Where I'd disagree with you is on your reference to "a widespread deliberate
strategy", which is what Naomi Klein appeared to suggest in her continuous
references to the Chicago School. The Chicago School, inheriting their
doctrine from the Austrian School did espouse free market economics, but ever
so many of the perpetrators of social disasters that led to seizures of
society's assets did not attend the University of Chicago nor is it likely that
they even read Straus, Friedman et. al. When I was in Russia in 1994, the
government under Yeltsin was desperately trying to create a free market
economy. Here's an entry from my diary on what I saw happening:
Jacques Sapir (a French economist who has written about it) is right in
saying that Russian inflation is not a monetary phenomenon. It is market and
policy driven. There are strong, opportunistic monopoly elements behind it,
and it is not difficult to conclude that the whole process of "reform" was a
get rich scheme perpetrated by the powerful. As well as being highly
disruptive, its main economic effect has been redistributional, enriching the
few and impoverishing the many. Its main political effect has been to drive a
wedge between the people and the government, even though many in government are
not really to blame. Its main effect morally has been to foster a level of
corruption, cynicism and apathy that will take a very long time to shake out of
the system.
And of course the oligarchs (very few of whom would have read any economics)
then took over and Jeffrey Sachs (Harvard not Chicago educated), not really
understanding what was going on, helped create the conditions that allowed them
to do it.
My argument, essentially, is that clever, ruthless people do take advantage of
social disasters such as the chaos that followed the collapse of communism and
may even have helped to move the situation toward chaos. Whether or not they
had any association with the economics taught by the Chicago School or any
other institution hardly seems relevant, Naomi Klein's arguments not
withstanding.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Spencer" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2011 12:12 AM
Subject: [Futurework] Re: Why Americans won't do dirty jobs - Business- US
business - Bloomberg Businessweek - msnbc.com
>
> Ed wrote:
>
>> I read Shock Doctrine some years ago and wasn't impressed. It
>> argued essentially, if I recall, that every bad thing that had
>> happened in the economic world could be attributed to the teachings
>> of the Chicago School. It seemed more than a little far fetched.
>
> I think it would be more accurate to say that it argued that there has
> been a widespread deliberate strategy of exploiting social disasters,
> shocks and confusion to seize control of a society's assets and
> finances, to entrain anything that might operate in the public
> interest for private gain. And that evangelists for the Chicago
> School have been the salient troops in promulgating and implementing
> this strategy again and again.
>
> The underlying concept is nothing new. Someone who would otherwise be
> a more or less law-abiding citizen may loot the neighborhood liquor
> store once it's been trashed in a riot or a disaster; others less
> law-abiding may try to start a riot or a forest fire just so they can
> get in on the subsequent looting. What may seem new (because it's one
> of those not to be talked about things) is that (putatively) highly
> responsible, respectable people may do that to whole national economic
> and public service infrastructures, even to the point of fomenting a
> financial or political collapse in order to make it possible.
>
> It is not necessary that *all* such people be high-profile
> polemicists for the Chicago School. If a number of the more prominent
> of these miscreants are Friedman colleagues or acolytes and use CS
> dogmata to subvert and co-opt public water supplies, public services,
> public education or the public good in general, the Chicago School is,
> if you're paying attention to what's on the end of your fork,
> justifiably going to take a lot of the blame, the moreso to the extent
> that such piratical practices are overt doctrine of the School.
>
>
> FWIW,
> - Mike
>
> --
> Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
> /V\
> [email protected] /( )\
> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
>
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