User Profile
Search
Blog Viewer
The red corner
Wednesday, May 18 2011 - 02:44 AM Persevere..
'The Shock Doctrine': In praise and critique
Author Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Metropolitan Books, 2006) presents the hypothesis that an investment tactic known as “shock therapy” advanced by the United States and its allies throughout the past few decades employs crises that nations and regions become immersed in to create something similar to the electroshock "therapy"’ that was once administered to the mentally ill toward an effort to cure their disorders. Its socioeconomic equal are the ideas that were advanced by capitalist economists – most especially by adherents of the “Chicago School” once headed by Milton Friedman – who promoted the theory that cataclysmic events bring about a desirable climate for economic investment – in reality, capitalist exploitation.
Taking advantage of national insolvencies, hyperinflation, trade-deficit impediments and natural disasters the likes of earthquakes and tsunamis, Naomi Klein affirms that the promoters of “shock therapy” depend upon victimized regions and nations being “brought to their knees” by crisis. Then, the “bailing out” process begins which is oftentimes given over to the whims of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and still other pro-capitalist institutions.
These so-called shock therapy measures include – but are not limited to – the privatization of publically-owned properties, the slashing of social spending, business deregulation, massive layoffs and wage reductions; all of which and in turn create abject poverty for millions of workers while enabling capitalists to purchase a nation’s most valuable assets at bargain-basement prices."
In the September, 2004 issue of Harper’s magazine, Naomi Klein countered the notion that the ongoing military occupation of Iraq was the end result of George W. Bush not having a plan. She asserted to the contrary; that “The Bush administration certainly did possess a plan for what it would do after the war: put simply; it was to lay out as much honey as was possible, and then just sit back and wait for the flies” (a reference to the many capitalists that would surely come buzzing into the now subservient nation for exploitation and profit). “A country of 25 million people would not be rebuilt as it had been before the war…it would be erased, disappeared. In its stead would spring forth a gleaming showroom for laisaez-faire economies, a utopia of which the world has never seen before. Every policy that liberates multinational corporations to pursue their thirst for profit would be put into place,” all the while the accompanying death, disaster and misery suffered by the Iraqi working class has been ignored by the capitalist media. (Emphasis mine.)
“imperial Pro-Consul” L. Paul Bremer, appointed by George W. Bush to oversee this capitalist feast shortly following the “shock and awe” on the eve of the United States’ military invasion of Iraq, went to work during his two-month appointment. Bremer, according to The Shock Doctrine: “Fired 500,000 Iraqi public workers, including soldiers, doctors, nurses, teachers, publishers and printers: Opened the borders to unrestricted imports (emphasis not in original): Lowered corporate taxes from 40 percent to 15 percent and opened ownership of Iraqi assets to 100 percent outside of the natural resource sector, while permitting 100 percent of the profits to be taken out of Iraq: Memorialized Saddam Hussein by maintaing his harsh impositions on trade unions and collective bargaining: Privatized 200 publicly-owned companies even though the United States didn’t own them, a minor legalistic detail ignored by precisely those who cherish private ownership above all. Nonetheless, everything from washing machine manufacturing to cement plants was to be put on the auction block, the ‘crowning piece’ of Bremer’s efforts,” (Emphasis not in original.)
It is now well-known how this capitalist utopia became a dystopia – with death, infectious diseases, US-sponsored torture, civil war and every social pathology known to humankind having descended upon the Iraqi people. Thus revealed, we can now see – firsthand – the barbarism of capitalism that we Marxists so often write and speak of.
This, then, brings us to the relevance of The Shock Doctrine as well as socialism. Think of the observation made by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in The Communist Manifesto – that the everyday markets within the capitalist system of production “are too narrow”’ to take in “the wealth created” through the system of private ownership of the means of industrial/economic production. Therefore, the resulting crisis of overproduction can only be overcome “On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones [Marx and Engels].”
Consequently, as the expiration of labor increases, the amount of economic wealth accumulated begins to exceed the expansion of markets and still other traditional investment opportunities, even within the context of an ever-increasing globalized economy. An inevitable result of this is that, the push toward war grows more powerful. The ecological disasters that are already beginning to unfold upon earth – particularly global warming and, accordingly, the melting of the glaciers and polar caps – are viewed as being investment opportunities. And when those sort of things fail to suffice, the destruction rained down upon the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan by the United States and its imperialist allies are seen as exceptional opportunities for expansion and thus investment.
To be sure and as I alluded to within an unrelated thread this very morning, “disaster capitalism” did not come about during the 1970s as Naomi Klein asserts, it has been with us since at least the 1850s when Karl Marx and Frederick Engels first observed that capitalism itself foretells of disaster.
Guy Robert Marsh
Lancaster, 93536
Member-at-large (since 1990):
Socialist Labor Party of America (est. 1890)
roxi says...
Viceroy Paul Bremer, as you say, went into Iraq under GWBush’s orders – which now looks like just another trial run for what is happening here in the U.S.A. with the self-appointed, illegally elected under false pretenses 12 Governors currently dismantling 12 states into viscount rule.
Meanwhile, back in the blogisphere, there are the bees, feasting on conspiracy theories of yore – yet it’s all happening right in front of the hive.
Amazing.
(
send private message
)
Jack says...
Guy make sure you get anti virus for your phone, look out is a good 1 for iphones or another form of anti virus, will do, hackers always look for phones like those to break into.
( send private message )
Cybertariat says...
Though I assert it to be but capitalist rule or even proto-fascist rule, yes, roxi, the dismantlement of collective bargaining and do much more which is currently underway in several states may be likened to the very sort of “shock therapies” that the people of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., have been subjected to. Although I contend that none of this is anything new to the capitalist system and, therefore, that the phrase “shock therapy” is a modern-day substitute for capitalist exploitation, yes, the treatment of workers in other countries – as recounted by Naomi Klein – may well be described as "trial-runs for what is happening here in the U.S.A. For, just as they swear allegiance to no nation state, only to the
gold bar, capitalists view the world’s working class as nothing more than another commodity to be “bought and sold” within an increasingly globalized market place. The price of that “commodity” being of paramount importance, the present-day capitalist class can ill-afford to stop at anything respecting the ever-present need to reduce that cost. Ending collective bargaining for all workers here in the United States cannot be separated from an understanding of the capitalist class’ omnipresent need to reduce the cost of labor any more than can the fact that the US government overthrew Chile’s democratically elected government of President Salvador Gossens Allende (September 11, 1973) for precisely the same purposes.
Karl Marx once wrote “Workets of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your shackles.” His axiom is now more relevant than ever before. After all, capitalists now operate globally. So why is that we workers should not organize ourselves globally?
.
Persevere..
Guy..
( send private message )
roxi says...
The current corporate-facist-rule-game is now being exercised in L.A., through the abduction of LAUSD. Librarians on trial, OpEd piece in the LATimes today, written by a teacher-librarian at Los Angeles Academy Middle School; describes how the newly appointed “Corporate-funded” Lawyers are interviewing teacher-librarians in a downtown BASEMENT. They are demanding answers from the librarians to their qualifications to either return to teaching — or be fired as ‘non-essential’. The teacher-librarian is not only qualified to teach English, but is also licensed in library media services and holds a Master’s Degree. The lawyers reasoning for this person losing her qualifications to teach English, is because she has been working with the “Dewey Decimal System”, suggesting that since it involved more math than English, she is no longer qualified.
These “interviews” in a basement facility screams of predictions from Orwell’s 1984 – and known facist techniques used in Germany in the late 1930’s to eliminate all “intellectuals” who may question or be aware of their oppression.
It has been known for many years why corporate management resents, and does not hire intellectuals – because they are not only ‘smarter’ than the average ‘interviewer’, but also more intellectually-saavy than the people who hold management positions within the corporation.
In another article, same page, it is explained how the LA County Supervisors are considering firing all janitors working for Olive View-UCLA and Harbor-UCLA, who work for $9.64/hr. who opt for healthcare benefits, and $11.84/hr for those who do not.
The current L.A. living wage is $10.30 an hour, fyi ‘spin’.
L.A. County Supervisors want to OUTSOURCE the janitorial work out to the company, Sodexo, a MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION based in France.
“…The French firm’s bid for the work at the two hospitals is predicted on immediately reducing the number of janitors by 30% @ Olive View and 25% at Harbor UCLA….the company’s proposal is being evaluated by county administrative officials, who will make a recommendation to the supervisors…”
Sodexo has been documented to pay below cost-of-living wages elsewhere in L.A. at $9.05/hr plus one meal per shift valued at $1.25.
This assault on American workers is an outrage, and defies our collective sense of justice and decency.
Workers = Commodity, indeed. We should also realize that workers are considered disposable in the eyes of the corporation – much like a used, non-recyclable dirty diaper.
Source: latimes.com; 5/18/2011
(
send private message
)
Cybertariat says...
An excellent post, roxi. Thank you. I was not previously aware of the plight of the LASD’s teacher-librarians.
Though your point having to do with the way in which oppressive governments often treat intellectuals is well-taken, I’m not certain as to whether or not the LASD’s teacher-librarians are under assault as a result of their being intellectuals. I am, however, nearly certain that these workers are under assault because of their holding master’s degrees and, correspondingly, because of their being relatively well-paid. Most likely, the objective here is to fire as many of these teacher-librarians as possible and to then replace them with lesser educated and thus lower paid teacher-librarians. It is the very same sort of thing that has affected and that continues to affect perhaps millions of public workers throughout this society, most notably those in New Orleans, Louisiana as well as the entire state of Wisconsin.
Indeed, all the while the already infinitesimal capitalist class is becoming both smaller and much more wealthy (the result of automation and other improvements to the means of production, corporate buyouts, corporate mergers, union busting, et al) the predicament of the working class – the class which produces all – continues to grow worse with each passing day.
roxi: “Workers = commodities indeed. We should also realize that workers are considered disposable in the eyes of corporations much like a used, non-recyclable, dirty diaper.”
Absolutely. After all, the very meaning of the word commodification is the very process by which human social relations are diminished to nothing more than an exchange relation, or as Karl Marx and Frederick Engels referred to it in The Communist Manifesto, as “callous
cash payment.” Marx and Engels focused upon the commodification of the labor process, in which the actual, material activity of labor by workers had been transformed into abstract labor or just another cost respecting the productive process. In other words, capitalists, despite what they may claim, view we workers as being equal to, say, electricity or any other cost to the productive process.
Persevere..
Guy..
( send private message )
roxi says...
The Corporate capitalists’ efforts to place workers on the same level as Pork Bellies, Oil drums and Ethenol – sans federal subsidies —ensures that Americans will never return to the once “protestant” work-ethic, which was loyalty to 1 firm. It also has eliminated the purpose for being a good worker, by conveniently eliminating any ‘security’ for the workers and their families. Withholding the safety net of both pension and social security creates worker slaves – grateful for a job.
Corporate elites relish in establishing “insecurity” and non-essential status of all workers, and enable this by denying the masses a quality education.
This oppression is essential for the neuvo-riche, as it creates the perfect Utopia for the Corporate Persons and their heirs.
(
send private message
)
Would you like to comment on this blog post? Login to talk back!
Cybertariat says...
“…as the expiration of labor increases… (ninth paragraph) should have read as follows: “…as the exploitation of labor increases…”
Once again the “joy” of blogging by way of an unteathered iPhone has struck.
Good evening..
Guy..
( send private message )