Is "The Shock Doctrine" a conspiracy theory?

[aggle-rithm]

This sounds like reasoning applicable on the smaller scale economics of business ventures and investments, but I can see no reason why the IMF would be forced to demand that other countries adopt a particular set of economic policies. The US treasury, the IMF and the world bank are surely high enough up to not be forced to force set ideological rules on other countries, especially in the context of previous applications of the same rules having led the country concerned into worse poverty.

Do you believe these organizations want poor countries to become less economically stable? Or is that simply a result of policies like theirs?

Your use of the phrase "ideological rules" makes it sound like these organizations are imposing political ideas on others, rather than economic systems. The IMF in particular has been criticized for paving the way to dictatorships in third world countries. Their response is that they are not interested in political ideologies, only economic stability.

So, again...why would they want poor countries to become poorer? Are they stealing from them?

Because that would be stupid. If you're going to steal, you should steal from someone who has something worth stealing.

 

[stokes234]

Do you believe these organizations want poor countries to become less economically stable? Or is that simply a result of policies like theirs?

What the IMF appear to have been doing, at least according to the book, is offering packages of aid that would allow the country to become economically stable. But they also demand that the country convert to a free-market system. In many cases it seems that the country only needed the aid package to achieve economic stability - the instability being the result of some unfortunate disaster - and that the free market system was only enforced as a way of spreading the ideology.

Your use of the phrase "ideological rules" makes it sound like these organizations are imposing political ideas on others, rather than economic systems. The IMF in particular has been criticized for paving the way to dictatorships in third world countries. Their response is that they are not interested in political ideologies, only economic stability.

Politics and economics are of course intricately linked. Again, according to the book, the "economic stability" was achieved, but the free market changes resulted in mass unemployment, far more people below the poverty line, and an expanding gap between rich and poor.

So, again...why would they want poor countries to become poorer? Are they stealing from them?

That's the tricky part. I can only assume that they believe strongly enough in the free market to believe all the problems in the country will be solved by it, and that they are indifferent to the problems it causes.

Because that would be stupid. If you're going to steal, you should steal from someone who has something worth stealing.

Often these countries have nationalised industry such as mining and these changes would allow private companies from the west to buy up these industries and raw materials for cheap. The IMF also demands as a condition of the aid package that the country remove trade tariffs on imported products, resulting in private companies from other countries being allowed to sell their goods in that country with much lower taxes, earning them alot more money.

 

[ImANiceGuy]

Confessions of an Economic Hitman has been exposed as a huge lie in other threads. I would not doubt that The Shock Doctrine is also nothing but BS. I haven't read it though so I won't make that declaration unilaterally.

haha....the ignorance is set on high?

Thank you for your valuable opinion based on nothing. I appreciate you holding your judgement until youve actually read the book.

JREF laughs continue on......

 

[bikerdruid]

Confessions of an Economic Hitman has been exposed as a huge lie in other threads. I would not doubt that The Shock Doctrine is also nothing but BS. I haven't read it though so I won't make that declaration unilaterally.

naomi klein is not a b.s.er.
but the right-wing would certainly love to believe that she is.
her scholarship is flawless.
www.naomiklein.org/main

 

[Swammerdami]

I hope it's not abusive to post in an old thread, but Klein's books are important. Also ...

I haven't read the book you're talking about, but I'm going to because it sounds a lot like this one, which I have read.

Confessions of an Economic Hitman
http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/1576753018

Perkins writes that his economic projections cooked the books Enron-style to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn't afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies. Often, the money would simply be transferred from one bank account in Washington, D.C., to another one in New York or San Francisco. The deals were smoothed over with bribes for foreign officials, but it was the taxpayers in the foreign countries who had to pay back the loans. When their governments couldn't do so, as was often the case, the U.S. or its henchmen at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would step in and essentially place the country in trusteeship, dictating everything from its spending budget to security agreements and even its United Nations votes. It was, Perkins writes, a clever way for the U.S. to expand its "empire" at the expense of Third World citizens. While at times he seems a little overly focused on conspiracies, perhaps that's not surprising considering the life he's led. --Alex Roslin

I just started Perkins' Confessions now, and was disappointed to see that the book got almost zero mention in another forum that bills itself as The World's Top Ignorance Fighter. At least there were several mentions here at internationalskeptics.

Did Perkins lie or exaggerate? This article implies that: No, he didn't.

 

[Meed]

The Shock Doctrine sounds pretty accurate based on your description. The real test is, of course, to source check claims made by the book and see if they hold up.

The problem with books like Confessions is that they are based on anecdotal evidence, for which you must trust the author to be telling the truth. It doesn't sound as if Klein's book suffers from the same problem, though.

 

[Donal]

I hope it's not abusive to post in an old thread, but Klein's books are important. Also ...


I just started Perkins' Confessions now, and was disappointed to see that the book got almost zero mention in another forum that bills itself as The World's Top Ignorance Fighter. At least there were several mentions here at internationalskeptics.

Because there is nothing to back it up.

Did Perkins lie or exaggerate? This article implies that: No, he didn't.

You mean the publisher is saying it is a true story? Well, then, if we can't trust the people directly benefiting from book sales, who can we trust?

Same MO as another "true story", the Amittyville Horror"

 

[Spindrift]

haha....the ignorance is set on high?

Thank you for your valuable opinion based on nothing. I appreciate you holding your judgement until youve actually read the book.

JREF laughs continue on......

The JREF laughs ended a few months ago. We now have ISF laughs, more gutteral.

 

[catsmate]

I hope it's not abusive to post in an old thread, but Klein's books are important. Also ...


I just started Perkins' Confessions now, and was disappointed to see that the book got almost zero mention in another forum that bills itself as The World's Top Ignorance Fighter. At least there were several mentions here at internationalskeptics.

Did Perkins lie or exaggerate? This article implies that: No, he didn't.

While this one and this one suggest he's a complete loon peddling a stupid conspiracy theory to idiots.

 

[JamesB]

I wasn't impressed with either book. State something bad that happened in a third world country, make ominous but vague implications of nefarious deeds, fret over globalization, repeat.

This is the thread here on Confessions:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80120

 

[jakesteele]

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_s...+perkins&sprefix=confessions+of+an+ec,aps,301

This is what this guy, an ex-cia? guy, I think. That was his job.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays#Overthrow_of_government_of_Guatemala

This is similar in nature but more on the political.
Overthrow of government of Guatemala

Bernays's most extreme political propaganda activities were said to be conducted on behalf of the multinational corporation United Fruit Company (today's Chiquita Brands International) and the U.S. government to facilitate the successful overthrow (see Operation PBSUCCESS) of the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. Bernays's propaganda (documented in the BBC documentary, The Century of the Self), branding Arbenz as communist, was published in major U.S. media. According to a book review by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton of Larry Tye's biography of Bernays, The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & The Birth of PR, "The term 'banana republic' actually originated in reference to United Fruit's domination of corrupt governments in Guatemala and other Central American countries."[26]

 

[Jango]

I'm most of the way through "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein, and it seems to be a particularly powerful book.

It basically claims that free market supporters, originating from the chicago school of economics and spreading out to take high positions in IMF, world bank and USA treasury, spread their free market ideology by holding desperate countries to ransom. They wait until some disaster strikes, such as a natural disaster, a war, price drops on the countries' main exports or something similar, and then they move in and say that they will provide aid to stabilise the economy, but only if the country adopts radical, undemocratic free market principles, such as rapid privatisation, removal of minimum wage and price controls, and barriers to free trade. The country is forced to do so, and various rich businessmen make a killing from the sales of public assets, and they then leave the country in ruins with mass unemployment and much heightened inequality, and move on. In some cases the book claims the financial crises were deliberately worsened by the IMF and various other financial bodies and multinational conglomerates to force these countries into a position where they would have to accept the free market policies.
The book also claims that the chicago economists, which it dubs "the chicago boys", exploit military coups to force their economic policies through as well, such as in indonesia and chile.

As case studies, the book cites indonesia under suharto; chile under pinochet; argentina, brazil and uruguay soon after; south africa coming out of apartheid; poland breaking free from the soviet union; the soviet union collapsing; thailand, south korea, indonesia and the philippines in the 97 asian financial crisis; and canadas allegedly artificially created low credit rating in the late 90s.

It makes a particularly compelling case, filling about 50 pages of references at the end, and quoting many top figures among the financial bodies at these times including jeffrey sachs and a bunch of other top economists and political advisors, investigative journalists and so on.

What I want to know is whether or not this qualifies as a conspiracy theory (if a resounding "no", feel free to move or delete the thread), and what other materials there are on the subject, supporting or rejecting the claim that the western economic powers deliberately held countries to ransom in order to lay claim to their financial assets. Official replies, high profile responses, any resulting court cases etc would all be particularly welcome, as well as opinions of anyone who knows much about the subject.

One further thing, that made me do a double take, and which may end up driving the thread off on a tangent - at one point, the book claims that donald rumsfeld made a particularly controversial speech in the pentagon, basically declaring war on the pentagons bureaucracy, stating he would sell off all parts of the military that he thought could be better performed by private companies. Obviously he should have faced some serious opposition by the established bereaucracy, but he never did because he made the speech on september 10, 2001. I've always rejected the 9/11 conspiracy theories and consider myself a rational person; on balance, I have to say it must have been a coincidence. But I was suprised that i'd never heard it as an argument supporting the claim that 9/11 was planned by the american government.

Anyway, discuss, and preferably try to convince me one way or the other and/or point me to where I can learn more. I'm one of the few people on the internet whose opinion can actually be changed.

If there is money to be made, there will be people there trying to make it.

I watch Shark Tank weekly. I like "Mr. Wonderful" Kevin O'Leary. He is a ruthless businessman. He's what most people think of when they think of a ruthless businessman, a man whose primary driving force in life is money and everything else is secondary. He even has the look of a ruthless businessman, shark eyes and all. His only desire is to squeeze as much money out of everything he involves himself with. That's how banks operate too. Maximizing revenue. The IMF and the World Bank are obviously associated with the United States. The United States is the largest economy and a capitalist country. It is commonsense of the realities around us that these relationships would exist. They exist to make people money. And they do. Lots of it. Which is why it won't stop. Even though people are exploited as the means to the end for the people making money, it will continue to happen unabated. Be thankful if you're prosperous, and work hard to become prosperous if you are not. Being prosperous can help guard against exploitation.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Even worse Kevin O'Leary is Canadian. Sob. Oh, and come to think of it, S.O.B.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

So to summarise the evil IMF plan:
1. Give a country millions of dollars in loans.
2. Collapse the economy, leaving it "in ruins" and so unable to pay back the loan.
3. ?
4. Profit.

 

[Jango]

So to summarise the evil IMF plan:
1. Give a country millions of dollars in loans.
2. Collapse the economy, leaving it "in ruins" and so unable to pay back the loan.
3. ?
4. Profit.

I can already tell, you're going to fit in here nicely.

 

[Praktik]

I think Klein makes a mistake many make when arguing from her perspective and that is to attribute to malice of forethought what could also be understood as the product of ideology and motivated reasoning.

I guess its the classic conception of evil right: is the evil agent aware of the evil - or is it a Hannah Arendt, "banality of evil" type thing?

Were the economic prescriptions offered in order *to ruin* or was ruin a byproduct that wasn't actually sought - that maybe these individuals truly bought into a win-win narrative pushed by a pretty powerful and dominant ideology of the time. Sure, I bet there are some capricious and greedy people out there, but are they the drivers of policy?

I rather think policy is pushed more by starry-eyed dreamers who, if they or their country do benefit inordinately from a prescription to a country where their interests may stand to gain, have managed to convince themselves that their success is the success of the country in which they are doing business, that they are part of a splendid spiral of "growth". To the extent these prescriptions resulted in economic disaster, can they even perceive that? Or won't they have internalized a narrative that would explain the economic disaster as a product of not following the prescription closely enough?

I think its easy to fall into the idea that others can see the horrible problems you are studying so deeply - the evidence is here, so clearly they must see that too - and therefore these horrible outcomes are their goal after all!

But I happen to think the real world is far scarier with *less* evil people doing evil deeds - that in fact maybe its far scarier to contemplate a world where evil people are actually good people trying to do good things, caught up in a narrative framework that disconnects them completely from their involvement in and their appreciation of horrible outcomes connected to their own policies.

I think in large strokes Klein is right, but loses some of her potential potency when she falls prey to imagining the worst motives. At least for me, sometimes this can have her material stray into the polemical - and for the sake of accuracy I dock her some points.

 

[Praktik]

Thinking about the "Shock Doctrine" at the highest, most abstract level - you can also see this as an "anti-conspiracy theory" type argument in that the whole work is predicated on the *opportunism* of our governments and corporate interests.

This goes against the kind of fate-based, pre-ordained world that is run by the NWO so tightly that 9/11 needed to be planned out to the smallest detail, so they could have their war in Iraq. Just try making a CTer realize the War in Iraq was an outcome that would be true in both their CT-worldview and ALSO in an "opportunistic" model and you'll see what I'm getting at.

The whole thesis is something the more crude/base-level CTs won't accept - governments aren't "opportunistic" because everything is planned so it works out in their favour...

 

[Random]

So to summarise the evil IMF plan:
1. Give a country millions of dollars in loans.
2. Collapse the economy, leaving it "in ruins" and so unable to pay back the loan.
3. ?
4. Profit.

The evil plan is not really to leave the country "in ruins". The goal is to leave the country with a bunch of contracts and policies that they never would have accepted if there was not an immediate emergency. Leasing public mineral rights for a fraction of their value to private companies, loosening environmental and labor regulations, free-trade agreements which place corporate profit over government policy, etc.

The quick infusion of IMF cash gets the needy country through its short-term problems, but they then find themselves locked into long-term deals that bleed them dry for decades. It's a payday loan scam on the international level.

 

[Brainster]

Klein's a classic nutcase; back in 2007 she claimed that the Bush Administration was laying the foundation for fascism in America. Her argument that there were 10 fundamental steps to fascism and Bush had accomplished all of them.

All, it would seem except for the 11th; don't let the other guys take power. Klein got lots of publicity (as did Perkins) for her book; nobody seems interested in pointing out that she got the future parts wrong.

 

[Brainster]

The evil plan is not really to leave the country "in ruins". The goal is to leave the country with a bunch of contracts and policies that they never would have accepted if there was not an immediate emergency. Leasing public mineral rights for a fraction of their value to private companies, loosening environmental and labor regulations, free-trade agreements which place corporate profit over government policy, etc.

The quick infusion of IMF cash gets the needy country through its short-term problems, but they then find themselves locked into long-term deals that bleed them dry for decades. It's a payday loan scam on the international level.

Yes, it's so easy because these countries are all run by buffoons. Muwahahahaha!