Disaster capitalism

orchestrated raids on
the public sphere in
the wake of
catastrophic events,
combined with the
treatment of disasters
as exciting market
opportunities
e.g. New Orleans
Charter schools, Sri
Lanka beaches

First Doctor
Shock
Ewen Cameron
psychiatrist who
worked for CIA on
mind control program
later called MKUltra
Donald Hebb
psychiatrist had a
theory for
interrogation methods
of communists

The Other Doctor Shock

Milton Friedman American economist,
taught at the
University of Chicago
Nobel prize in
economic sciences
ReputableMilton
Friedman Day, Fortune
Magazine, Freedom
Man

Economic shock
treatmant
"only a crisisactual or
perceivedproduces real
change. When that crisis
occurs, the actions that
are taken depend on the
ideas that are lying
around. That, I believe, is
our basic function: to
develop alternatives to
existing policies, to keep
them alive and available
until the politically
impossible becomes

The First Test

General Augusto Pinochet
Chile
Military coup, President
Allende killed
tax cuts, free trade,
privatized services, cuts
to social spending and
deregulation
torture treatmant for
those who resisted
Brazil and Indonesia
(regime change)

Latin American shock

economics

Uruguay military
coup
Argentina - junta
seized
power from Isabel
Pern
Poverment and
terror: isolation
chamber was called
the capucha (the

Tatcherism
Because strick economic
measures couldnt pass so
easy in democracy there
was a need for natural
shock such as war
Thatcher used Falklands
War to destroy the biggest
union of miners so that she
can carry out chicago
school ideology
Privatization: steel industry,
water, electricity, gas,
telephones, airlines, oil....

Bolivia
part of the democratic
wave sweeping the
developing world
Big debt
War zone and economic
meltdown
chicago school plan:
elimination of food
subsidies, the canceling of
almost all price controls
and a 300 percent hike in
the price of oil

Some more shock therapies

Poland - unity
Solidarity problems
shock therapy
China - prodemocracy
movement state of
emergency torture
and massacre
Russia
South Africa

USA
Rumsfeld defence
secretary
Bush privatization: water
and electricity to highway
management and garbage
collection
also: the military, police,
fire departments, prisons,
border control...
9/11 showed problems of
privatization
Bushs (completely) New
Deal
A Market for Terrorism

Erasing Iraq
Terrorist (The invasion of
Iraq was sold to the
public on the basis of
fear of weapons of mass
destruction)
War radical economic
shock therapy: mass
privatization, complete
free trade, a 15 percent
flat tax, a dramatically
downsized government
+ torture

Conclusion
Friedman = Cameron
By 2006, key players
from each camp were
either in jail or up on
charges

Memory, both
individual and
collective, turns out
to be the greatest
shock absorber of
all.