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Naomi Klein, Allen Lane, 2007, 576 pages, £25.00 (Paperback, Penguin, 2008, £4.49).

This book aroused widespread critical appraisal when it appeared last year. Those on the left were enthusiastic supporters of its views, which reflected considerable anger towards the ‘shock and awe’ tactics used by states and some international organisations to obtain power, influence and financial gains for themselves and their commercial companies. Examples/case histories cited range from South America – eg Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay; to South Africa post-apartheid; to Poland, Russia; to Iraq; to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; and to Sri Lanka after the tsunami; and others. Critics on the right, while not denying the historically-recorded facts or opinions of participants, reserved their less-than-friendly fire for aspects which Klein omits or overlooks which allegedly do not support her thesis.

The book, which assembles and arranges the examples to suggest and contrast similar and repeated capitalist, sometimes monopolistic, practices and policies, may seem largely to discuss a variety of topics – politics, psychology, human behaviour/misbehaviour, aggression, repression, terror. However, underlying all these is a thread which runs through the chapters treating the case histories of each of the selected countries, namely the spread of policies of the Chicago School and its acolytes, disseminating the doctrines of Milton Friedman. These are practised by those currently labelled as ‘neocons’. So the book could be classified as being concerned with economics and its application to business, which are after all the central concerns of our (‘364 economists’ or 600+) readers. A year on, it might behove them consider where they stand in relation to Friedman vs Keynes?

Ulric Spencer

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