"Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change."
- Milton Friedman
"The kind of crisis Friedman had in mind was not military but economic. What he understood was that in normal circumstances, economic decision are made based on the push and pull of competing interests - workers want jobs and raises, owners want low taxes and relaxed regulation, and politicians have to strike a balance between these competing forces. However, if an economic crisis hits and is severe enough - a currency meltdown, a market crash, a major recession - it blows everything else out of the water, and leaders are liberated to do whatever is necessary (or said to be necessary) in the name of responding to a national emergency. Crises are, in a way, democracy-free zones - gaps in politics as usual when the need for consent and consensus do not seem to apply."
- Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine.
I've finally gotten round to reading The Shock Doctrine. It is an intensely frightening book, but also an intensely illuminating one. Reading it is akin to looking under your bed and discovering a nest of spiders, and as soon as you notice your first spider you quickly spot another one. Then another one. Then another one. It has been well-documented how comprehensively the political processes that Klein describes are at work in our society today, and I would urge anyone who hasn't had a look at it to give it a go.
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