The bestselling author of No Logo shows how the global free market has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq In her groundbreaking reporting over the past few years, Naomi Klein introduced the term disaster capitalism. Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic shock treatment, losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman s free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement s peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq. At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. Klein argues that by capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years. From Publishers Weekly The neo-liberal economic policies—privatization, free trade, slashed social spending—that the Chicago School and the economist Milton Friedman have foisted on the world are catastrophic in two senses, argues this vigorous polemic. Because their results are disastrous—depressions, mass poverty, private corporations looting public wealth, by the author's accounting—their means must be cataclysmic, dependent on political upheavals and natural disasters as coercive pretexts for free-market reforms the public would normally reject. Journalist Klein (No Logo) chronicles decades of such disasters, including the Chicago School makeovers launched by South American coups; the corrupt sale of Russia's state economy to oligarchs following the collapse of the Soviet Union; the privatization of New Orleans's public schools after Katrina; and the seizure of wrecked fishing villages by resort developers after the Asian tsunami. Klein's economic and political analyses are not always meticulous. Likening free-market shock therapies to electroshock torture, she conflates every misdeed of right-wing dictatorships with their economic programs and paints a too simplistic picture of the Iraq conflict as a struggle over American-imposed neo-liberalism. Still, much of her critique hits home, as she demonstrates how free-market ideologues welcome, and provoke, the collapse of other people's economies. The result is a powerful populist indictment of economic orthodoxy.

誰在大炮上吃魚子醬﹖ 解構三十五年來自由市場席捲全球的神話 美國中情局曾資助一項駭人的心理實驗，意圖透過各種手段將病人固有的人格與記憶徹底清除，變成一張完全空白的白紙，好讓醫生強行重建全新的人格。然而這樣的震撼療法不但沒有帶來任何好處，反而幾乎毀掉遭此待遇的人。 娜歐蜜．克萊恩以此為比喻，批判傅利曼及芝加哥學派領軍的自由市場經濟狂熱信徒，其手段與目的就如同上述心理實驗。這些人近四十年來趁著天災人禍的「大好機會」，在世界各地發動經濟震撼治療，不論是智利政變、蘇聯解體、亞洲金融風暴，還是9/11恐怖攻擊、伊拉克戰爭、南亞海嘯、卡崔娜颶風，皆成為他們推動「震撼主義」的絕佳舞臺。 自由市場鼓吹者不斷散播的迷思之一，是經濟開放可以促成政治民主，然而克萊恩細究數十年來全球各地的狀況，實情卻是市場經濟常不惜鎮壓民主。以激烈手段徹底實行自由市場及私有化政策，帶來的不是「短期陣痛」後富裕的新世界，而是廣大民眾的悲慘處境。 幸而我們並非總是用退化來因應震撼，克萊恩也發現，某些深受「震撼主義」之苦的地區，草根的社區力量正逐漸覺醒。源自基層人民的力量開始相互連結，以極具創意和勇氣的民主方式，取回他們被剝奪的事物。在下一次危機與震撼來臨之前，他們已經做好準備。