It feels like that is part of what’s going on right now in the US. We are so overwhelmed with complete shit, while we move towards losing any form of regulation over business and the idea of democracy itself.
I feel like continuing to read it is going to force me on blood pressure medication. I knew that the US did a lot of ratfuckery to support regimes like Pinochet’s, but now I want to convert to Christianity just so I can believe there’s a hell for Milton Friedman to burn in.
What’s the tldr?
It is, distilled down to its most basic point, about how powerful people have realized that disasters invite opportunity, and are now deliberately creating disasters to exploit the opportunity it creates.
Entire towns flooded due to climate change and bad policy becomes dirt-cheap land to buy and develop for the same people that caused the increased flooding risk to that area.
Basically, there has always been opportunity in disaster. The Shock Doctrine uncovers the methods of those who engineer or wait for crises in order to capitalize on, or pass profiteering legislation in challening times.