How Shocking : Yet Another Foreign Anti-Globalization Speaker at Scripps II

Below, you will find a list of our questions and notes for Klein's talk

About the Book

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine:_The_Rise_of_Disaster_Capitalism
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine
http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitalism/dp/0805079831
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc

Rebuttals Online

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9384
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9626
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/09/05/johan-norberg-vs-naomi-klein-round-3/
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/books/29redb.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
http://www.slate.com/id/2175133/pagenum/2/
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto101920072036549490&page=2
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n09/holm01_.html
http://www.nysun.com/arts/shock-jock/63867/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/21/AR2007112101919.html
http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2007/09/shcoked.html
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/126575.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/weekend/books/books-okonski081101.shtml
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2008/07/naomi-klein-an.html
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2007/10/naomi_klein_smackdown_roundup.cfm
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/05/22/l-1-and-china-oh-nevermind-naomi-klein/
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/10/02/more-on-klein-and-cusack/

From Johan Norberg's initial Critique of the Shock Doctrine:

1. Given that your family moved to Canada to avoid the Vietnam War draft, how did you overlook Milton Friedman's pivotal role in ending the draft? These are Hardly the actions of a so-called neocon warmonger, who in fact was not only against the Iraq invasion, but also the Gulf War. Of course, it seems highly unlikely that you didn't know this as you quote from interviews where he opposes the Iraq war.

3. From where or whom do you draw the evidence that free markets are unpopular? A survey of 46 countries conducted in 2007 by Pew Research Center showed a plurality, and in some cases an overwhelming majority of support for the free market. Why also do you ignore the rapidly liberalizing democracies like Iceland, Ireland, Estonia, Australia or the United States, where reforms were given renewed political support in several elections? In fact, Estonia liberated from the anti-free market ideology you espouse through a democratically elected government. Estonia's former Prime Minister, Mart Laar, cited Milton Friedman's Free to Choose, which I'm sure you've read, as the inspiration for the wildly popular free market reforms that catapulted Estonia from abject poverty to among the highest standards of living in Europe today.

4. How does the thesis of your book reconcile with the fact that World War 1 led to Communism in Russia and Hyperinflation in Germany led to National Socialism, or the incredible growth in Government spending, size and regulation during the Great Depression years and WWII? Were these examples of shock therapy?

General:

1. Professor R.J. Rummel standardized Freedom House's Political Freedom and Civil Liberties index with the Economic Freedom of the World index and found a strong correlation between political, civil and economic freedom. Countries with low economic freedom, i.e. a lack of free markets, had low political freedom. How do you explain this phenomenon? How does it fit into the thesis of your book?

2. Can you name any economists or their specific works who believe in this global strategy of using Shock Therapy or a crisis of some sort to impose free markets? Also, what do you make of the fact that economists from the University of Chicago had working documents on several economies, including the United States, India, China, Russia, Chile, and Great Britain.

3. The most recent Economic Freedom of the World Index showed a substantial drop in rank for the United States. In other words, economic freedom in the United States has declined in the past 8 years. In 2000, the US was ranked the 2nd most free economy, compared to the current position- 8th most free today. The report found huge increases in government spending, regulation and barriers to international trade. In fact, there had not been such a large increase in government size and spending since LBJ. How does this recent finding fit into your book and general thesis? Does it contradict your notion of President Bush as a free marketer using Iraq as the crisis.

4. How does the economic turnaround in India during the early 90's fit into your book and your main thesis? You briefly mention the Tsunami, but leave out the democratically elected governments throughout the 90's who ran on a platform of privatization and deregulation. Why were free markets so popular? Why have they been more successful than the previous 40 years of socialism.

5. In the Shock Doctrine, you make no reference to the system beliefs known as libertarianism. Milton Friedman often described himself as a libertarian and was associated with numerous libertarian think tanks and organizations. Was Friedman wrong or lying about being a libertarian, or, in your world, are libertarians part of the same crisis causing corporatist framework.

6. You mentioned the Tsunami in South Asia as another example of Milton Friedman's crisis therapy. Did Milton Friedman advocate land grabbing policies in the region? Since you've extensively studied the works of Dr. Friedman, you would have come across his argument stressing the importance of property rights, and their role in maintaining a free society and economy. Has Dr. Friedman ever advocated a land grabbing policy? Has he ever contradicted himself by saying that property rights can be violated?

7. Milton Friedman once said that the biggest enemy of the Free Market was business because they wanted competitive and open markets for everyone else but special privileges from the government for themselves. How would you define Friedman's beliefs. Was he a libertarian, neoconservative, liberal? Does he sound like a corporatist from the above statement?

8. John Maynard Keynes once described the Soviet Union as 'impressive' and felt that his ideas on the macroeconomy were adequately implemented in the totalitarian state. He thought that Britain had a lot to learn from this great social 'experiment.' For someone who demonizes Friedman's ideology for dictatorial brutality, how would you judge Keynes's impression of the Soviet Union. Using your logic, should we attribute the atrocities of the evil empire to Keynes?