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droid
Guest
So youve read books by Seymour, Klein and Chomsky? Which ones?
Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine
- Thread starter baboon2004
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So youve read books by Seymour, Klein and Chomsky? Which ones?
D
droid
Guest
Thanks for summing up my position for me (woefully inaccurately though it is). Allow me to do the same:
Vimothy is simply trying to dismiss Klein's book out of hand without having read a single page by branding it 'simple and wrong' because some critics have said so and because it disagrees with his economic philosophy.
D
droid
Guest
You havent made any kind of argument so I have absolutely no way to tell.
vimothy
yurp
Does it even do that? I am not so sure.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Vimothy couldn't make an argument to save his life. That would be pretentious.
Better to round up a bunch of quotes from random commentators blogs and pretend that counts as an "argument"...
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
We should call this the Dissensus Two-Step.
crackerjack
Well-known member
No, I've read comment pieces by Seymour (blog, in his case), Klein and Chomsky.
If i'm so grossly distorting Chomsky's views (but not the others?), can you give me an example of an area of US foreign policy in the last 30-odd years that he has supported?
D
droid
Guest
I really don't see the relevance of this and I have no interest in hijacking this thread defending Chomsky against spurious criticisms.
The point is that your opinion of these writers is not based on their work, but on the word of their critics and on short commentaries . Esp in Chomsky's case - if you have not read his books you don't really have the grounds to make such a sweeping dismissal.
Again - its not such a radical position. Its a basic principle in fact... read the work before you criticise the author.
crackerjack
Well-known member
Fine, let's not sidetrack, but clearly it wasn't such a gross distortion that you can instantly come up with a rebuttal.
I have read the work. All these people publish short comment pieces (except Seymour, who writes a blog). I don't think it's too much of a stretch to decide on the basis of the dozen or so Stein articles I've read (alongside well-argued slatings of her work by writers I do respect, such as the Hutton piece posted above) that she's just another ideologue, wading into any scenario with her mind made up looking for ways to make the facts fit the theory.
If you have the time to follow up on such people's work regardless, I'm happy for you. Though I note that having done so, you've shown no interest in defending her, and rather more in attacking her critics.
D
droid
Guest
No - its such a gross distortion, and displays such an utter misunderstanding of his work that its not really worth commenting on. Since you insist though - Chomsky was broadly in favour of the the US role in the 2001 Taba negotiations
Youve read a dozen or so commentaries and a bunch of critics? You're joking right? Chomsky alone has written tens of thousands of densely argued pages and his critics have slurred and misrepresented him repeatedly... yet you seem to think your shallow engagement with their work is enough for you to wade into an thread with your mind made up.
Its not 'following up' on peoples work. It reading it in the first place. I have defended Klein from the only actual criticism in this thread. Yourself and Vim's blind denunciations of her aren't really worth it seeing as they are based on nothing but thin air.
crackerjack
Well-known member
Since this thread's now on page 3, why don't you answer Baboon's question and give your actual impressions of Klein's work then? What with you being the only person qualified to offer an opinion.
vimothy
yurp
droid -- do you agree that Klein samples on the dependent variable and is this problematic?
EDIT: You said this was a reasonable summary: "Klein argues that the only circumstance in which a population would accept Friedman-style reforms is when it is in a state of shock, following a crisis of some sort—a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, a war." To prove that this is the case, Klein selects cases in which (at least according to her narrative -- her use of China seems laughable at best) "Friedman" style reform did follow crisis. All Muslims are terrorists! No, wait a sec....
EDIT II: See table of contents at Goggle books here.
EDIT: You said this was a reasonable summary: "Klein argues that the only circumstance in which a population would accept Friedman-style reforms is when it is in a state of shock, following a crisis of some sort—a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, a war." To prove that this is the case, Klein selects cases in which (at least according to her narrative -- her use of China seems laughable at best) "Friedman" style reform did follow crisis. All Muslims are terrorists! No, wait a sec....
EDIT II: See table of contents at Goggle books here.
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D
droid
Guest
You're getting a bit shirty aren't you?
Once again, you're missing the point. Surely you should be asking for my opinion of the work in question, not my 'impression' of Klein, which isn't really relevant.
And of course, I'm not the only person qualified to comment on this book. anyone who's actually read it can do so.
Unfortunately this doesn't seem to include you.
Once again, you're missing the point. Surely you should be asking for my opinion of the work in question, not my 'impression' of Klein, which isn't really relevant.
And of course, I'm not the only person qualified to comment on this book. anyone who's actually read it can do so.
Unfortunately this doesn't seem to include you.
crackerjack
Well-known member
You're getting a bit shirty aren't you?
Once again, you're missing the point. Surely you should be asking for my opinion of the work in question, not my 'impression' of Klein, which isn't really relevant.
And of course, I'm not the only person qualified to comment on this book. anyone who's actually read it can do so.
Unfortunately this doesn't seem to include you.
Read my post again - it says 'impression of klein's work' (since I edited it, before you posted your comment).
And since both Vim and I offered our opinions on the understanding that neither of us had read this particular book, chewing this particular bone ad infinitum is beginning to look a bit silly.
vimothy
yurp
Scanning through the book, I have some questions:
- Does Klein think it's an acceptable method of argument to start with a premise and then select only cases that appear to prove that premise is true?
- Does Klein really describe Milton Friedman -- obviously a central figure in the book -- as a neo-conservative?
- Does Klein even know what the word conservative means?
- Does Klein offer any explanation for popular suppport for "free market" or "Friedman" style economic policies?
- Does Klein offer any explanation for popular rejection of "Keyenesian" style economic policies?
- Does Klein offer any kind of critique of the actual "free market"/"neoliberal"/"neoconservative"(WTF??? Oh yeah, we'll lump them together because it fits the narrative) policies themselves?
- Does Klein offer any kind of critique of "Keyensian" policies?
- Does Klein concede that markets can play any kind of positive social role?
I found Stephen Holmes' damning review of the Shock Doctrine in the LRB a while back pretty compelling:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n09/holm01_.html
Amongst its key passages:
"The eccentricity of [Klein's] approach is most clearly revealed by her discussion of the Iraq war. The decision to invade, she asserts, was ‘a rational policy choice’, driven primarily by a combination of high-minded economic doctrine and sordid business interests. Those who decry a lack of planning in the run-up to the invasion are deluded: there was a perfectly clear postwar plan ‘to build a model country’. Klein even claims to have discovered the blueprint for the remodelled Iraq in the works of Milton Friedman. The plan was not to build a model democracy but, on the contrary, a system violently incompatible with democracy: a model free-market society, with low taxes, minimal regulation, a quiescent labour force, and all productive assets in private hands. ‘Fervent believers in the redemptive powers of shock’, the planners wanted to ‘redeem’ Iraq and to create the kind of ‘truly free market imagined in Chicago classes’. According to Klein, Paul Bremer was dispatched to Iraq precisely ‘to prepare the ground for the introduction of “radical free-market reforms”’. And though he did not manage to create a Tiger on the Tigris, in some perverse way he succeeded: ‘Iraq under Bremer was the logical conclusion of Chicago School theory.’"
**
"Another problem with Klein’s basic argument stems from her artificial distillation of a coherent ‘doctrine’ from three morally dubious processes that share a common word – ‘shock’ – but have only tenuous and indirect relations to each other: electroshock used to break down subjects of interrogation; economic shock therapy, meaning the introduction of privatisation and deregulation at lightning speed; and shock and awe, the use of overwhelming military firepower to cow civilians in a country about to be militarily attacked. Here again, we can identify many connections between these three kinds of shock. But discovering a ‘shock doctrine’ common to them all distracts rather than clarifies."
**
"Klein argues that the invading forces deliberately allowed the National Museum in Baghdad to be looted and the National Library burned. These apparent acts of criminal negligence were in fact a form of cultural lobotomy, a collective shock treatment meant to ‘depattern’ the minds of the Iraqis and reduce their capacity to resist free-market reforms. She never explains why ancient manuscripts stored in a library would have fortified Iraqi resistance to a radical economic agenda. Indeed, this example shows how far Klein is willing to go to deny the decisive role of imbecility and obliviousness in the making of the Iraqi disaster."
**
"The supposed primacy of neoliberal ideology and business interests in the Iraq war is also thrown into doubt by another consideration. Nothing we know about Dick Cheney suggests that he wanted to ‘redeem’ Iraq or make it into a model society of any kind. If he followed any example in his dim plans for post-invasion Iraq, it was not Milton Friedman’s but Ariel Sharon’s. No one would suggest that Sharon aimed to ‘redeem’ the Palestinians or create a model market society in the West Bank and Gaza. What he aimed for, and achieved, was managed anarchy: a weak, internally divided and festering society unable to project power outwards but susceptible to periodic violent intrusions. Free-market orthodoxy was not on Sharon’s mind, or on Cheney’s either.
The Sharon analogy speaks powerfully against Klein’s analysis. Free trade may be ‘an imperial project’, as she argues, but this does not mean that all imperial projects are primarily concerned with ‘seizing new markets directly for Western multinationals on the battlefields of pre-emptive wars’. Other goals, such as destroying political enemies, are often as much or more important. "
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n09/holm01_.html
Amongst its key passages:
"The eccentricity of [Klein's] approach is most clearly revealed by her discussion of the Iraq war. The decision to invade, she asserts, was ‘a rational policy choice’, driven primarily by a combination of high-minded economic doctrine and sordid business interests. Those who decry a lack of planning in the run-up to the invasion are deluded: there was a perfectly clear postwar plan ‘to build a model country’. Klein even claims to have discovered the blueprint for the remodelled Iraq in the works of Milton Friedman. The plan was not to build a model democracy but, on the contrary, a system violently incompatible with democracy: a model free-market society, with low taxes, minimal regulation, a quiescent labour force, and all productive assets in private hands. ‘Fervent believers in the redemptive powers of shock’, the planners wanted to ‘redeem’ Iraq and to create the kind of ‘truly free market imagined in Chicago classes’. According to Klein, Paul Bremer was dispatched to Iraq precisely ‘to prepare the ground for the introduction of “radical free-market reforms”’. And though he did not manage to create a Tiger on the Tigris, in some perverse way he succeeded: ‘Iraq under Bremer was the logical conclusion of Chicago School theory.’"
**
"Another problem with Klein’s basic argument stems from her artificial distillation of a coherent ‘doctrine’ from three morally dubious processes that share a common word – ‘shock’ – but have only tenuous and indirect relations to each other: electroshock used to break down subjects of interrogation; economic shock therapy, meaning the introduction of privatisation and deregulation at lightning speed; and shock and awe, the use of overwhelming military firepower to cow civilians in a country about to be militarily attacked. Here again, we can identify many connections between these three kinds of shock. But discovering a ‘shock doctrine’ common to them all distracts rather than clarifies."
**
"Klein argues that the invading forces deliberately allowed the National Museum in Baghdad to be looted and the National Library burned. These apparent acts of criminal negligence were in fact a form of cultural lobotomy, a collective shock treatment meant to ‘depattern’ the minds of the Iraqis and reduce their capacity to resist free-market reforms. She never explains why ancient manuscripts stored in a library would have fortified Iraqi resistance to a radical economic agenda. Indeed, this example shows how far Klein is willing to go to deny the decisive role of imbecility and obliviousness in the making of the Iraqi disaster."
**
"The supposed primacy of neoliberal ideology and business interests in the Iraq war is also thrown into doubt by another consideration. Nothing we know about Dick Cheney suggests that he wanted to ‘redeem’ Iraq or make it into a model society of any kind. If he followed any example in his dim plans for post-invasion Iraq, it was not Milton Friedman’s but Ariel Sharon’s. No one would suggest that Sharon aimed to ‘redeem’ the Palestinians or create a model market society in the West Bank and Gaza. What he aimed for, and achieved, was managed anarchy: a weak, internally divided and festering society unable to project power outwards but susceptible to periodic violent intrusions. Free-market orthodoxy was not on Sharon’s mind, or on Cheney’s either.
The Sharon analogy speaks powerfully against Klein’s analysis. Free trade may be ‘an imperial project’, as she argues, but this does not mean that all imperial projects are primarily concerned with ‘seizing new markets directly for Western multinationals on the battlefields of pre-emptive wars’. Other goals, such as destroying political enemies, are often as much or more important. "