more Shock
Lately, I have really been digging Naomi Klein's 'shock doctrine' analysis of the current economic "crisis."
When all this wall street banking shit hit the fan, I sought out a progressive analysis of it that a lay person like myself could understand. I found Naomi Klein.
Turns out, my friend/comrade Pranjal did an interview with Klein for LeftTurn Magazine.
Klein explains how neoliberalism represents the counter-revolution of capital and thrives on disasters, wars, and crises to spread throughout the world.
"we are told about how free markets and free people go hand in hand, and that these are the same and an inseparable project. Now I'm not arguing that neoliberals are the first people, the first ideologues to use shock to advance an unpopular economic project"
She addresses the "middle class" we so often hear about in an election year:
"from the 30s through the 60s you had tremendous gains for workers' protection, growth of very powerful trade unions, the construction of social programs like public health care protection, unemployment programs, pension programs, much of what we think of as the welfare state. This was a period of tremendous economic growth, but it was also a period of redistribution of wealth, the rise of the middle class. So what that meant was that even though there was a lot of money being made, there was a lot of money being redistributed, and the elites not just in the US but around the world, were clearly tired of how much of what they considered to be their money was being redistributed to their workers, and to the rest of society through taxes."
Torture is also addressed:
"...the shock of torture, which is really the shock of enforcement. It's the shock that's used as a warning to society to anyone who would think of opposing the economic shocks...It's not just an interrogation technique; it is a technique of state terror... The primary role of torture is to communicate the message of obedience and the danger of resistance."
When all this wall street banking shit hit the fan, I sought out a progressive analysis of it that a lay person like myself could understand. I found Naomi Klein.
Turns out, my friend/comrade Pranjal did an interview with Klein for LeftTurn Magazine.
Klein explains how neoliberalism represents the counter-revolution of capital and thrives on disasters, wars, and crises to spread throughout the world.
"we are told about how free markets and free people go hand in hand, and that these are the same and an inseparable project. Now I'm not arguing that neoliberals are the first people, the first ideologues to use shock to advance an unpopular economic project"
She addresses the "middle class" we so often hear about in an election year:
"from the 30s through the 60s you had tremendous gains for workers' protection, growth of very powerful trade unions, the construction of social programs like public health care protection, unemployment programs, pension programs, much of what we think of as the welfare state. This was a period of tremendous economic growth, but it was also a period of redistribution of wealth, the rise of the middle class. So what that meant was that even though there was a lot of money being made, there was a lot of money being redistributed, and the elites not just in the US but around the world, were clearly tired of how much of what they considered to be their money was being redistributed to their workers, and to the rest of society through taxes."
Torture is also addressed:
"...the shock of torture, which is really the shock of enforcement. It's the shock that's used as a warning to society to anyone who would think of opposing the economic shocks...It's not just an interrogation technique; it is a technique of state terror... The primary role of torture is to communicate the message of obedience and the danger of resistance."
posted by shane at 7:18 PM
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