Views on "The Shock Doctrine"

Tyler Cowen reviews Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" in the New York Sun. He writes

Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" (Metropolitan Books, 446 pages, $28), the latest anti-capitalist best seller, tries in vain to discredit the economic system that brought about modern America, the Industrial Revolution, and high standards of living around the world.

The energy of the book is real and there is no doubt it will mobilize most of its readers to higher levels of outrage and action. It's probably the most effective brand of emotional nonfiction to be published this year. But when it comes to the underlying message, and the standards of evidence used to support it, "The Shock Doctrine" is a true economics disaster.

Brad DeLong reads Cowen's review and writes

He reads her book. He doesn't think it meets minimum intellectual standards. I think he is right ...

At The Fly Bottle Will Wilkinson writes

Conspiracy theory will always find an audience among the ignorant, but there is no real chance that Naomi Klein matters much in the end. There is Naomi Klein and then there is the way the world is. Well-functioning market institutions will continue to lift the world’s poor from misery. It remains that Milton Friedman did immensely more to avoid avoidable human misery than did three generations of Richard Rortys and Naomi Kleins, who in stark contrast helped drive tens of millions of human beings straight into it. And Naomi Klein is a dishonest, self-infatuated hack. With a little help from people who know what they are talking about, it all works itself out.