DISQUS

Naomi Klein isn't a socialist in any genuine sense, and nor is the mid-far left in general. In their view, communism failed and capitalism is failing, and the middle ground, the social democracy, represents the best of both worlds. Point out that America's interventionist economy is already a "middle ground" between socialism and capitalism and has been since the Roosevelt era, and they will likely contend that Reagan, influenced by Friedman's "shock doctrine" philosophy, ushered in a new dark age of laissez-faire that has directly lead to all of our modern day ills.

Boaz's point was a positive one, easily falsifiable were it not true, that "American Capitalism" is a heavily governed form of capitalism. The logical course of action considering that truth could still be anything - more regulation, less regulation, better regulation, or some combination of the three.

The dilemma between regulation and deregulation as some kind of crossroads of ideology is entirely false, not to mention reckless and harmful. I am reminded of the months following 9/11 when the debate was framed as a dilemma between more terrorist attacks and the immediate dismantling of civil liberty.

I wonder if the many counter-examples of highly liberal economies coupled with relatively non-interventionist foreign policies and good humanitarian records mean anything to Klein. She might claim these nations are less "Friedmanite" than America, or perhaps that their transformation from Jekyll to Hyde is more gradual, but Ireland is not exactly a neoconservative empire yet.

Vermando is right. The absence of rigor in Klein's argument matters less to the reactionary left than its consistency with the ridiculous Capitalism-Communism paradigm in which socialism is the rational middle ground. They love that one.

I'de be interested in a Hitler biopic as well, actually.

Oh, and Che was not a murderous fascist. He was a murderous communist.

Spare us the hipster indignation, please.

It takes as much of a tool to get swept up in the counter-hype as it does to the hype, and I see that a lot of you are tools. Tools to fashion, anyway. If only Crash had been a foreign film with worse production values.

By the way, this show looks terrible.

A thorough critique of The Shock Doctrine already exists. It's called "The Klein Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Polemics" by Johan Norberg, and is on the Cato Institute website. It addresses all of what Klein says and reveals much of it to be not only incorrect, but slanderous of Milton Friedman, a great humanitarian and pacifist.

Considering that, Will's post is a very articulate summation of what many market liberals think about Klein.

Talk about a non sequitur, Mike. I guess it seemed like as good a time as any to poison the well.