Tonight I went to a talk by Naomi Klein, columnist for The Nation and author of the recent bestseller, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. The book is a excellent antidote the current preoccupation with market fundamentalism and doctrines of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Von Hayek.
The book is a great critique of the Commanding Heights, an intriguing book about globalization and the move from governments, but one that falls short of a penetrating analysis. It is an interesting travelogue of how different countries overcame the legacies of colonialization and communism, with great personalities, and an optimistic view of the structural readjustments undertaken by many countries. The impact of privatization for example. I plan to compare the two in one of my classes.
I've not bought into Klein's perspective entirely, but her warnings about the use of crisis to implement radical economic changes are very useful in a time when we are debating building more nuclear power plants and drilling offshore many of America's most beautiful beaches.
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