state which would never have been accepted by the British population had the crisis not happened. So, the people who create the crisis not only get away with it, and get us to pay for it, but they also get the opportunity to slash our public services and benefit from the privatisation that will follow.

But what stimulated me to write this was the excellent article that I came across today by George Monbiot. There's no need for me to say more. Read George's excellent analysis of the situation in this post. When you have, you will understand why it has been so easy for the ConDem government to do something the Tories have dreamed of for years - slashing the public sector and the welfare state.