Shock Doctrine

Klein reviews the role of the Chicago School and other neoliberal acolytes in driving the privatization of public goods and functions for profit, particularly around wars. While this book might not give the most accurate/complete accounting of particular events (the role of Milton Friedman in Chile stands out as fairly embellished), its breadth helps demonstrate that for every success neoliberal backers can claim in specific countries/policies, there are numerous other examples where those exact same policies not only failed, but demonstrably harmed societies. Reading this in 2025 was depressing, as the ethical lapses of the GW Bush administration that Klein dissects (rightly) seem downright quaint compared to the current administration's bald faced corruption. Highly recommend

But in a good way, if one can be upset in a good way about being made aware of the misery that the US & the IMF have inflicted across the globe.

Thanks to this book, I’ll now celebrate the day Milton Friedman died as a holiday (Nov 16).

This is an absolutely phenomenal book. Having grown up in a country that has been on the receiving end of the titular shock doctrine, this book gave me the tools to better understand my experience. While I have always been aware of different aspects of the issue, I can now put all of it together and understand the bigger picture.

Naomi Klein has an excellent writing style, explaining her thoughts in very clear and understandable terms. I listened to the audio version, but when I checked out a written copy of the book, I was really impressed by the sheer amount of sources/references she names. That's why I believe that this work is not just a think piece, but a product of actual, serious research.

Overall I would 100% recommend reading The Shock Doctrine, just with a warning that it might make you very, very angry at the world.

Deeply thoughtful book, which makes clear how Chicago school economics has completely screwed over so much of the world and for what? The origins of free-market economics is something everyone in the tech industry should read to truly understand the extent of some of those dreams.

C'est un peu étrange de lire ce livre 15 ans après sa sortie et de voir rien que rien n'a vraiment changé. Que le capitalisme par corporatisme est toujours là, qu'on nous vend encore de la théorie du ruissellement et que les subventions au privé se fait toujours au détriment de la fonction publique (éducation, sécurité sociale, hôpital, retraite...). Toute ressemblance avec la politique française actuelle... non. Rien. Bref, déprimant quand on voit qu'il faut 20-30 ans aux pays ayant eu le droit à un traitement de choc pour commencer à croire que quelque chose d'autre est possible.

Relentlessly bleak, very well written.

I have to say that the whole bit at the start with the chapter just on the history of torture felt unrelated to the rest of the book, except to change what people might have thought of shock therapy.

To be honest, a lot of it reads as the paranoid ravings of a conspiracy theorist, but it's hard to deny the tactics of disaster capitalism given the countless examples deployed over decades and decades of Friedmanism gone wild, wreaking havoc in its wake in the name of unfettered free-market trade.

This was a very interesting, but incredibly difficult to read, book. On the one hand I'm glad to have become aware of all these hideous crimes US economists have perpetrated - or at least aided and abetted - since the 70s; on the other, I see what the author wrote in 2007 and look at what has happened since, and I still see that the corporations are winning and the people are losing.

Absolutely must read.

Absolutely must read.