The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

by Naomi Klein

  13. Corporación Latinobarómetro, Latinobarómetro Report 2006, www.latinobarometro.org.

  14. Susan George and Erik Wesselius, “Why French and Dutch Citizens Are Saying NO,” Transnational Institute, May 21, 2005, www.tni.org.

  15. Lou Dobbs, CNN: Lou Dobbs Tonight, April 14, 2005.

  16. Martin Arnold, “Polish Plumber Symbolic of all French Fear about Constitution,” Financial Times (London), May 28, 2005.

  17. Andrew Curry, “The Case Against Poland’s New President,” New Republic, November 17, 2005; Fred Halliday, “Warsaw’s Populist Twins,” openDemocracy, September 1, 2006, www.opendemocracy.net; Ian Traynor, “After Communism: Ambitious, Eccentric—Polish Twins Prescribe a Dose of Harsh Reality,” Guardian (London), September 1, 2006. FOOTNOTE: Ken Livingstone, “Facing Phobias,” Guardian (London), March 2, 2007.

  18. Perry Anderson, “Russia’s Managed Democracy,” London Review of Books, January 25, 2007.

  19. Vladimir Radyuhin, “Racial Tension on the Rise in Russia,” The Hindu, September 16, 2006; Amnesty International, Russian Federation: Violent Racism Out of Control, May 4, 2006, www.amnesty.org.

  20. Helen Womack, “No Hiding Place for Scared Foreigners in Racist Russia,” Sydney Morning Herald, May 6, 2006.

  21. Henry A. Kissinger, Memorandum to the President, Subject: NSC Meeting, November 6—Chile, November 5, 1970, declassified, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv.

  22. Jack Chang, “Fear of Privatization Gives Brazilian President a Lead in Runoff,” Knight Ridder, October 26, 2006; Hector Tobar, “Nicaragua Sees Red Over Blackouts,” Los Angeles Times, October 30, 2006.

  23. Nikolas Kozloff, “The Rise of Rafael Correa,” CounterPunch, November 26, 2007; Simon Romero, “Leftist Candidate in Ecuador Is Ahead in Vote, Exit Polls Show,” New York Times, November 27, 2006.

  24. “Argentine President Marks Third Year in Office with Campaign-Style Rally,” BBC Monitoring International Reports, May 26, 2006.

  25. Dan Keane, “South American Leaders Dream of Integration, Continental Parliament,” Associated Press, December 9, 2006.

  26. Duncan Campbell, “Argentina and Uruguay Shun US Military Academy,” Guardian (London), April 6, 2006; “Costa Rica Quits US Training at Ex-School of the Americas,” Agence France-Press, May 19, 2007.

  27. Roger Burbach, “Ecuador’s Government Cautiously Takes Its First Steps,” NACLA News, February 19, 2007, www.nacla.org.

  28. Chris Kraul, “Big Cooperative Push in Venezuela,” Los Angeles Times, August 21, 2006.

  29. Emir Sader, “Latin American Dossier: Free Trade in Reciprocity,” Le Monde Diplomatique, February 2006.

  30. George W. Bush, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, March 2006, page 30, www.whitehouse.gov; interview with Stanley Fischer conducted May 9, 2001, for Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, www.pbs.org.

  31. Jorge Rueda, “Chavez Says Venezuela Will Pull out of the IMF, World Bank,” Associated Press, May 1, 2007; Fiona Ortiz, “Argentina’s Kirchner Says No New IMF Program,” Reuters, March 1, 2007; Christopher Swann, Bloomberg News, “Hugo Chávez Exploits Oil Wealth to Push IMF Aside,” International Herald Tribune (Paris), March 1, 2007.

  32. Ibid.; “Ecuador Expels World Bank Representative,” Agence France-Press, April 27, 2007; Reuters, “Latin Leftists Mull Quitting World Bank Arbitrator,” Washington Post, April 29, 2007; Eoin Callan and Krishna Guha, “Scandal Threatens World Bank’s Role,” Financial Times (London), April 23, 2007.

  33. Michael Wines, “Shantytown Dwellers in South Africa Protest the Sluggish Pace of Change,” New York Times, December 25, 2005; Brendan Smith et al., “China’s Emerging Labor Movement,” Commondreams.org, October 5, 2006, www.commondreams.org. FOOTNOTE: Ibid.

  34. Jean Baudrillard, Power Inferno (Paris: Galilée, 2002), 83.

  35. Central Intelligence Agency, Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual—1983, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv.

  36. Andrew England, “Siniora Flies to Paris as Lebanon Protests Called Off,” Financial Times (London), January 23, 2007; Kim Ghattas, “Pressure Builds for Lebanon Reform,” BBC News, January 22, 2007; Lysandra Ohrstrom, “Reconstruction Chief Says He’s Stepping Down,” Daily Star (Beirut), August 24, 2006.

  37. Helene Cooper, “Aid Conference Raises $7.6 Billion for Lebanese Government,” New York Times, January 26, 2007; Osama Habib, “Siniora Unveils Reform Plan Aimed at Impressing Paris III Donors,” Daily Star (Beirut), January 3, 2007; Osama Habib, “Plans for Telecom Sale Move Ahead,” Daily Star (Beirut), September 30, 2006.

  38. Mohamad Bazzi, “People’s Revolt in Lebanon,” The Nation, January 8, 2007; Trish Schuh, “On the Edge of Civil War: The Cedar Revolution Goes South,” CounterPunch, January 23, 2007, www.counterpunch.org.

  39. Mary Hennock, “Lebanon’s Economic Champion,” BBC News, February 14, 2005; Randy Gragg, “Beirut,” Metropolis, November 1995, pages 21, 26; “A Bombed-Out Beirut Is Being Born Again—Fitfully,” Architectural Record 188, no. 4 (April 2000).

  40. Bazzi, “People’s Revolt in Lebanon.”

  41. Ana Nogueira and Saseen Kawzally, “Lebanon Rebuilds (Again),” Indypendent, August 31, 2006, www.indypendent.org; Kambiz Foroohar, “Hezbollah, with $100 Bills, Struggles to Repair Lebanon Damage,” Bloomberg News, September 28, 2006; Omayma Abdel-Latif, “Rising From the Ashes,” Al-Ahram Weekly, August 31, 2006.

  42. David Frum, “Counterfeit News,” National Post (Toronto), August 26, 2006.

  43. “Spain’s Aznar Rules Out Talks with Basque Group ETA,” Associated Press, March 11, 2004.

  44. Elaine Sciolino, “In Spain’s Vote, a Shock from Democracy (and the Past),” New York Times, March 21, 2004.

  45. Santisuda Ekachai, “This Land Is Our Land,” Bangkok Post, March 2, 2005.

  46. Tom Kerr, Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, “New Orleans Visits Asian Tsunami Areas—September 9–17, 2006,” www.achr.net.

  47. Ibid.

  48. Kerr, “People’s Leadership in Disaster Recovery: Rights, Resilience and Empowerment.”

  49. Kerr, “New Orleans Visits Asian Tsunami Areas.”

  50. Richard A. Webster, “N.O. Survivors Learn Lessons from Tsunami Rebuilders,” New Orleans Business, November 13, 2006.

  51. Residents of Public Housing, “Public Housing Residents Take Back Their Homes,” press release, February 11, 2007, www.peoplesorganizing.org.

  52. Quote from Joseph Recasner. Steve Ritea, “The Dream Team,” Times-Picayune (New Orleans), August 1, 2006.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I think there may be some literary rule against dedicating two books to the same person. I need to break that rule for this book. This project would simply not have been physically, intellectually or emotionally possible without my husband, Avi Lewis. He is my collaborator in all things: editor, travel partner (to Sri Lanka, South Africa, New Orleans), life enhancer. We did this together.

  The task would also have defeated me without the extraordinary work of my research assistant, Debra Levy. Debra gave her life over to this book for three years, pausing only to have a child. Her dazzling research skills have left their mark on every page. She unearthed new and exciting information, managed and organized unwieldy sources, conducted several interviews, then fact-checked the entire manuscript. I am so unspeakably grateful to have been joined at every stage by such a dedicated and talented colleague. Debra extends her love and appreciation to Kyle Yamada and Ari Yamada-Levy, as do I.

  Two editors, working in an unusually collaborative and rewarding editorial relationship, shaped this manuscript in ways too profound to describe: Frances Coady for Metropolitan Books and Louise Dennys at Knopf Canada. Frances and Louise, who are also my close friends and mentors, pushed me to take the thesis into entirely new areas and granted me the months of necessary time to follow through on their rigorous challenges. Louise has been my faithful editor and fierce defender since No Logo, and I remain in awe of her ability to tone me down and toughen me up simultaneously. When I handed i
n the revised and much expanded draft, Frances restructured and refined it with stunning commitment at every stage. The fact that the publishing world still has space for intellectual titans like these two women gives me hope for the future of books.

  The manuscript was further sharpened thanks to incisive feedback from Helen Conford at Penguin UK, who worked closely with us from the earliest days. Alison Reid’s boundless passion for this project as well as her attentiveness to polishing the text make the title “copy editor” wholly inadequate. I am in her debt.

  My brilliant agent, Amanda Urban, believed in this book when it was supposed to be only about Iraq, and her faith and loyalty grew through each missed deadline and every revised and expanded outline. She also happens to have the sharpest, coolest team going: Margaret Halton, Kate Jones, Elizabeth Iveson, Daisy Meyrick, Karolina Sutton and Liz Farrell. Surrounded by the women of ICM Books, one feels ready for anything. We are all grateful for the groundwork laid by Nicole Winstanley and Bruce Westwood.

  Jackie Joiner is the office manager for Klein Lewis Productions. For two years she acted as human shield, keeping the world at bay so I could focus. Then, when the draft was complete, Jackie set us all in motion like a magnificent orchestra conductor. To say more about Jackie’s daily feats of creative administration would invite envy, so I will leave it there.

  The ICM team found perfect publishing homes for this book around the world, thereby giving me the luxury to put together an international team of researchers and fact-checkers, without whom Debra and I could never have completed a project of this scope. Each researcher took on crucial pieces of the puzzle, drawing on his or her own specialized skills and areas of expertise.

  My dear friend Andréa Schmidt, with whom I travelled in Iraq, was a constant intellectual companion, not just supplying me with fat binders of hyperorganized readings on the grimmest of subjects but educating me and pushing me to go further and deeper into the horror. The sections on torture in particular are very much the product of our never-ending conversation. She also read drafts of the manuscript and gave me some of the most important feedback.

  Aaron Maté was my primary researcher in 2003–05, when my journalism focused almost exclusively on Iraq’s economic transformation. It was a blessing to work with Aaron, a great intellect and terrific journalist. Aaron’s imprint is unmistakable in the chapters on Iraq, as well as on Israel/Palestine.

  Fernando Rouaux and Shana Yael Shubs, both up-and-coming Latin American studies scholars, uncovered a largely unexplored cache of economic writings on the interrelationship between crisis and neoliberal reforms. It was this material that revealed to me the centrality of the shock doctrine at the highest reaches of the international financial institutions. Fernando conducted several background interviews for me in Buenos Aires, and Shana translated dozens of documents and articles from Spanish to English. They also rigorously fact-checked the chapters of the book on Argentina.

  The wonderful Amanda Alexander was my primary researcher on the South Africa chapter, fact-finding, fact-checking and transcribing interview tapes, along with the enormously helpful Audrey Sasson. Amanda also conducted key research on China’s shock therapy period. Several other researchers joined the team at various points: Bruno Anili, Emily Lodish (particularly on Russia), Hannah Holleman (the Asian financial crisis), Wes Enzinna (including last-minute interviews in Bolivia), Emma Ruby-Sachs, Grace Wu and Nepomuceno Malaluan.

  Debra Levy, a librarian herself, wishes to thank her personal back-office: the patient and resourceful staffs of the University of Oregon libraries, Corvallis-Benton County Public Library and the Eugene Public Library.

  My reporting in the field also relied on many researchers, translators, fixers and friends—too many to mention, but here is a start. In Iraq: Salam Onibi, Linda Albermani and Khalid al-Ansary, one of the best journalists in Baghdad, as well as my friend and fellow traveler Andrew Stern. In South Africa: Patrick Bond, Heinrich Bohmke, Richard Pithouse, Raj Patel and, as always, the brilliant and unstoppable Ashwin Desai. Special thanks to Ben Cashdan and his crew for sharing their interviews with Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and for much else. In New Orleans: Jordan Flaherty, Jacquie Soohen and Buddy and Annie Spell. In Sri Lanka: Kumari and Dileepa Witharana were my and Avi’s spiritual and intellectual guides, not to mention translators. Sarath Fernando, Kath Noble and the rest of the team at MONLAR were our home base and the reason we made the trip in the first place. When I returned to Canada, Stuart Laidlaw transcribed hours of interviews, and Loganathan Sellathurai and Anusha Kathiravelu transcribed and translated from Tamil and Sinhala.

  Boris Kagarlitsky helped with the Russia chapter. Przemyslaw Wielgosz, Marcin Starnawski and Tadeusz Kowalik all spent time educating me about Poland’s transition. Marcela Oliviera linked me up with participants in Bolivia anti–shock therapy movements. Tom Kerr at the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights was our bridge to tsunami reconstruction in Thailand.

  The genesis of this book was a year spent living in Argentina, where a group of newfound friends taught me about the bloody roots of the Chicago School project, often by sharing their own wrenching stories and family histories. Those patient teachers are, among others, Marta Dillon, Claudia Acuña, Sergio Ciancaglini, Nora Strejilevich, Silvia Delfino, Ezequiel Adamovsky, Sebastian Hacher, Cecilia Sainz, Julian A. Massaldi-Fuchs, Esteban Magnani, Susana Guichal and Tomás Bril Mascarenhas. They changed the way I saw the world. The analysis of torture that appears in this book was shaped by dozens of interviews conducted with people who experienced prison abuse themselves, and also by those who have dedicated their lives to counseling survivors. I want in particular to thank Federico Allodi and Miralinda Friere, both founders of the Canadian Centre for the Victims of Torture, as well as Shokoufeh Sakhi, Carmen Sillato and Juan Miranda.

  Some of the people closest to me are writers specializing in themes touched on in this book, and several of them read drafts of the manuscript and spent hours talking through ideas. Kyo Maclear was always slipping me books and forwarding articles, and her feedback on the first draft informed my understanding of the layering of colonialism; Seumas Milne, who turned The Guardian’s op-ed page into a truly global debating forum, was my tutor on the Thatcher years and my political counsel on much else; Michael Hardt sent me back to the drawing board and put up with my emergent Keynesianism; Betsy Reed, my editor at The Nation, helped me frame the thesis and edited my first article on disaster capitalism, as well as dozens of columns; the fearless Jeremy Scahill read early chapters and swapped panic and research about the state of war (and life) privatization; Katharine Viner was the light at the end of the tunnel and is making The Guardian the launch pad for this book. Most of all, these dear friends, who also happen to be colleagues, kept me company and inspired me during years of lonely writing.

  I am not an economist, but my brother, Seth Klein, director of the indispensable British Columbia Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, is my sector weapon. He put up with calls at odd hours requesting impromptu tutorials in monetarist theory and carefully edited the first draft, pushing me and protecting me as best he could. Ricardo Grinspun, a brilliant economist specializing in Latin America at York University (cited in the text), was kind enough to read the manuscript and provide important specialized feedback. So did Stephen McBride, director of the Centre for Global Political Economy at Simon Fraser University. I am honored that both took time out of their overloaded schedules to accept another student, and neither should be held responsible for any errors on my part.

  My parents, Bonnie and Michael Klein, gave me terrific feedback on drafts and took excellent care of me when I moved to their neck of the woods for the writing. Both have passionately protected the idea of a public sphere outside the market for their entire lives, Michael in health care and Bonnie in the arts. My hero of a mother-in-law, Michele Landsberg, read the manuscript and cheered me on, as only she can. The insistence of my father-in-law, Stephen Lewis, on placing the AIDS pandemic firmly wi
thin the context of free-market fundamentalism emboldened me to write this book.

  Many other stellar publishers and their teams have thrown their support behind this project, including Brad Martin at Random House of Canada, John Sterling at Henry Holt and Sara Bershtel at Metropolitan in New York, Stefan McGrath and the creative and intelligent team at Penguin UK, Peter Sillem at S. Fischer Verlag, Carlo Brioschi at Rizzoli, Erik Visser at De Geus, Claudia Casanova at Paidós, Jan-Erik Petterson at Ordfront, Ingeri Engelstad at Oktober, Roman Kozyrev at Dobraya Kniga, Marie-Catherine Vacher at Actes Sud and Lise Bergevin and everyone at Leméac.

  All of us owe a huge debt to the unflappable Adrienne Phillips, acting managing editor at Knopf Canada. Not only did she keep this unwieldy team on track but, along with Margaret Halton and Jackie Joiner, she made it possible for the book to come out in seven languages simultaneously, something of a publishing miracle. I am also enormously grateful to Lisa Fyfe for her powerful jacket design, to Doris Cowan for her careful proofreading and to Beate Schwirtlich for her expert typesetting. Barney Gilmore is, once again, the master indexer. Mark A. Fowler is the very best kind of libel lawyer and was a pleasure to argue with. I also thank Sharon Klein, Tara Kennedy, Maggie Richards, Preena Gadher and Rosie Glaisher, as well as all the translators who will bring this text to readers around the world.