College students who can't day-dream.

I have recently watched The Shock Doctrine. It is a documentary based on the book of the same name by Naomi Klein. Both explore and explain the rise of what they call Disaster Capitalism, which, according them, has become the dominant economic doctrine over the last thirty years.

The whole idea is based on the psychological effects of sensory deprivation and apply sensory deprivation to entire societies.

 “Sensory deprivation really is a way of producing free monotony.  It causes lose of critical capacity, the thinking is less clear. The subject complains that he can’t even day-dream, and when you have college students that can’t day-dream, you’re in a bad way. I began to think, while we were doing our experiments, it’s possible that something that involves physical discomfort, or even pain, might be more tolerable than simply the deprivation conditions that we studied. Well I had no idea that when I suggested that, what a vicious weapon, potentially vicious weapon, this could be. ”  - Dr. Donald Hebb

Dr. Hebb was part of the team that performed research into the effects of sensory deprivation, he later stopped being part of the research but it continued in a far less ethical manner. The research began to explore how to use sensory deprivation, shock therapy etc to influence people, the aim was to 'wipe' a person's mind and build it from the ground up. The C.I.A took the research and began using it as interigation techniques.

The Shock Doctrine explains how these techniques have been used to spread radical free market capitalist ideologies around the world. The basic idea is that by using man-made and natural disaster to distract the public, they can destroy a country and build it from the ground up in their image.

"In Sri Lanka, in the aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami. People who lived on the beaches for generations were prevented from returning so that the land could be privatised and sold off to luxury hotels. And this is exactly what I mean by the Shock Doctrine, the systematic raiding of the public’s fear in the aftermath of a disaster. When people are too focused on the emergency, on their daily concerns to protect their interest” – Naomi Klein

The film presents numerous examples of how this technique has been used throughout the last century. From the military coup in Chile in 1973 to the current financial crisis.

For example in Chile, Salvador Allende’s popular Unity Government was elected into power on a platform of nationalisation of large sectors of the economy. The US did all that they could to distablise the Chilean economy and with General Augusto Pinochet in charge of the Chilean military, work began on a military coup. The military assualted the presidential palace, resulting in the death of Salvador Allende. In the days after Salvador Allende was ousted, more than 13,000 opponents were arrested and imprisoned. Many were tortured.

With the Chilean people in shock the government put into action radical free market policies, planned by a group of economist called The Chicago Boys. The plan didn’t work, inflation increased dramatically. Milton Freidman began advising the government. His policies created unemployment, it became clear these policies favoured the rich at the expense of the poor. Used scare mongering of Marxism to support his policies.

Milton Freidman and Arnold Harberger argued that free market economics went hand in hand with freedom and democracy, however in Chile, where their ideas were being implemented within a military dictatorship, the opposite was true. General Augusto Pinochet ruled as a military dictator for seventeen years, despite Harberger arguing that having a repressive government for long is impossible within a free economic system. Freidman denied any relationship with the government of Chile. 

It goes on to talk about Thatcher-ite britain and the war in Iraq and other examples. It ends on a hopeful note, It points out that the current financial crisis is unique as now the public understands what caused this crisis. 

“This Crisis is clearly understood, by almost everyone as being the direct result of this particular ideology, of deregulation and privatisation... The Shock Doctrine, as a strategy, realise on us not knowing about it for it to work, and what I find most hopeful about the current economic crisis is that this tactic is getting tried because that element of surprise is no longer there. We’re on to them and it’s not working. We are becoming shock resistant.” – Naomi Klein


It was a very interesting and informative film, but it wasn't a fun watch at all. It's a hard watch but it should prove very useful as part of my research, and I highly recommend it, however I still wish to gain the perspective of someone in favour of absolute capitalism, I am considering whether looking into Milton Friedman's work as well as Ayn Rand would be useful.       
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