Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: Rise of Disaster Capitalism, 2007.
Jon Jeter, Flat Broke in the Free Market: How Globalization Fleeced Working People, 2009.
When Kate and I traipsed around Ecuador and Peru on our ill-fated honeymoon, I recall a conversation we had in Puno, Peru. Our trips aren't extravagant and our accommodations usually fall on the bottom scale of the budget traveler. (Of course, one could say that decisions such as that lead one to contract a nasty stomach illness that can effectively ruin a honeymoon.) Anyway, we pondered whether we helped or hurt with our travel. After rolling through the vapid glitz of Lima and taking several tourist trips, we both questioned the nature of our travel. For me, it was an issue that bothered me on another level as I helped a company outsource segments of its business. (For the record, the owner of the company has kept Kate and I eating and paying rent and my boss has been incredibly generous to me for the past six years.)
Naomi Klein's weighty book tackles some of these various issues. Clocking in at 460 pages, it's a commitment as she takes you through the battlefields of neoliberalism that left various third world economies cratered and reeling. The Shock Doctrine is exhaustive, to the point that this reviewer was forced to skim at an accelerated pace to conquer the often unskimmable paragraphs. I wanted to enjoy this book. If one of her goals was to chronicle the abuses stemming from the imposition of neoliberal economic development, then she succeeded handily. Nevertheless, I have problems with her use of terminology (especially the term corporatist), the relative absence of the US labor movement and working-class, and her proclivity for marrying the concepts of physical torture (electro shock) with economic counterrevolution (Milton Friedman’s “shock treatment”).
I'm no acolyte of Milton Friedman, and I feel that if you don't question the Friedmanite primacy given to markets then you're not paying attention. That being said, Milton Friedman nor, I would argue, the Chicago Boys convinced a military thug such as Pinochet and others to unleash harsh waves of terror. Possibly the US government did, but that blurs the line of agency and the documentary record on these subjects tends to portray the US as players who acquiesced from the sidelines. (The CIA records aren’t released and I’m not in the business of speculating. Al McCoy is better suited for that task.) She could be stronger if she imposed a clearer vision of corporatism and painted less of a relationship between torture and economic shock therapy. She strays from the torture-shock treatment analogy as she progresses through the book, nevertheless, I think it's a flawed premise. Can't one say that communist revolutions or counterrevolutions imposed economic systems that proved equally as disastrous? The answer is yes, and she legitimizes that line of argumentation. Then the question revolves around revolutions and economics.
If that's the problematic aspect, Klein's clear strength lies in charting how neoliberalism failed to lift all boats. Those who benefited remain the developed states and multi-national corporations. Starting with Richard Nixon, neoliberalism became a pillar of American foreign policy where it remains to this day. We associate market freedom with political freedom, and, as she points out, that logic is severely flawed. This book isn't for beginners, however, and I wouldn't recommend it unless someone had a passionate interest in comprehending the economic beliefs that hobbled developing countries and peoples and led us to this current economic malaise.
Jon Jeter's thinner and equally interesting Flat Broke in the Free Market picks apart neoliberalism from a different methodological stance. Jeter traveled to Africa, Latin America, and in the US interviewing those who toil under neoliberalism's false promises to illustrate how working-class folk suffer under the weight of neoliberalism at home and abroad. The interviews provide a fascinating texture that Klein often overlooks, which is understandable. Beginning with a story of a Kenyan woman whose daily life seems to mirror Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich as the woman tries to sell tomatoes in a desperate bid to survive and feed her children.
Jeter's interviews span the working-class spectrum, everything from the aforementioned tomato seller to prostitutes in Latin America to the folks in the urban renewal group Imagine Englewood If. They allow him to paint the stunning, yet desolate, experiences of the poor that point to no signs of bettering any time soon. Many of the struggles gravitate toward basic necessities--water, safety/security, food, shelter--and work. Not to trivialize his book, but his dedication is one of the more touching ones I've read in this literature. He dedicates the book to those poor who desire to see the ocean. I can't do it justice here, so I won't try and you'll have to trust me on this one.
What would a review be without criticism? First, his fawning praise of Hugo Chavez at the book's close seems romantic and utopian. Second, Asia and Europe are completely absent. Nevertheless, a work can't do everything and I think it's a minor quibble. Third, often his analysis is lost in the midst of the stories and the reader often has to unpack some of what he might try to argue. Fourth, who's responsible here? Who are the agents? Often the guilty parties are Western companies and the US government that employ a neoliberal framework. I think it's dubious to not judge states as sharing the blame for leveling their countries' economies and social structures, but they largely are absent as players who make the decisions. Even though the economic aspect does, as Jeter maintains, demonstrate a new lever of neocolonialism, I find his treatment of agency and responsibility slippery and sloppy.
So what? What do these books tell us? I guarantee that read back-to-back Klein and Jeter don't line one up for an uplifting experience. The culprit remains Friedman and his obsession with free markets that Western governments pushed since the early 1970s, with the clear victim being those in the US and the poor spread out in the world. What can be done? After finishing these two books I have my doubts if this edifice (with such considerable scaffolding in academia, government, and the private sector) can be demolished. This month's Adbusters addresses these questions. Still, I am uncertain if an equitable form of trade and economics will arise from our current economic contraction. Is there a way out of neoliberalism? I hope so, because as both of these books reveal, far too many people suffer for an economic ideology that benefits so few.
I'm no acolyte of Milton Friedman, and I feel that if you don't question the Friedmanite primacy given to markets then you're not paying attention. That being said, Milton Friedman nor, I would argue, the Chicago Boys convinced a military thug such as Pinochet and others to unleash harsh waves of terror. Possibly the US government did, but that blurs the line of agency and the documentary record on these subjects tends to portray the US as players who acquiesced from the sidelines. (The CIA records aren’t released and I’m not in the business of speculating. Al McCoy is better suited for that task.) She could be stronger if she imposed a clearer vision of corporatism and painted less of a relationship between torture and economic shock therapy. She strays from the torture-shock treatment analogy as she progresses through the book, nevertheless, I think it's a flawed premise. Can't one say that communist revolutions or counterrevolutions imposed economic systems that proved equally as disastrous? The answer is yes, and she legitimizes that line of argumentation. Then the question revolves around revolutions and economics.
If that's the problematic aspect, Klein's clear strength lies in charting how neoliberalism failed to lift all boats. Those who benefited remain the developed states and multi-national corporations. Starting with Richard Nixon, neoliberalism became a pillar of American foreign policy where it remains to this day. We associate market freedom with political freedom, and, as she points out, that logic is severely flawed. This book isn't for beginners, however, and I wouldn't recommend it unless someone had a passionate interest in comprehending the economic beliefs that hobbled developing countries and peoples and led us to this current economic malaise.
Jon Jeter's thinner and equally interesting Flat Broke in the Free Market picks apart neoliberalism from a different methodological stance. Jeter traveled to Africa, Latin America, and in the US interviewing those who toil under neoliberalism's false promises to illustrate how working-class folk suffer under the weight of neoliberalism at home and abroad. The interviews provide a fascinating texture that Klein often overlooks, which is understandable. Beginning with a story of a Kenyan woman whose daily life seems to mirror Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich as the woman tries to sell tomatoes in a desperate bid to survive and feed her children.
Jeter's interviews span the working-class spectrum, everything from the aforementioned tomato seller to prostitutes in Latin America to the folks in the urban renewal group Imagine Englewood If. They allow him to paint the stunning, yet desolate, experiences of the poor that point to no signs of bettering any time soon. Many of the struggles gravitate toward basic necessities--water, safety/security, food, shelter--and work. Not to trivialize his book, but his dedication is one of the more touching ones I've read in this literature. He dedicates the book to those poor who desire to see the ocean. I can't do it justice here, so I won't try and you'll have to trust me on this one.
What would a review be without criticism? First, his fawning praise of Hugo Chavez at the book's close seems romantic and utopian. Second, Asia and Europe are completely absent. Nevertheless, a work can't do everything and I think it's a minor quibble. Third, often his analysis is lost in the midst of the stories and the reader often has to unpack some of what he might try to argue. Fourth, who's responsible here? Who are the agents? Often the guilty parties are Western companies and the US government that employ a neoliberal framework. I think it's dubious to not judge states as sharing the blame for leveling their countries' economies and social structures, but they largely are absent as players who make the decisions. Even though the economic aspect does, as Jeter maintains, demonstrate a new lever of neocolonialism, I find his treatment of agency and responsibility slippery and sloppy.
So what? What do these books tell us? I guarantee that read back-to-back Klein and Jeter don't line one up for an uplifting experience. The culprit remains Friedman and his obsession with free markets that Western governments pushed since the early 1970s, with the clear victim being those in the US and the poor spread out in the world. What can be done? After finishing these two books I have my doubts if this edifice (with such considerable scaffolding in academia, government, and the private sector) can be demolished. This month's Adbusters addresses these questions. Still, I am uncertain if an equitable form of trade and economics will arise from our current economic contraction. Is there a way out of neoliberalism? I hope so, because as both of these books reveal, far too many people suffer for an economic ideology that benefits so few.
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