Me; "OK, yes, I think "The Shock Doctrine" is a great book." Doug: "My god, why?"
Because she convinced me of her central point: That there actually is something new under the sun in contemporary capitalism. Briefly if crudely, I think there really is something different between covering urban centers with shopping malls, and putting a torture center in the basement of one of those shopping malls. And I think there’s a difference between post facto exploitation of disaster, which capitalists have always done, and the conscious promotion of disaster as state policy, which Klein claims to document (and succeeds, IMO). I don't buy that it has always been thus--is that the dividing line? Sorry, the bourgeoisie in its heroic phase was *not* like what started to happen near the end of the 20th century, and as continues now, and (again) as I believe Klein documents. I know the proper Left thing to do is to pull up examples reaching back to the enclosure movement, and sigh “plus ca change…”, but I have come to see this as whistling past the graveyard. I’m personally tired of a too-comfortable Left intellectual position (not necessarily yours, but I have seen it on the PEN-L and LBO-Talk lists) that goes something like: Yes, yes, I know what fucking bastards I am up against. I know their lies and I know their tricks and I know their ugly methods. I have read and re-read the books of a now centuries-long tradition. I have gone to the meetings for years. Basically: I know what the enemy is going to do next. And Klein is saying: No, actually, you don’t. Look at this. We really have no theory, no strategy, no tactics that can deal with this. We have to figure them out, yet again. Maybe they’re better prepared to win, even on our own terms, theoretically, intellectually, organizationally. Hell, maybe they’re smarter than us.* And Klein--to her credit, right?--demands the one Left response that is always correct: But they can’t be stronger than all of us. Just saying this isn’t enough, of course, but it’s not as if Klein says it’s all about some shallow liberal media strategy (and I’ve seen her accused of that). I know there’s also disagreement with Klein’s method in “The Shock Doctrine,” and I don’t understand this. She does it through example, through journalism. And it's very good journalism. It's not easy to do. (But you, Doug Henwood, know this. Do you consider her a bad journalist?) She doesn't put forward two or three cases. She has chapter after detailed chapter that make arguments that this is all just coincidence, or uninteresting wrinkles on historically normal capitalism, hard to buy. Certainly to me. Yeah, I'm impressed. If there’s a part of “The Shock Doctrine” that I think strikes a false note, that stretches her thesis too far, where a cause-and-effect relationship is posited but comes off more as metaphor, it’s the early chapter on the CIA shock experiments in Canada. There’s also this short film that forms many people’s introduction to “The Shock Doctrine,” and it’s based on this portion of the book. It sucks. (I understand it’s made by her husband. Connubial love should have its limits.) But this doesn’t ruin the book for me. Not close. * Klein never actually gets this dour. That’s me. But I think it follows from her book. Postscript: I wrote the above before you posted a link back to your previous article (http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Shock.html), and I won’t re-write my response, or I’ll never post anything, but: You wrote, in one answer to Klein, “At first, the military dictatorships of Latin America weren’t trying to impose neoliberalism--they were trying to defend the system of private property against a variety of populists, socialists, and communists.” Ignoring for the moment how such a position can be posited as lying outside any working definition of neoliberalism, Klein says this is wrong, as a matter of fact claim, that in fact a neoliberal project preceded and guided policy (certainly in Chile), and it’s not as if she doesn’t offer documentation; I’m with Klein here. On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Doug Henwood <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Apr 25, 2012, at 3:42 PM, socialismorbarbarism wrote: > >> > > Doug > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
