Naomi Klein Despises Capitalism
December 2, 2007 by Michael van der Galiën
Crooks and Liars has a video up of Naomi Klein. She just wrote a book called “Disaster Capitalism.” In it she basically tries to convince the reader that capitalism is bad. Nicole Belle agrees with Klein and wants everyone to read it.
I haven’t read the book and I don’t intend to do so either. Naomi Klein is a socialist anti-globalization activist. For those who haven’t noticed yet: socialism has proven to be a disaster. As such, whenever you think about economics and want to get someone’s advise, a socialist is the last person you should turn to. Better yet: even if there’s no one available for advise other than the socialist and anti-globalist, then ask no one.
Having said that, it’s important to see who listens to people like Klein and who doesn’t. Klein and people like her are blind. All the evidence indicates that globalization is actually good for everyone. Every now and then Klein and people like her talk about Africa, how globalization is destroying Africa. Funny enough Africans disagree. They don’t want less globalization, they want more globalization. They want Western countries to open their border for their agricultural products. And they’re right.
Note to Naomi: that’s globalization in action.
India: India is becoming richer and richer. It’s economy continues to grow. Less people are poor now than they were a couple of years ago. Why? Globalization.
These people, anti-globalization activists and anti-capitalists, will destroy the economy of every country they control.
Of course, they don’t care about poverty and the poor, they care about their socialist agenda - justice to them means that everyone should be equally poor. That’s what they’re trying to do, and that’s what their policies will accomplish. Naomi Klein isn’t an exception to that rule.
It’s interesting to see, though, that Nicole Belle (since she supports Klein) once again proves that American liberals are many things, but liberal isn’t one of them. Liberalism - true liberalism - celebrates the free market. For the liberal, the individual is more important than the group. For Belle and the American liberal movement, however, that’s not so. They aren’t liberals, they’re socialists. Moderate socialists, perhaps, but socialists nonetheless.
In other words: Klein and Belle remind me why European liberals and conservatives have to hope that American liberals will never truly come to power. Obama and Clinton are ok, but the hard-left - represented in American politics by people like Kucinich - is anti-economic freedom.
Instead of attacking economic freedom and capitalism, perhaps Naomi and her merry bunch should apologize for the disaster their co-ideologues brought on the world (Soviet Union, Western Germany, North Korea, etc.). We shouldn’t be talking about how evil capitalism is, they shouldn’t open the offense, they should be in defense mode since they’re the ones who truly brought disaster and poverty on millions of people.
Note: just to prevent people from falling all over themselves criticizing me / this post; I’m not talking about all liberals, I’m talking about far-left kind, as embodied in people like Klein, Kucinich, the anti-globalization movement, etc.
A true student/intellectual will read the opposition to gain an understanding of how they think. Good Lefties read Friedman and Hayek, Righties read Marx and Chomsky, but don’t have to agree with anything.
Klein won’t be appearing on Oprah and hawking her book there. Her appearance on Olberman fizzled IMO.
Rudi: I’m too busy to read crap.
Did you even watch the C&L video clip? I even thought her Bush & 9-11 were a stretch. I will agree she’s a Lefty, more Chomsky than Krugman. Her agruments carry some water in Chile and Eastern Europe, but post 9-11 USA, she’s Moonbat insane.
I did watch the clip. What I find most disturbing about this woman is that many people actually listen to what she has to say. This doesn’t mean that she’s wrong about everything, but she’s like a broken clock.
I think that the post - I read it again - read as if I’m quite aggressive, but I actually held back tremendously while writing it.
For those who haven’t noticed yet: socialism has proven to be a disaster.
admin: let’s stop re-fighting blogwars from other sites here
I’m reading Simon Sebag Montefiori’s Young Stalin, a book as good as his In the Court of the Red Tsar. What is stunning, coming off just reading Looking for Hitler, Ron Rosenbaum’s outstanding study of that tyrant’s youth, are the similarities between the two young dictators in the making.
Both were beaten by dysfunctional fathers, had strong loving maternal support, were very good artists, [though both Stalin's poetry and Hitler's pictures suffered from being strangely devoid of human subjects], went to seminary schools and then bolted to socialism [which Hitler rejected after a Bolshevik putsch attempt in Munich at the end of 1919], and were deformed at birth [webbed feet for Stalin, one testicle for Hitler].
On another thread, Democrats’ admission of lack of mental health is noted in a Gallup poll. Perhaps the reason for a lot of self-revulsion on the left could derive from infatuation with a revolt from authority, and setting oneself up in a narcissistic personality cult as did the dictators above?
Could it be?
Inquiring minds want to know!
“On another thread, Democrats’ admission of lack of mental health is noted in a Gallup poll. Perhaps the reason for a lot of self-revulsion on the left could derive from infatuation with a revolt from authority, and setting oneself up in a narcissistic personality cult as did the dictators above?
Could it be?
Inquiring minds want to know!”
Then people inquire first, provided that there is a mind capable of genuine inquie to inquire with in the first place.
Klein is right to point out things like the privatization rush of oceanside real estate after the Tsunami, or the illegal things done with and to the Iraqi economy, but her “shock therapy” analogy is very strained and she tries to use the sins done by some capitalists (with the sanction of useful idiots like Milton Friedman) in a transitive manner without justifying this next step. All in all, adequate research and a good hint of what to look out for and from which people in order to ensure a fair and moral kind of capitalism, but the direction and argumentative structure of the book is not persuasive at all.
“Then people inquire first, provided that there is a mind capable of genuine inquie…”
Inquiry. Tarnation.
she tries to use the sins done by some capitalists (with the sanction of useful idiots like Milton Friedman) is a perfect example of an unhappy leftist projecting his own status onto Milton Friedman. Even Lenin would not have called MF that, but of course, the left is now in a downward spiral except in Venezuela.
Naomi Klein, is not against capitalism, she is against “corrupt capitalism.” She uses the term “the rise of [disaster] capitalism”precisely because she is talking about the misuse of capitalism by taking advantage of ‘disasters’, being environmental disasters, economic disasters, any kind of disasters. The name of the book again is: “The Shock Doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism.” The Shock Doctrine referes to the kind of shocks certain governments use to their advantage to bring about a disorientation of the individual and capitalize on it for the benefit of the ones in power and not the country and it’s people. Usually just for the benefit of an elite, that is why is a ‘disaster’ at both levels, and it’s found in countries that are not democratic, or Democratic Republics, whatever term you would like to use, right or left, but in short, these governments application is secretive, subversive and to the benefit of a very very few, the elite. She uses the example of Pinochet, in Chile, where his economic policies were targeted to get rid of the middle class by using the shock of a coup d’etat, with fighting jets and death squads in order to terrify the population; another example she goes into great detail is the dismantling of public housing in New Oleans and replacing them with private luxury apartments; the public shools and hospitals, will never be reopened. Thanks to Milton Friedman’s idea, and all the other ’shock therapies” induced in communist and right wing dictatorships alike. She does not put them any above the other, so she can’t be in favor of one or the other. She thinks 911 was also used and still is used as a ’shock therapy” to dismantle our civil liberties, under the excuse of “national security.” Naomi Wolf, the other Naomi, also talks about this in her book : The Death of America: warning to a young patriot” Where she studied all the dictatorships in history and she found that there are 10 steps they always follow, and our pesent administration has followed all ten already, including using sometimes the same words Hitler and Mussolini used in their presidential directives and speaches. Spooky, isn’t it? We are not accustumed to this isn this country, are we? It happened in those countries, and it can happen here, specially when our citizens don’t even know civics! And are pasted to the TV watching Dancing with the Stars and “Reality TV.”
I always wonder why are people always confusing socialism with communism? Also, North Korea is not democratic, it’s a dictatorship of the worst kind. Remember, there are countries with forms of governments that are ‘democratic socialists” or “social democrats.” Look at Sweden, or Denmark, for example. And they are doing better than we are.
Naomi Klein is not a lefty or a communist, just because the corporate media and FOX news want you think that, doesn’t make it so.
Also, how can someone criticize a book without reading it first, just because of the sound bites and a short video?
Venezuela’s Chavez, is a communist (meaning, not democratic), wanting to be called a socialist but he is not since he is not democratic (it just sound more sophisticated for him, and IT IS too sophisticated for him, he is a Castro clone instead). Again, he is –not democratic–, he is a dictator and a communist - perhaps this will help you in clarifying the differences. There are and have been dictatorships from the right and from the left. Europe went through both, dictators from the left and dictators from the right acting at the same time in history. that is why is not a surpised that the form of government which is democratic and also socialist (not communist) was formed there…Our current administration with it’s abuse of executive power, where Bush uses signing statements that say he doesn’t need to follow the law he has just signed, cronyism, politization of the Justice Department, rigging of elections, threats, the accusations of being a traitor if you don’t follow their philosophy or cult, the wiretapping without warrants which started two days after the President took power in 2000 (not after 911), extreme secrecy, manipulation of the media, the most powerful vice-president in our history (it’s not in our constitution that he should be); the setting up of fake press conferences, like the other day’s FEMA fake conference (mind you that FEMA works under the supervision of Homeland Security since a little after 911) and is consider now a branch of it, and doesn’t have independent jurisdiction — makes this administration with very strong characteristic of a — non democratic government–.
So, as you see, there is a difference between corrupt capitalism — which is what we are having here in the US now, and a healthy responsible capitalism — that we lost.
Socialism has not proven to be a disaster - on the contrary. Europe is going through a change because of it’s competition with the US, China, and the problem with the oil…etc.. There is no other civilized country that has such a high rate of poverty and of infant mortality, and lack of social programs as the US. The US economy is hanging on a very thing thread.
Let me remind you that the difference between a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY and a FIRST WORLD COUNTRY is precisely the rate of poverty and the lack of social cushions, infant mortality rate, even the literacy rate and quality of education for the poor (usually). In all these, the US fares just like a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY,and now we are also beligerant, irrational, diminishing our civil liberties by using fear and control of the masses. The UN has just declared tasing as a form of torture — so that you know — (there has been close to 280 deaths due to the use of tasers in the US alone); and with a plan to privatize everything and make a copy cat of Latin American dictatorships, which were our ‘testing ground.” Specially our copying of Chile’s Pinochet economic and political measurements, by creating a system of the super-extra wealthy owners of mega corporations, the shrinking of the middle class, the domination of the press, and the increasing poor with less and less power and opportunities (they are not only the minority blacks and latinos). America is also becoming more and more dependent on foreign money, has enourmous domestic and foreign trade deficits, the dollar value is declining, less and less foreign companies want to invest here, and it can not subsist on it’s own production. We can officially say we are now owned by China, since we owe them so much money and keep borrowing from them,…etc, etc…We keep cutting in education, health care, and then giving the money for military private contractors (which over charge us) while our military suffers and is crippled (there are now about 57,000 maimed or burned. The ones with brain injury, I read are not even counted) they are without the proper armors and not to say, a clear objective, and proper health care. We keep selling our country to the mega corporations who are owning even the media and the news are no longer reported unless favors their agenda. We say we are ‘bringing democracy’ to the rest of the world, but we are curtailing it in ours.
When World World II, we even had German submarines right in our coasts of New York…and our president then, didn’t put us in a state of fear, on the contrary — we felt very secure and able to handle ANYTHING and we were very united. We didn’t have color coding to tell us how afraid we should be that day, nor Spain does that to it’s citizens, nor they are wiretapped. Do you think a terrorist would communicate by email? Spain has been fighting with terrorism for a long long time, about 45 years, and has made very strong progress. And the day their president lied in their face (unlike us) they threw them out — reported differently in our country’s media, by the way. They DID NOT CARE WHO THE TERRRORIST WOULD LIKE THEM TO ELECT OR NOT, NOR WHAT THEY WOULD THINK, THEY ONLY CARED FOR WHAT WAS BEST FOR THEIR COUNTRY, AND THEY WOULD NOT STAND ONE MORE LIE FROM THE THEN PRESIDENT AZNAR. So they voted him out in a heart bit. Done with it!
Not to say, I’m sorry to break this to you, but you should know, that if you were to look at the curriculum of high schools all over the world, you might scratch your heads wondering how come we are so stupid, that we have to have an imbalance system of education where we have “electives” in school, instead of everybody having to pass with good grades (real grades — not lies or inflated) all subjects that most Americans have never even touched in school and are so useful not only to be able to just maintain an intelligent conversation with the rest of world, but to train our brains to be able to reason with sophistication, able to understand subtleties and to think. Do you know that all students in foreign countries have to pass?
-Two years of Psychology
-Several years of Chemistry (about 4 to 5)
-Several years of Physics (about 4 to 5)
-Several years of math, actually every year.
-History of Art, so that one could appreciate at least the columns of antiquity of the temples in Greece, and Italy, which most Americans don’t know about and appreciate artistic expression and not consider a nude statue a perversion like Ashcroft does.
-Many years of World History(start in primary school and take again more advanced in high school), there is no college in most countries. Students go straight to the Universities, because High School is so complete, and there is no need to pay such an incredible amout of money for nothing.
-Economy
-Two years of French with grammar
-Two years of another alternate language (usualy English)with losts of grammar. More grammar than we Americans take in our own country.
-Many years, from primary school to high, of grammar, and composition of their own language. A lot of paper writing, a lot of homework for all clases.
-Another of Literature, including also foreign literature, plus there are always a lot of books to read.
-One year of Philosophy.
-Geography (start from primary school and continue in high school) so that you are able to know where Mexico is, since the majority in America don’t even know this, and geology.
- Civics, so that you know how your government is supposed to work and why. It would be good to know our system is the best in the world, if followed the way the founding fathers intended, and if the citizens are informed. It only works IF THE CITIZENS ARE EDUCATED AND WELL INFORMED.
I might have forgotten some other subjects, but …. that is one reason why Americans are lagging BEHIND from the rest of the world, and by concentrating in “math and science” alone the country won’t make it, because — it takes sophistication of mind to be a good scientist, just one axample, and to be able to be not only well rounded — but to be able to think using both left and right hemispheres, and being able to be more holistic, just like nature is in reality. THIS COUNTRY WON’T BE ABLE TO BE AT THE SAME LEVEL OF EDUCATION UNLESS SCHOOLS STOP THE ‘STUPIDIZATION’ OF THE AMERICAN CITIZENS. It’s very sad because this country has a lot to offer and it IS a great country! How can you check if what your politicians are telling you is true, how can you not be manipulated so easily by what you see on TV or the movies? Where are your facts? How come the TV is not telling you about the laws that have been passed and the investigations that are happening as we speak? Why hide votes in electronic machines that won’t give you a paper trail? Why change the channels CSPAN to only the most expensive rate package? Why getting rid of Habeas Corpus? Why not show to a judge what they have found in their wiretapping? Why is this administratin wanting to protect the companies involved in wiretapping from prosecution, with retroactive immunity if they were not doing anything wrong? How come Ted Kennedy, just for speaking against the war was put on the “no fly list” — is he a terrorist?, or just simply of a “different viewpoint?” Does that make you an antiamerican? How come Naomi Wolf, the other Naomi who wrote “The End of America: Warning to a young patriot” was put also on the list? How come we are following the very same steps to close this society, that other dictators have followed previously? This is Naomi Wolf, whom I’m now talking about, not Naomi Klein. Check it out! Why everybody who doesn’t follow this administration viewpoints and philosophy is considered an “enemy or a traitor”? Isn’t that what happened in Hitler’s germany? Think about these things, I am too a moderate! Check the new bill in the Senate, S. 1959 — what does it reminds you of?
O please. One of the first things socialism ruins is the quality of education. I’m a European. We know because many of us suffered the consequences of this twisted ideology.
“is a perfect example of an unhappy leftist projecting his own status onto Milton Friedman. Even Lenin would not have called MF that, but of course, the left is now in a downward spiral except in Venezuela.”
All I know is that if Friedman had either scepticism towards “his own” camp in the economic spectrum or at least some sense to look into people he praised, endorsed and lent credibility to (especially people that have so much power) he would have refrained from doing what he did. He did, and fits the definition of a useful idiot.
Calling *me* a useful idiot despite my statements on Chavez and his supporters is cheapening this important term by using it as a lame, overstretched cop-out.
I’m starting to think one of your detractors have discovered your e-mail adress and is now posing as a poor caricature.
What Klein does address correctly is the negative consequences of “Shock Therapy” applied to USSR, Eastern Europe, IRAQ and Latin America. Other than a few Eastern European countries, the results of ST resulted in autocrats and Left leaning governments replacing the technocrats who implemented Friedman and Hayek’s new approach.
MvdG - Holland and Western Europe haven’t been TASERED with Shock Therapy.
Michael,
I am too an European, only born here but my parents didn’t stay for long. My parents did live in a dictatorship a real one, and they did teach me how to recognize it. What I see is, there is a group of very young Europeans who are in love with a US that does not exist anymore and believe the economy in the US is strong and are trying to emulate it in Europe. I understand that psychologically is better to avoid reality and hold tight to a dream, just like the Germans did in the 1930’s Germany. They just didn’t want to see, just like so many here now.
Sarkozy should have stayed a while longer in the US to learn a little more. One thing for sure is, that if he would have immigrated to the US instead of France –he wouldn’t have been able to get an education, or be where he is now, or get the healthcare he got — He got it too easy in France, and he doesn’t know it. Yet.
I am not from the ‘left’ — and never will be. I am not a communist. Never will be. It’s really no use talking to people who psychologically only want to avoid reality. It’s so much like Sebastian Haffner explained about what happened in Germany and it’s scary when people don’t want to see when the country needs them the most. By the way, I know of several Germans who have recently left the country. It resembles too much for them that other Germany they said,….they also say there is no freedom of the press here, the education is poor, and the system is ‘unbalanced.’ Just switch channels here when there are questioning someone from the government, and see how each stations, with different journalists, repeat the EXACT SAME QUESTION WITH THE EXACT SAME WORDS AND THE EXACT SAME ATTITUDE. Check it out! do more real life research! If it’s not a script given to them, they must have a heck of a psychic connection between them!
Well good luck! I hope I’m wrong. Good luck with your “unitary executive,” your fake “elections”, your propaganda machine owned by only two mega-corporations, soon to be passed now in Dec. finishing off all the rest of the minority stations trying to survive already (of a different viewpoint), thanks to the FCC (another political-strong-arm of this USSR-like government); the new bill attack on “extreme belief” and “thinking” (the S. 1959), your tasing, your uncontrolled fears, including the non educated fear of the ‘left’, that makes so many Hispanics vote Republican since they are scared to death of the communists and the propaganda machine of the conservatives make them believe left, democrats, and communists are the same thing. They also think that way they will too become millionaires by just being Republicans, even though….. the majority of Reps just don’t want them here. Good luck with your illusory alternative universe, I hope it lasts.
There is lot of fixing to do after this Bush fiasco, I wonder if we ever. The cult behind the curtain is growing, you know, the PNAC agenda, etc….?
PNAC (Project for the New American Century) Check it out too, though part of it went already underground. Maybe all of you just call yourself “moderate” — who knows what that means for you.
“Better yet: even if there’s no one available for advise other than the socialist and anti-globalist, then ask no one.”
Actually, I think the socialist would be the perfect one to ask. You would then know exactly what NOT to do. Simply do the opposite and you can’t fail.
Calling *me* a useful idiot despite my statements on Chavez and his supporters is cheapening this important term by using it as a lame, overstretched cop-out.
Then why call Friedman one? You misuse the term.
Friedman was widely admired by a lot of good Latin American presidents and ministers of economy or finance.
The term is used as a well-meaning man of the left who serves as a dupe for guys like Lenin, who were criminals/terrorists that sought “fellow travelers” to give them cover. I’m reading Richard Pipes’ last book on Lenin, with his secret papers in an archive just opened up in the late ’90s.
Among them were his patents of nobility, which were always TOP SECRET among even the top Communists back in his Comintern days. He was a hereditary noble just like Prince Kropotkin, only Prince K had class and didn’t institute the Gulag program, which Anne Applebaum demonstrates was started by Lenin in the early ’20s.
Lenin was a mass murderer as much as Stalin, only he didn’t have as much time. To stain a good man and great economist like Milton Friedman with the term “useful idiot” certainly demonstrates the level of your understanding of the 20th century—or anything else.
She isn’t wrong, per se, on the corruption that exists, or the violence that governments use. But she gives the impression and basically states that free markets require terror and states of shock.
i listened to Klein on Alternative Radio, speaking on Disaster Capitalism. Of course, the short n sweet of it is this:
When she gave the history and implementation of this ShockDoctrine, she combined Disaster (which is government) with Capitalism. But she never makes the point to disassociate the two. She spoke as though they were one and the same.
Capitalism is a tool, and a great one at that. Which is why we see militarism and ‘corporatist massacres’ go hand-in-hand. And she’s right that “debt is an enforcer of these policies”.
The one concession she did give to the Chicago Boys was that the hyperinflation in Chile did subside, “for a little while”. Other than that, it was all negative. She didn’t take the time to espouse any solutions or say anything positive towards free markets.
But the Chicago Boys are no match for the Austrians.
Let’s see the real free markets of the world.
daveinboca - Are you talking about Chile? I believe they reverse much of the “shock therapy” forced on them by an undemocratic government.
“The term is used as a well-meaning man of the left who serves as a dupe for guys like Lenin, who were criminals/terrorists that sought “fellow travelers” to give them cover. I’m reading Richard Pipes’ last book on Lenin, with his secret papers in an archive just opened up in the late ’90s.”
So the term is only allowed to be used against *left-of-center* *men*?! Are you working as my entertainer now?
“Friedman was widely admired by a lot of good Latin American presidents and ministers of economy or finance. ”
Yeah, beside the point actually.
“Among them were his patents of nobility, which were always TOP SECRET among even the top Communists back in his Comintern days. He was a hereditary noble just like Prince Kropotkin, only Prince K had class and didn’t institute the Gulag program, which Anne Applebaum demonstrates was started by Lenin in the early ’20s.”
I am dazzled by the historical knowledge. And the irrelevance of it.
“Lenin was a mass murderer as much as Stalin, only he didn’t have as much time. To stain a good man and great economist like Milton Friedman with the term “useful idiot” certainly demonstrates the level of your understanding of the 20th century—or anything else.”
Nice try, bub. Friedman should have been more careful, he wasn’t, and his memory must wear the dog’s head.