Hacker News Books

Ever read "The Shock Doctrine"? It lays out how the rich cause and exploit catastrophe to consolidate and strengthen their holdings.

https://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitali...

A good book that demonstrates how hyper-capitalism is inconsistent with Democratic rule is The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein and The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes were both great.

I recommend reading Friedman's Free to Choose after reading The Shock Doctrine http://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-Statement-Milton-Friedman/...
(Friedman is the guy that Naomi Klein blames on the book)

There's a term for it - disaster capitalism. Naomi Klein's excellent book "The Shock Doctrine" is worth reading if you're interested.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

Never said the premise was wrong; rather the author substitutes a thorough explanation on how and why this stuff happened with humblebragging. For Indonesia, The Shock Doctrine goes into much a much more detailed discussion of the IMF bailout.

I'm surprised no one has commented on this thread that The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (leaving her strong political leanings aside) provides an excellent overview of the shock therapy as it was applied to the USSR and other nations. It was by far the most disturbing book I've ever read.

Quite some overlap with others here, but to add some of my own favorites:

- The Shock Doctrine by N. Klein

- The Anarchist Banker by F. Pessoa

- Collapse by J. Diamond

- Thinking, Fast and Slow by D. Kahneman

- a few books by Noam Chomsky

EDIT: nearly forgot:

- Brave New World by A. Huxley

Naomi Klein wrote a major book about this years ago called The Shock Doctrine.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein (2007)

Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, Eudardo Galeano (1971)

"The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein discusses this phenomenon more with regards to economic policies.

Never waste a good crisis when it comes to politics → read this book [The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine)

Shameful way to capitalize on the recent Westminster attack. See Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" for more.

This even feels like it could be a quote from The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. After reading that book it's hard not to start thinking that it was completely intentional.

(Coming in a day late.) I'm not going to trust the Shock Doctrine after reading about how its "facts" were collected.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp102.pdf

> I read Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything.

The The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is another insightful book of hers, I highly recommend it, it was written in 2008 as the financial crisis happened: https://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitali...

Thanks for that book recommendation - really appreciate it. I have been looking for a solid critical reference regarding the World Bank (and IMF, for that matter) for some time now. There were some allusions in Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine that set me down this rabbit hole.

I wish everyone would read the Shock Doctrine or at least understand the gist of it.

I had lots of fun reading this analysis of the fact handling in the Shock Doctrine:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp102.pdf

My thesis about life, if I have one, is that idealists lie.

1: Diaspora (Greg Egan). Brilliant sci-fi where computer science concepts like cellular automata, computation complexity etc are major plot points. Starts with a highly detailed explanation of AI personality creation. Super geeky and a brilliant plot.

2: High Performance Browser Networking. Really explained a lot of modern networking. I was already familiar with the basics of the OSI stack, but this explained a lot of newer ideas, optimizations, and HTTP2. Really comprehensive guide to how the internet works.

3: The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein): A history of how the CIA has shot down democratic regimes to enforce small-government-free-market policy in developing countries when these policies are rejected in polls. Explains a lot of the crises in Latin America and Russia.

Naomi Klein's 2009 film "The Shock Doctrine" (imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1355640/), available on netflix, looks at similar subject matter.

In short, the 'chicago school' economics lead by Milton Friedman posit that as-free-as-possible markets, de-regulation and privatisation are economically beneficial. In practice (see: Argentina, Chile, etc) they only seem to further the gap between rich and poor, and the 'shock doctrine' way of destabilising the existing economy and government to achieve this is pretty disgusting.

Not just Hitler. Naomi Klein (of No Logo fame) wrote an excellent book about it, called The Shock Doctrine [1]. She lists numerous examples in the last 50 or so years how convenient, but shocking events were used as excuses to implement controversial laws, that often either limited freedoms or made the life of people more miserable.

She mostly approaches the issues from an economical perspective, mainly focusing on inhumane economic policies that both Thatcher and Reagan implemented, but the gist is similar.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

I made a goal to read 100 books this year. I'm through 87 so far. Most of them have been non-fiction. Using this year to learn things outside of technology has been time very well spent for me. Here are some of my top books this year.

- Currency Wars, James Rickards

- The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein

- What Technology Wants, Kevin Kelly

- The Art Of Happiness, Dalai Lama

- Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen

- The Four Agreements, Miguel Ruiz

- Man's Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl

- Understanding Power, Noam Chomsky

- The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander

- Good To Great, Jim Collins

- Abundance, Peter Diamandis

- The Mystery Of Capital, Hernando De Soto

- Pathologies Of Power, Paul Farmer

- Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff

- Seeing Like A State, James Scott

- Ishmael, Daniel Quinn

- Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, Richard Feynman

- Beyond Fear, Bruce Schneier

- The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan

- The Birth Of Plenty, William Bernstein

* (Theory) Surfing Uncertainty by Andy Clark

Basically a unified theory of consciousness. 100% must read.

* (Theory) The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes

A bit long winded but it really changes the way you think about the voice in your head, about consciousness in general. Pairs well with Surfing Uncertainty

* (Self Help) Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
Really wakes you up to the domination language that rules our interactions and provides an alternative framework. Its even great if you don't plan on implementing NVC, just to understand what non nonviolent langue is. Pairs well with Julian Jaynes The Origin of Consciousness for understanding how language formed our minds and our societies.

* (Theory) The Force of Nonviolence Judith Butler
Wakes you up to the highly dominant and persistent narrative of violence. Provides frameworks for something else.
If this doesnt blow your mind im not sure what will.

* (Theory)Staying with the Trouble by Donna J. Haraway
The name says it all. Ways to stop trying to wipe the slate clean, to start from scratch, but instead to "stay with the trouble" and make new things WITH. Wakes your mind up to disrupting in whole new ways.

* (Theory) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein
Another book that helps you see the world through different eyes, or even if I dare, to see the world more clearly.
Pairs nicely with the unnecessarily long winded "Fall" by Neal Stephenson for understand a post truth world, specifically the idea of "Edit Streams"

* (Scifi )The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton
This one game me a framework for science and spirituality to coincide

* (Scifi ) Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Questions everything, blows your mind on multiple levels.

* (Self Help) She Comes First by Ian Kerner
Wakes you up to the massive comfort imbalance in sex between genders and provides simple ways to help fix it (for heterosexual)

I have been following wallstreetonparade.com for months. Although the major media and the federal government does not talk about it, I believe wallstreetonparade.com.

There are great theoretical considerations of disaster capitalism, such as "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein, which hopefully everybody has read by now.

I recently read another good one, which I found at City Lights Bookstore in SF: "The Making of the Indebted Man", by Maurizio Lazzarato. This book is insightful, and a treasure.

Coronavirus is certainly a problem, no question. However, there was already a problem occuring.

Edit: See for yourself. Go to the NY Fed website and look at the numbers. They takeoff in September.
https://apps.newyorkfed.org/markets/autorates/tomo-results-d...

Klein is pretty funny.

Have a look at The Economist's blog that did a round up of reviews of the Shock Doctrine:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2007/10/naomi_kl...

I remember reading 'No Logo' and wondering why on earth a book about how 'teh evil capitalists' exploit people would pick MS an example of an exploitative company. MS, afterall, has made thousands of millionaires out its employees. Then she goes on further to cite South Korea as an example of how terrible capitalism is because low skill production is moving elsewhere not realising that South Korea is one of the countries you do not mention if you want to talk about how capitalism is evil as it is a stunning success of wealth increase.

The Economist's own review of her earlier work that states:

"Ms Klein's harshest critics must allow that, for an angry adolescent, she writes rather well. It takes journalistic skill of a high order to write page after page of engaging blather, so totally devoid of substance. What a pity she has turned her talents as a writer to a cause that can only harm the people she claims to care most about. But perhaps it is just a phase."

is probably the sharpest criticism of all.

> Naomi Klein has covered this topic extensively in her book, The Shock Doctrine.

Naomi Klein is a incredibly left wing journalist who's conclusion had all already been made before she did the research. I would argue that much of her book is incredibly badly research and bordering on straight up conspiracy theory nonsense. Her book is absolutely not up to any standard of economic or any social science resource.

It is true that Pinochet did not produce some kind of economic miracle. That part is mostly correct.

However one can also argue that the alternative path Allende wanted to go down was incredibly unlike to produce even those results.

Because of how Pinochet was was removed, helped Chile on a different path that was good for it, even if many people still don't like it.

All that said, I'm against US intervention in other countries.

Then I'd suggest The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. That book is reference city.

I don't know. Although we are talking tail end of the 90s, there's passing reference in No Logo/The Shock Doctrine (forget which, but think the former) by Naomi Klein to lifestyle marketers that would follow a couple of people in their target demo around without their knowledge.

The Pinochet "economic miracle" is largely debunked at this point. Naomi Klein has covered this topic extensively in her book, The Shock Doctrine. Here's a relevant passage from her book:

“The only thing that protected Chile from complete economic collapse in the early eighties was that Pinochet had never privatized Codelco, the state copper mine company nationalized by Allende. That one company generated 85 percent of Chile’s export revenues, which meant that when the financial bubble burst, the state still had a steady source of funds…. By 1988, when the economy had stabilized and was growing rapidly, 45 percent of the population had fallen below the poverty line. The richest 10 percent of Chileans, however, had seen their incomes increase by 83 percent. Even in 2007, Chile remained one of the most unequal societies in the world—out of 123 countries in which the United Nations tracks inequality, Chile ranked 116th, making it the eighth most unequal country on the list.”

You can read her go deeper into this subject in her 2008 blog post here: https://naomiklein.org/response-attacks/

The economy under Pinochet was actually quite mediocre:

"By the end of the dictatorship, Chile's average real per capita GDP had grown by only 1.6% per year, a result very close to economic stagnation; 18% of the population was unemployed and 45% below the poverty line. In 1990, Chile’s average GDP per capita, calculated on the basis of purchasing power parity, was only US $4,590, lower than Brazil’s, which at that time, after the “lost decade” of the 1980s, was $6,680. To define this as a "success" is, to say the least, intellectual impudence, if not contemptuous ideological propaganda."

Taken from here: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/myths-abo...

I don't know how you feel about counter histories; but, based on the keyword density of your post, I'll go ahead and recommend "The Shock Doctrine, the rise of disaster capitalism" (by Naomi Klien).

Risking downvotes but here I go anyway...

It's interesting to compare his theory against the country where his theories were first, and arguably most purely put into practice - Pinochet-era Chile.

The measures put forward by Friedman + his acolytes resulted in huge unemployment, inflation, and many multi-nationals effectively stealing wealth away.

In order for the people to 'accept' these measures Pinochet instituted oppression, abandonment of the freedom of the press, torture, and extra-judicial killings.

I think the ideas which originate from the creator of neo-liberalism ought to be judged against the evidence of its actual implementation in real life before recommending its architect's theories on dealing with just about anything.

The laws that were passed in Chile, as with many other countries which have instituted exactly the policies you outline were widely disrespected, and that disrespect was 'dealt with' in various arguably really rather negative ways.

I am certain that corruption also remained a problem throughout.

For references and discussion of this phenomenon, see The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0141024534/

Naimi Klein's The Shock Doctrine attempts to explain the dismantling of the South American states by disaster capitalism, of extreme "austerity" and brutal military rule, neither of which sounds very "left-wing" if you ask me.

When you push something hard in one direction, naturally it will bounce back in the other. You go from extreme right-wing to extreme left-wing as a reaction. Neither policy is ultimately productive.

You need some serious balls to defend Pinochet and his criminal gang.

"Immediately after the coup the junta moved to crush their left-wing opposition. In addition to pursuing armed revolutionary groups it embarked on a campaign against opponents and perceived leftists in the country. As a result, according to the Rettig Commission, approximately 3,000 people are known to have been killed, 27,000[1] were incarcerated and in a great many cases tortured." [1]

Reading "The Shock doctrine" by Naomi Klein opened my eyes. She would disagree with you on the "halfway-to-Cuba socialism":

"As for the argument that Friedmanite policies are the reason Chileans live in "houses of brick" instead of "straw", it's clear that Stephens knows nothing of pre-coup Chile. The Chile of the 1960s had the best health and education systems on the continent, as well as a vibrant industrial sector and a rapidly expanding middle class." [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Junta_of_Chile_(1973...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/mar...

> but the rest of the world coming together and imposing sanctions.

Maybe. It is just ironic that they are standing in line to do business with countries such as Equatorial Guinea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teodoro_Obiang_Nguema_Mbasogo) and Saudi Arabia.

> Naomi Klein does in The Shock Doctrine and a heck of a lot of people have read that book.

I am not a big fan of Naomi Klein. She probably attacked the governments macro economic policy?

That is unfortunately the only thing that the ANC government did right in the past 16 years (this is now probably going to change with Zuma).

The reason for SA's macroeconomic policy was probably because previous prez. Mbeki did a masters degree in economics at a British university.

I don't disagree with your point, but I think it's worth adding that journalist Naomi Klein wrote "The Shock Doctrine"[1], a book which outlines numerous examples in the past 100 years where government officials worldwide have chosen military actions specifically with economic goals in mind.

The book misrepresents capitalism somewhat, but the journalistic research and examples presented provide a compelling case that there are people who have a "sane" or "rational" (from their perspective) view that they (and maybe some others) could gain economically from war.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

> The Spiel that white people considered black people their enemies during Apartheid

Presumably what was meant was the common enemy was not the "darkies" but the rest of the world coming together and imposing sanctions.

> Yet the ideology of full democracy (i.e. tyranny of the majority) is also spectacularly failing. Yet no one would acknowledge the latter failings.

Naomi Klein does in The Shock Doctrine and a heck of a lot of people have read that book.

First, "The Shock Doctrine" was a book before it was a political documentary. Recommending the movie but not the book seems a little silly to me.

Second, I can't recommend it as a serious work. I've read a lot of Klein's work (two of her books sit here on my bookshelf) and I walked away each time rather unimpressed. In this particular case, she takes something that can be universally condemned (deliberately creating or taking advantage of disaster to pursue corporate interests) and uses it as a weapon against those who advocate free markets. This is a blatant misrepresentation of that ideology, the chicago school, and Milton Friedman. In short, Klein builds a great case against corporatism, rent-seeking, and government sponsored elitism and then beats those lobbying for freedom and equality over the head with it.

But when do we stop to ask why we are living in this constant state of hyper-fear? When do we start asking whether the scale of our "security-state" is asymmetrical to the actual threats? When do we ask how much Terror is still left in the War on Terror?

IMO, it really started in earnest on 9/11. It's like people are in this strange state of psychological terror without realizing it. I swear, we've never recovered on the whole and it feels like something on the PTSD "spectrum".

Of course this fear has been fanned and used to justify an egregious power grab, costly wars, and untold billions in profits for the security-military-industrial complex, and so much more. See The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

Is it a coincidence that fear is so very profitable or that people are willing to give up their freedom to quell it?

When do we shake off this fear and say "enough!"?

When I first learned about neoliberalism it was from The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Much of the focus in the book was on American corporations and bankers forcing Latin American companies to "open up" and the economic and political chaos that resulted.

Really you have to hand it to China. They figured out how to play the game to win. And now it's their western counterparties that are suffering economic and political chaos.