The Shock Doctrine at C&L

The thread went 194 before petering out, and was dominated by Devil’s Advocate until about comment #170 when John Amato stepped in to shut off his debate. Shredder called DA a troll (twice), but the dude embodied the free market fundamentalism that the book excoriated, and so s/he provided some focus. It was better than just Naomi hagiography, although I went on record with “This book is fantastic!” Others eclipsed my enthusiasm. Steve said that it’s “THE best non-fiction book in the last decade at least!” Joe Riley declared that “This book, if widely read, will be as important in our time as Harriet Beecher’s Stowe’s, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was to the 19th century.”

L.A. Confidential was less impressed: “This stuff isn’t new to any well read, literate and educated person.” And added: “It is a shame the important books are disregarded by the masses for the most part. Big shame.” To which Patricio replied: “LA Confidential, you are the reason why people hate liberals. What a prick.” Totally.

The Shock Doctrine holds out Milton Freedman and the so-called “Chicago Boys” for particular scorn, and Devil’s Advocate defended Milton as if he were a slandered buddy.

Two debates caught my attention:

The Corn Debate

Devil’s Advocate defended Friedman as a dispassionate scientist, defended neoliberalism as the practice of that science, and accused the left (in general) of flunking Intro. “I feel like every liberal should be forced to sit through an economics Class,” he condesended. Newbie, who had gone toe-to-toe with Devil’s Advocate for most of the day, signed off with: “I have to say, [I] disagree with you and your entire world view with every cell of my body, yet never the less wish you well. Me? I’m off…” But then Devil’s Advocate went to the chalkboard and called class in session.

Look, if there are 10 pieces of corn for an 100 person society, having a right to food doesn’t make more food. It just means that everyone has to ration the 10 pieces of corn, which is not enough for the 100 people. Moreover, if everyone has a right to it, then nobody is going to put forward the effort to produce more corn because that means that everyone can just take it. The result is starvation and famine. If you allow the free market to work, however, people will compete to provide as much food and shelter as possible for everyone in society.

Anyone? Anyone? Newbie? Still reading?

Newbie came back:

Ack! Sorry, I can’t let this one go. A better analogy is that there are a hundred people and a thousand pieces of corn. Under Friedman economics, one man ALWAYS ends up with 900 pieces of corn, fifty go to his enforcers and the the remaining ones are sold off to the highest bidder at a hundred times their real value. Sorry, but it’s true. Good night.

Blogging in the USSR

Jo said, among other things, “More people were better off under Communism in the Soviet Union than they are now that the so-called ‘free’ market has stepped in and raped it.”

chris: “You would not be blogging in the Soviet Union I can tell you that. Mainly because they did not have the advance technology that we have. WHY you ask, because there was no incentive, computers, printers etc. You really need to think about what your [sic] saying. . .”

Devil’s Adocate: “Holy CoW!! I found the first sane person on this entire blog!!!”

FreeDUMB: “You would not be blogging at all if not for the GOVERNMENT FUNDED ARPANET program, the precursor to the internet.”

I thank FreeDUMB for the wisdom, but I’d rather sit around and ponder various things I couldn’t do in the Soviet Union.

-- temperance