Toward Healing Destructive Conflict

Marc Gopin

Healing the heart of conflict: 8 crucial steps to making peace with yourself and others. Emmaus, PA/New York, NY: Rodale Books. Hardcover. (xix + 300 pp.). $24.95. ISBN 1-57954-793-1.

Reviewed by MYRON R. CHARTIER

Marc Gopin serves as the James H Laue Professor of World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University’s Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution and the Director of the Institute’s Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution. Gopin, an ordained rabbi, has worked with several governments and numerous organizations on peace efforts worldwide, including the Middle East, Northern Ireland, and Africa. He has appeared on CNN and NPR, and in the international press as an expert in the art of conflict resolution. He is the author of two previous books: Between Eden and Armageddon and Holy War, Holy Peace and numerous articles.

Rabbi Marc Gopin, who holds a Ph.D. in religious ethics from Brandeis University, has a rich background in the field of international conflict resolution. He has spent much of his professional career (twenty plus years) teaching, negotiating, and traveling to trouble spots throughout the world. He has been involved in some of the world’s most difficult geopolitical situations. Through his experiences he has discerned there is a fundamental similarity between the intractable conflicts among rival nations that cause so much strife in the world and the destructive personal and family struggles that impact us so deeply as persons. While the scale and the stakes are obviously quite different, the underlying process, the drama, is the same.

Gopin is primarily concerned about the type of conflict that is the complicated, ingrained style of fighting that drains us of our energy and serves no useful end. He draws a distinction between constructive conflict and destructive conflict. Some conflicts are quite healthy. A diversity of viewpoints often prods us to make creative decisions. Such are constructive conflicts. On the other hand, destructive conflicts are those feuds that harm us on an ongoing basis and seemingly resist solution at every turn. Destructive conflicts are rooted in primal emotions and cannot be settled by rational discussion and negotiation. Gopin believes that the only path toward a durable solution for destructive conflict lies in a process of self-analysis and spiritual growth. He sees this way to true healing as demanding, but one that generates hope, freedom, and new energy.

Healing the heart of conflict is a self-help book for a general audience. The author’s focus is on healing conflict at the deepest level rather than on “resolving” conflict. The book introduces his eight-step method to conflict resolution and applies it to work relations, family relationships, and community dynamics. To this task Gopin brings a wealth of knowledge from his experiences as a father, son, rabbi, and an international conflict mediator, from his Jewish heritage, from his knowledge of other religious traditions (Christian and Buddhist in particular), from philosophy, literature, psychology, the social sciences, and from the most current techniques being used in international negotiation. The result is a book that is highly accessible to a variety of interested readers. Although it is designed primarily for a general audience lacking the usual endnotes, bibliography, and indexes of a scholarly work, conflict scholars and teachers unfamiliar with his approach are likely to benefit from it.

The book is divided into two parts. In part one Gopin focuses on eight steps for healing the heart of conflict. The eight steps can be summarized in eight simple words: be, feel, understand, hear, see, imagine, do, and speak. Gopin presents these eight steps as sequential and interlocking in nature. Following the first step each is dependent on the previous one and carefully leads to the next.

Step one, “be,” focuses upon looking at the deepest roots of conflict within ourselves and transforming our personalities into an essential aid for healing conflicts. Step two, “feel,” involves identifying and confronting the emotions at the core of our conflicts, both positive and negative ones, and then turn them into vehicles for growth and healing. Step three, “understand,” requires escaping the boundaries of our problems by knowing other conflicts and taking from that knowledge the universal lessons of what dynamics wound and heal. Step four, “hear,” calls for skillfully listening to every clue that may help us enter into the sphere of those around us, especially those with whom we are in conflict. Step five, “see,” necessitates skillfully observing every cue that may help us enter into the world of those around us, particularly those with whom we experience conflict. Step six, “imagine,” requires stepping back from the web of conflict and envision ways that will utterly transform our lives and relationships. Step seven, “do,” involves taking action that flows naturally from the wisdom acquired in the previous steps. Step eight, “speak,” calls for incorporating the lessons learned in the previous steps into every word used, with a goal of communicating and healing conflict.

In part two Gopin applies the eight steps to making a living, home life, and the community. Again simple words highlight each of the three chapters: work, love, and harmonize. The goal of these final chapters is to help the reader integrate the eight steps into day-to-day work, family, and community relationships in a way that prevents conflict and minimizes or heals old ones.

Gopin views his eight-step process as a valuable tool to be embodied in oneself for dealing with conflict in life. To learn these eight steps is a demanding process that requires coming to terms with ones identity and character, care and love of self and others, deep empathy, honesty with self and others, and much more. From every conflict we encounter, an opportunity to grow is present. In handling life’s conflicts each of us is a work in progress.

Rabbi Gopin has provided a valuable, practical tool for coming to terms with conflict, especially destructive conflict. Several books within recent years about church conflict provide a bleak picture for dealing with destructive conflict. Examples are works by Haugk (1988) and Rediger (1997). Shawchuck and Heuser (1996) in their discussion of conflict and dysfunctional systems point to the Twelve Step Recovery Program as a way of dealing with such conflictive systems. Gopin provides a different path from Haugk and Rediger, demanding, but hopeful. There is some compatibility between the Twelve Step method and Gopin’s eight steps; however, the latter seems much more demanding in practice.

Readers interested in integrating the human sciences and spirituality may be interested in examining this book. As pointed out earlier, Rabbi Gopin teaches in the area of world religions and conflict resolution. His book is an example of what Gorsuch (2002) labels integration as joint problem solving, especially at a very practical level.

Other readers that may benefit from Gopin’s insights are therapists and counselors, pastors engaged in pastoral care, and pastors involved with conflict. Therapists and counselors may find real value in Gopin’s eight-step approach; given their educational backgrounds and experiences, they are likely to make good use of it. Pastors involved in pastoral care will find useful ways of working with individuals who are personally conflicted, experiencing conflict at work and at home, and dealing with conflict in community settings. Pastors, who are personally involved with conflict in the family, in the church, and in the community, are likely to find much of practical value in this book.

Readers who specialize in conflict resolution may want to take a look at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution’s web site for information related to Rabbi Gopin’s and his staff’s work. The address is: www.gmu.edu/departments/crdc.

References

Gorsuch, R. L. (2002). Integrating psychology and spirituality? Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Haugk, K. C. (1988). Antagonists in the church: How to identify and deal with destructive conflict. Minneapolis: Augsburg.

Rediger, G. L. (1997). Clergy killers: Guidance for pastors and congregations under attack. Inver Grove Heights, MN.

Shawchuck, N., & Heuser, R. (1996). Managing the congregation: Building effective systems to serve people. Nashville: Abingdon.

CHARTIER, MYRON R., PH.D. is retired. He has served in a variety of positions in his years of active ministry: campus ministry, theological education, regional denomination work, and local church ministry. For thirteen years he was on the faculty of Palmer Theological Seminary (formerly Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary) in Wynnewood, PA, and served as its Director of Doctoral Programs. He serves as a contributing editor to Journal of Psychology and Theology. He received his B.A. (University of Colorado) and M.A. (Fort Hays Kansas University) in history, his B.Div. from the American Baptist Seminary of the West, and his Ph.D. in human communication studies from the University of Denver.

The Value of Doubt

The Value of Doubt

John 20:19-20, 24-29

What place does doubt have in the Christian life? What role does doubt play in our faith development?

The prime example of doubt in Scripture is Thomas. He is the patron saint of all who have come to faith through doubt. Here is his story.

Thomas was one of Jesus’ twelve disciples. Jesus' death on the cross was no surprise to Thomas. He had expected it. When Jesus proposed going to Bethany upon receiving the news of the illness of Lazarus, Thomas responded by saying, "Let us also go, that we may die with him" (Jn 11:16). Thomas did not lack for courage, but he had a pessimistic, skeptical streak in his personality.

There can be no doubt about Thomas' love for Jesus. He loved Jesus to the degree that he would go to Jerusalem to die with him when the other disciples expressed fear and hesitation.

What Thomas had expected had happened. When Jesus died upon the cross, Thomas was brokenhearted. He was so brokenhearted that he could not allow his eyes to meet the eyes of the other disciples. What Thomas wanted was to be alone with his grief. He chose to face his suffering and sorrow in solitude.

However, wonder of all wonders occurred. The resurrection of Jesus did take place. It was the evening of resurrection day, the first Easter Sunday, when reports that Jesus was alive created much excitement among the disciples. The women's stories about the empty tomb and the angelic messages were being told and retold. Peter and John, the beloved disciple, had seen him. Two disciples from Emmaus reported walking and talking with him. Consequently, the disciples, who had scattered following the terrible tragedy of the cross, had gathered behind locked doors, still fearing the spirit of hostility toward Jesus and his followers within the city.

Suddenly, Jesus appeared in their midst. He said to them, "Peace be with you." Then he showed them the signs of his crucifixion, his hands and his side.

Since Thomas had gone off to grieve by himself, he was not there. When the disciples found him, they shared with Thomas the news that Jesus had risen from the dead and had come back to see them. Thomas received their reports with arched eyebrows. He refused to believe them. He was belligerent in his skepticism. Thomas said that he would never believe that Jesus had risen from the dead until he had seen with his own eyes and felt with his own fingers the print of the nails in Jesus' hands and thrust his own hand into the wound the spear had made in Jesus' side. In making this demand to examine Jesus' body with finger and hand, he was asking for more than Jesus offered the other disciples. When Jesus showed them his hands and side, they rejoiced. However, doubting, skeptical Thomas wanted to both see and feel.

The following Sunday the disciples were again behind locked doors. This time Thomas was present. Jesus, unrestrained by solid doors and walls, again appeared in their midst and greeted them as before, "Peace be with you." Jesus, knowing Thomas' heart, offered to meet the test upon which Thomas had insisted. Jesus added an appeal and a warning, "Do not doubt but believe."

When Thomas saw Jesus and heard his words, he immediately recognized the risen Christ. Indeed, with his heart overflowing with love and devotion Thomas made this remarkable confession of newfound faith, "My Lord and my God." In this breathtaking confession Thomas moved from the lowest level of faith to its highest pinnacle. It is Thomas who makes clear that believers may address Jesus in the same language that Israel addressed Yahweh, God. His incredible confession is the crown and climax of John's Gospel. Indeed, nothing more profound could be said about Jesus. In his resurrection encounter with Jesus “Doubting Thomas” took one small verbal step and with it a giant leap of faith when he said, “My Lord and My God!”

Jesus said to him, "Thomas, you needed the eyes of sight to make you believe, but the day is coming when people will see with the eyes of faith, and will believe. They will be blessed for their faith, even as you have been."

That's the story of Thomas. What can we learn from his experience about the value of doubt in the life of faith? Here are four themes that relate to doubt and a developing faith, doubt and a searching faith, doubt and a profound faith, doubt and the faith community.

First, we can learn that doubt is significant in a developing faith. Thomas believed in Jesus and loved Jesus, but his belief and love had been crushed by Jesus' death. With the death of Jesus Thomas found himself on the losing side of history. The Roman Empire, with its armies, with its law, with its culture, its worldly sophistication, with its vicious governor Pontius Pilate, had executed another Jewish holy man. They had not killed him by lethal injection, mind you, not by anything as civilized as Florida’s electric chair, but by nails, thorns, and hours of unbearable, slow asphyxiation on a cross. His executors hoped his followers would give up, go away, and withdraw into despair. Thomas should have learned his lesson and vanished, for his hope had been taken away.

When Thomas heard the other disciples telling stories about Jesus’ resurrection, he naturally responded with skepticism. However, as the biblical story indicates his doubt and skepticism about the resurrection led to a renewed, deeper faith.

Our doubt can be an important pathway in our faith walk with Jesus Christ. Doubt and faith are compatible. The opposite of doubt is certainty. Faith is about trust, trust about that which we cannot see but can affirm.

Dashed hopes and dreams have a way of creating legitimate doubt as it did with Thomas. Faith is often challenged, even crushed by the painful realities of life. The unexpected death of a child or of a spouse can create turmoil in our life and faith. The loss of a job or the breakup of a marriage or a vital friendship can rock the foundations of our faith. Even Jesus on the cross raised doubts about his relationship with God, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Healthy doubt is a part of a developing faith. If we will allow it, our doubts can help us in developing a mature, robust faith.

Second, we can learn that there is genuine place for a searching faith. Many of us have grown up trusting the belief systems of our faith communities. The faith we have learned from our parents and our church, we have relied upon to live our life of faith. However, somewhere in life that faith has to be tested and made our own.

Thomas was unwilling to trust the words of the others who had seen Jesus. He had lost his teacher and friend. Since he did not want to experience further disillusionment, he needed visible proof that Jesus was risen. He had to be absolutely sure of the reality of the resurrection. As someone has said, “Thomas refused to run on someone else’s gasoline.” We cannot vicariously share someone else’s faith. That kind of faith–believing because our parent, grandparent or friend believes–is needed as we develop as children and youth. But when we reach late adolescence and enter into our young adult years, we need to discover our own faith. It is during these years that doubt emerges. We need to have our own faith experiences and discover our own answers to life’s questions. Doubt paves the way.

There are times in our faith development when we need a reasoned faith. We need something that reasonable, rational people can affirm. Faith begins with trust; however, it needs intellectual support in our scientific, technological world. For our faith to be genuine and vital we must search for "our reasons and motives" for being a person committed to Jesus Christ. Indeed, the faith we have received from others must become ours both experientially and intellectually if it is to serve us in the trial’s of life.

Third, our doubts can lead us to profound faith and commitment. It was doubting, skeptical Thomas, who upon facing the risen Christ, offers the most profound confession of faith found in the pages of the New Testament. Upon seeing Jesus’ wounds he responded by saying, "My Lord and my God." We need not be afraid of our doubts and our questions. If we will pursue them, they can lead us to a deeper faith and commitment to our Lord.

• Our doubts about Jesus can lead us from believing the Nazarene is dead to Jesus is the risen Christ.

• Our doubts about Jesus can lead us from believing Jesus is a unique human being to Jesus is the Son of God.

• Our doubts about Jesus can lead us from believing Jesus was a great teacher to believing the risen Christ is Lord of the cosmos.

• Our doubts about Jesus can lead us from believing Jesus was a good man to believing he is the Savior of the world.

• Our doubts about Jesus can lead us from believing he was present to his disciples two thousand years ago to believing God is present through him now to redeem us and grant us eternal life.

By working through our doubts, we can come to deeper faith and commitment. Faith in Jesus Christ is the key to life. Unbelief leads to death and ruin. There is no need to fear our doubts unless we fail to work them through and end up in the land of unbelief. Our doubts, no matter how persistent and stubborn, need ultimately to lead us to faith and commitment.

Fourth, we can learn the place and role of the faith community when we struggle with doubt and unbelief. The disciples who experienced Jesus in a post-resurrection appearance told Thomas about it. He was very skeptical and unbelieving. A week later the disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Jesus appears to them. What is interesting about this is Thomas is still with them a week later. Despite his doubt and skepticism, he did not leave and apparently was not asked to leave. It very well may have been a tense time between the disciples and Thomas. But regardless, they found a way to make room for Thomas, doubts and all.

Already this band of disciples was modeling the new faith community. Already they were becoming the accepting community their Lord had hoped they would become. Here they were in conflict over whether Christ had appeared or not. They made room for each other to be.

At times giving each other room to be who we are with our doubts, our questions, our certainties, our experiences can be the most loving, faithful act we can do. According to the Psalmist even God makes room for us when we are troubled. He writes, “You (God) gave me room when I was in distress . . . ” (4:1) We worship a God who offers hospitality for us to be ourselves when our spirits are disturbed, who gives us space to wrestle with our questions.

Christian community is more than a place for experiencing the risen Christ but also a place to be when we struggle with believing. The church is an “I believe, help my unbelief” kind of community, a place where we nurture each other in searching for answers and in developing a viable faith. It is my hope and prayer that each church can be the kind of faith community that will give each of us room when we go through our times of doubt, that will give us room when life gets hard and challenges the foundations of our faith. May every congregation be a safe, trustworthy place for us when we are filled with doubt and skepticism. May our churches be a place of acceptance for us in such times rather than a place of rejection.

One last thought, Thomas came to profound faith through the eyes of sight. We will not have that opportunity. Our doubts will ultimately need to be satisfied with the eyes of faith. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." Jesus intended those words, not so much for Thomas, but for you and me. Fellowship with Jesus Christ is just as available to us as it was to those who saw him after the resurrection. When we place our trust in Jesus, we will experience the joy of his companionship. Trust in him is the key to a fulfilling life. Like Thomas, allow your doubts to bring you to a life-giving faith.

Review of

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE: THE RISE OF DISASTER CAPITALISM

Myron R. Chartier, Ph.D.

The title of this book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, caught my attention in December of 2007 in an online news article. I went to Barnes and Noble to see if they had a copy and if it would be something I would want to read. I was impressed by what I saw.
The author, whom I did not know, is a distinguished, award-winning 38-year-old Canadian journalist, syndicated columnist, and film maker, based in Toronto. Her first book, an international bestseller, was No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. It was published in 2000 and has been translated into 28 languages. She writes a column for The Guardian and The Nation, which is internationally syndicated by the New York Times. She has reported from Iraq for Harper’s magazine, which won her the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. A collection of her articles was published in 2002 in a work entitled Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Globalization Debate. In 2004 she released with Avi Lewis a feature documentary about Argentina’s occupied factories entitled The Take. It won the Best Documentary Jury Prize at the American Film Institute’s Film Festival in Los Angeles. Naomi Klein is a former Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics and holds an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws degree from the University of King’s College, Nova Scotia, Canada.
The Shock Doctrine was published in the fall of 2007, coming out in seven languages simultaneously. Today it appears in 27 languages. This book was four years in the making and involved an international team of researchers and investigative reporters. The author’s indebtedness to the support of others is shared in her seven pages of “Acknowledgments.” The depth of its research is supported by 60 pages of meticulous endnotes, totaling 5,180. This tome blesses the reader with a 24-page, double-column index. The result is a shocking, disturbing tale of how economics has worked in the world for the past 35 years. The tale is laid out in fluid, accessible, intriguing stories. Rachel Maddow, a host and commentator for MSNBC, says, this is “the only book of the last few years in American publishing that I would describe as a mandatory must-read. Literally the only one." It may be the most important book on economics in the 21st century, according to Paul B. Farrell of Dow Jones Business News.
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Destructive Capitalism is 568 pages in length and is divided into seven parts plus an introduction and a conclusion. It is a seminal work demonstrating the impact of Milton Friedman’s economic theory upon nations and peoples of the world for the past thirty-five years. Friedman, the leading economist in the Chicago School of Economics at the University of Chicago and a 1976 Nobel Prize winner, approached economics “as rigorous and objective a scientific discipline as physics, chemistry and medicine, . . ..” (p. 117) Klein writes, “Like all fundamentalist faiths, Chicago School economics is, for its true believers, a closed loop. The starting premise is that the free market is a perfect scientific system, one in which individuals, acting on their own self-interested desires, creates the maximum benefits for all.” (p. 51) If something goes wrong within a free-market economy, something like high inflation or soaring unemployment, it only follows that it has to be because the market is not truly free. There has to be some distortion or interference in the economic system.
Friedman died in 2006. At the time obituary writers struggled to summarize the breadth of his legacy. Larry Kudlow of the National Review wrote, “Milton’s mantra of free markets, free prices, consumer choice and economic liberty is responsible for the global prosperity we enjoy today.” (pp. 51-52)
The purpose of The Shock Doctrine is to provide a major challenge to the central, most cherished claim of the “official story,” which is “that the triumph of deregulated capitalism has been born of freedom, that unfettered free markets go hand in hand with democracy.” Instead, Klein seeks to demonstrate that Friedman’s “fundamentalist form of capitalism has consistently been midwifed by the most brutal forms of coercion, inflicted on the collective body politic as well as on countless individual bodies.” (p. 18) She provides a historical tale of the contemporary free market, or better understood as the rise of corporatism being written in shocks.
What is the “shock doctrine? The shock doctrine is about remaking people and countries in the images of the shock doctors. Klein relates Chicago School Economics to electroshock therapy. Psychiatrists using electroshock want the minds of their patients to be clean slates upon which they can write. The master of shock therapy was Dr. Ewen Cameron of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He received grants from the CIA for his research insights into interrogation tactics, in other words, refined torture. Friedman believed that “only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis happens, the actions that are taken depend upon the ideas that are lying around.” (p. 6) Friedman believed his function and that of the Chicago School was to develop alternatives to existing policy, to nurture them until a crisis came and they could be applied. Once a crisis struck, Friedman was convinced that it was critical to act swiftly, to impose rapid and irreversible change before the crisis-racked society back slid into a “tyranny of the status quo.” The “shock doctrine” was the basis of the shock and awe strategy of the Iraq war invasion. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was fully schooled in the thinking of Milton Friedman. He expected the massive strategy of an invasion would create such confusion and anxiety that the Iraqis would welcome American occupation and its capitalist ways. Hence, the shock doctrine is rooted in psychiatry, economics, and military strategy.
What is disaster capitalism? Obviously, it’s related to the shock doctrine. “Disaster capitalism” is a term Klein uses to describe the “orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities.” (p. 6) Disasters were exploited by disciples of the Chicago School to promote unfettered free market capitalism. The basis of disaster capitalism is a disaster or a crisis such as a coup, a terrorist attack, a market meltdown, a war, a tsunami, a hurricane that places a whole population into a state of collective shock. “The falling bombs, the bursts of terror, the pounding winds serve to soften up whole societies much as the blaring music and blows in the torture cells soften up prisoners. Like the terrorized prisoner who gives up the names of comrades and renounces his faith, shocked societies often give up things they would otherwise fiercely protect.” (p. 17)
Earlier I briefly indicated how the book is organized. Now allow me to provide the outline with some explication. The introduction is entitled “Blank Is Beautiful: Three Decades of Erasing and Remaking the World.” These 20+ pages provide an overview of what is reported in detail in the chapters that follow.
Part 1 is entitled: “Two Doctor Shocks: Research and Development.” Chapter 1 carries the title: “The Torture Lab: Ewen Cameron, the CIA and the Maniacal Quest to Erase and Remake the Human Mind.” Some insights from this chapter have already been shared.
The second chapter is entitled: “The Other Doctor Shock: Milton Friedman and the Search for a Laissez Faire Laboratory.” Friedman sought a pure economic state, which would be free of government regulation and in which the role of government would be quite limited. “For him everything went wrong with the New Deal.” (p. 56) To get governments back on the right track, he recommended three things: 1) “governments must remove all rules and regulations standing in the way of the accumulation of profits”; 2) governments “should sell off any assets they own that corporations could be running at a profit”; 3) governments “should dramatically cut back funding of social programs.” (pp. 56-67) Along with this three-part formula of deregulation, privatization, and cutbacks, Friedman offered plenty of specifics. For example, he promoted the privatization of the post office, health care, education, retirement pensions, and the national parks as well as the eradication of organized labor.
Friedman’s first opportunity to apply his theories was in Latin America. A 500-page-bible detailing an economic program that would guide the junta in Chile from its earliest days was developed by a group who had studied economics at the University of Chicago. The CIA was involved in its preparation. Three forms of shock were utilized in Chile’s coup: the shock of the coup itself immediately followed by economic shock therapy and then the shock of the torture chamber terrorized anyone thinking of standing in the way of the economic shocks.
Part 2 is entitled: “The First Test: Birth Pangs.” Chapter 3 carries the title: “States of Shock: The Bloody Birth of the Counterrevolution.” The “counterrevolution” refers to undoing Keynesian economics; in the US that refers to reversing the New Deal. The first test was Chile, a country that had experienced 160 years of peaceful democratic rule, the past 41 uninterrupted. With the help of the CIA General Augusta Pinochet attacked the presidential palace and killed President Salvador Allende. Following the military’s coup of Pinochet, Friedman’s free-market trinity was put into operation which involved privatization, deregulation, and cuts in social spending. Chile was the genesis of Friedman’s counterrevolution. It was also the genesis of terror for accomplishing it.
Other South American countries to follow this pattern were Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. They were all run by U.S. backed military governments and were living laboratories for Chicago School economics.
Chapter 4 is entitled: “Cleaning the Slate: Terror Does It Work.” Anybody or any group who resisted “free market capitalism” was subject to torture or being killed. Persons with ideas not consistent with free market capitalism were seen as a cancer in a diseased body. These conclusions meant torture or death for many in Chile and other South American countries.
Chapter 5 carries the title: “‘Entirely Unrelated’: How an Ideology Was Cleansed of Its Crimes.” Klein begins the chapter by writing, “For a brief period, it did seem that the crimes of the Southern Cone might actually stick to the neoliberal movement, discrediting it before it expanded beyond its first laboratory.” (p. 116) In 1975 Anthony Lewis, a columnist for the New York Times raised a simple but inflammatory question: “If the pure Chicago economic theory can be carried out in Chile only at the price of repression should its authors feel some responsibility?” (p. 116) The Chicago School refused to acknowledge any connection between their policies and the use of terror. They put up an intellectual firewall to protect them from such a relationship being drawn. Klein writes, “The Chicago Boys’ first adventure in the seventies should have served as a warning to humanity: theirs are dangerous ideas. By failing to hold the ideology accountable for the crimes committed in its first laboratory, this subculture of unrepentant ideologues was given immunity, freed to scour the world for its next conquest.” (pp. 127-126)
Part 3 is entitled: “Surviving Democracy: Bombs Made of Laws.” Chapter 6 which focuses on Margaret Thatcher is entitled: “Saved by a War: Thatcherism and Its Useful Enemies.” Thatcher was quite taken with what had taken place in Chile, and she was encouraged by the Chicago School to implement their policies in Great Britain. She believed it would be difficult to do in a democratic, constitutional government like hers. However, the Falkland War provided her an opportunity. She became very popular for her effort and used her new stature to implement Friedman’s ideas in Britain.
Chapter 7 is entitled: “The New Doctor Shock: Economic Warfare Replaces Dictatorship.” This chapter focuses on Bolivia in the ‘80's. A democratically elected president implemented a package of laws based upon Friedman’s economic bible. Victor Paz Estenssoro and his government “provided a blueprint for a new, more palatable kind of authoritarianism, a civilian coup d’etat, one carried out by politicians and economists in business suits rather than soldiers in military uniforms–all unfolding within the official shell of a democratic regime.” (p. 154)
Chapter 8 bears the title “Crisis Works: The Packaging of Shock Therapy.” Bolivia had been plagued by hyperinflation. When free market tactics were used to bring it to an end, others took notice of its success. Personnel at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank noted that the shock therapy program functioned as a “big bang” moment, a breakthrough in the campaign to bring the Chicago School doctrine to the entire globe. “Philosophically, Friedman did not believe in the IMF or the World Bank. For him, they were classic examples of big government interfering with the delicate signals of the market.” (p. 161) So it is ironic how many Friedman proteges found work with the two global organizations. These organizations would not lend to countries needing help without using the policies of Friedman. Disaster capitalism on a global scale was taking shape.
Part 4 is entitled: “Lost in Transition: While We Wept, While We Trembled, While We Danced.” Chapter 9 entitled, “Slamming the Door on History: A Crisis in Poland, A Massacre in China,” tells the story of the rise of fundamentalist capitalism in these two countries. Lech Walesa led a labor movement against the Moscow-controlled government in Poland. He had hoped to find a third way of governing between communism and capitalism. He wanted to avoid some of the evils that capitalism creates, especially for workers and the poor. He desired an economic program of worker ownership. Being in need of money Poland’s government sought the help of the IMF which meant they had to submit to economic shock therapy. During this period there developed the “Washington Consensus” which was a clear effort to halt all discussion and debate about any economic ideas outside the free-market lockbox. Francis Fukuyama, a senior advisor in the U.S. State Department, in 1989 had claimed that democratic and free market reforms were in a twin process, impossible to pry apart. However, the government of China had done precisely that, for it was pushing hard to deregulate wages and prices and expand the reach of the market. It was fiercely determined to resist calls for elections and civil liberties. The shock of Tiananmen Square came two months after Fukuyama’s statement. Klein writes, “in Poland, democracy was used as a weapon against ‘free markets’ on the streets and at the polls. Meanwhile in China, where the drive for free-wheeling capitalism rolled over democracy in Tiananmen Square, shock and terror unleashed one of the most lucrative and sustained investor booms in modern history. Another miracle born of a massacre.” (p. 193)
“Democracy Born in Chains: South Africa’s Constricted Freedom” is the title of chapter 10. Nelson Mandela, head of the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, sought the economic transformation of South Africa’s apartheid state. This chapter reports how this failed to happen because of the extreme pressure placed upon the ANC leadership by the western powers supporting the Washington Consensus, the IMF, and the World Bank. Mandela and his crew were told that the only economic game in this day was free market capitalism. As the ANC negotiated becoming the new government, they gave away much they needed to accomplish their dream. They were seduced into such a position thinking it was best for the country.
Chapter 11 carries the title: “Bonfire of a Young Democracy: Russia Chooses ‘The Pinochet Option.’” Mikhail Gorbachev through his twin policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) sought to build a social democracy on the Scandinavian model, a socialist beacon for all humankind. He was moving toward a mixture of a free market and a strong safety net, with key industries under public control. He predicted the process would take 10 to 15 years to complete. When Gorbachev attended the G7 meeting in 1991 his fellow heads of state said that he must embrace radical economic shock therapy immediately, or he would lose their support. Gorbachev received the same marching orders from the IMF and the World Bank. This eventually led to the coup d’etat by Boris Yeltsin who immediately adopted a Pinochet style shock therapy approach to dealing with Russia’s economy. “Before shock therapy, Russia had no millionaires; by 2003, the number of Russian billionaires had risen to seventeen.” (p. 231). The primary lesson learned from the Russian experience was that the faster and more lawless the transfer of wealth, the more profitable it would be. This lesson was applied to the Tequila Crisis in 1994 in Mexico. The result was twenty-three new billionaires, and 80% of their banks being foreign owned. In 1990 only one bank was.
Chapter 12 is entitled “The Capitalist ID: Russia and the New Era of the Boor Market.” Following free market shock therapy in Russia and Mexico, it became dogma for the Chicago School to adopt the idea of actively creating a serious crisis so that shock therapy could be pushed through. In “Washington’s most powerful financial institutions there was a willingness not only to create an appearance of crisis through the media but also to take concrete measures to generate crises that were all too real.” (p. 259)
The focus of chapter 13 is “Let It Burn: The Looting of Asia and ‘The Fall of a Second Berlin Wall.’” The Asian Tigers consisting of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South Korea had been booming economies, but by 1997 they were struggling and seeking economic help from the U.S. Treasury and the IMF. The fall of the Tigers was seen by some as the fall of a second Berlin Wall. It was seen as the collapse of the idea that there is a “Third Way” between free-market democratic capitalism and socialist statism. The IMF imposed disaster capitalism upon these nations. It didn’t work according to the IMF’s own internal audit. It warned against crisis opportunism; however, a 2003 report was too late to be of value.
Part 5 is entitled: “Shocking Times: The Rise of the Disaster Capitalism Complex.” Chapter 14 is entitled “Shock Therapy in the U.S.A.: The Homeland Security Bubble.” This chapter tells the story of how the Bush administration sold off many of the functions of government to private enterprise. The result was a hollow government. According to the New York Times, “Without a public debate or formal policy decision, contractors [became] a virtual fourth branch of government.” (p. 299)
Chapter 15 carries the title: “A Corporatist State: Removing the Revolving Door, Putting in an Archway.” When Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney joined the Bush cabinet and refused to choose between their disaster-connected holdings and their public duties, it became clear that a genuine corporatist state had arrived. Government service was used to enhance corporatist interests. When one was done serving the government, one had the credentials to make big bucks in the corporate world by knowing how to fleece the government of its tax dollars.
Part 6 deals with “Iraq, Full Circle: Overshock,” which consists of three chapters, “Erasing Iraq: In Search of a ‘Model’ for the Middle East” (chapter 16), “Ideological Blowback: A Very Capitalist Disaster” (chapter 17), and “Full Circle: From Blank Slate to Scorched Earth” (chapter 18). Klein sees the Iraq War as implementing an economic strategy similar to the one used in Chile in 1973. The neo-conservatives of the Bush administration believed the primary cause as to why the Middle East produced terrorists was the region’s deficit in free-market democracy. Therefore, Iraq with its rich oil resources was chosen as the nation to flatten or erase and create a free-market economy and democracy. Everything was flattened. The U.S. government brought in private enterprise to rebuild Iraq. Even private groups were brought in to defend our ambassadors and the Green Zone. The plan was to bring in American culture, and the Iraqis would love it. It was to be a capitalist transformation. Klein concludes that “Iraq’s current state of disaster cannot be reduced either to the incompetence and cronyism of the Bush White House or to the sectarianism or tribalism of Iraqis. It is a very capitalist disaster, a nightmare of unfettered greed unleashed in the wake of war. The ‘fiasco’ of Iraq is one created by a careful and faithful application of the unrestrained Chicago School ideology.” (p. 351) What made this attempt in free market capitalism come full circle was the use of torture as vividly illustrated by what took place at the Abu Ghraib prison. What was not anticipated was the power of the Islamic culture to resist US efforts.
Part 7 is entitled: “The Movable Green Zone: Buffer Zones and Blast Walls.” Its three chapters focus on disaster capitalism at work in the tsunami that took place in Southeast Asia December 26, 2004, Hurricane Katrina that hit the gulf coast of our country in late August of 2005, and the disconnect between endless war and economic growth. The chapter titles are: “Blanking the Beach: The Second Tsunami” (chapter 19), “Disaster Apartheid: A World of Green Zones and Red Zones” (chapter 20), and “Losing the Peace Incentive: Israel as Warning” (chapter 21).
The world was stunned by the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia following Christmas day in 2004. The tsunami pushed the fishing village people into the hills with their fishing huts and boats being totally destroyed. This presented the local governments and hotel owners an opportunity to make the blank beaches into strictly a resort area for foreign tourists. For the fishing boat people, this was a second tsunami as corporate globalization took the beaches away from them for development purposes. “All the tsunami-struck countries imposed ‘buffer zones’ preventing villagers from rebuilding on the coasts, freeing up land for increased development.” (p. 399)
The disaster of Hurricane Katrina provided free market capitalists with an opportunity to maximize their profit interests at the expense of the poor. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2005, Milton Friedman observed, “Most New Orleans schools are in ruins as are the homes of the children who have attended them. The children are now scattered all over the country. This is a tragedy. It is also an opportunity to radically reform the education system.” (p. 5) His radical idea was to provide families with vouchers which they could use at private, for profit institutions that would be subsidized by the state rather than rebuilding and improving New Orleans public schools. The Bush administration spent $1,000,000 on a private firm, Innovative Emergency Management, to come up with a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for Southeast Louisiana and the city New Orleans. When the report was submitted, no action was taken. According to Michael Brown, head of FEMA at the time, there was no money available. When it came to paying private contractors, the sky was the limit, but when it came to financing the basic functions of the state, the coffers were empty. The rich are cared for, but the poor are forgotten and left behind. The result: disaster apartheid.
For years the conventional wisdom was that peace and stability were needed to grow the global economy. Then at the 2007 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Davos Dilemma was identified. It was noted after the market crash of 2000, terrorist strikes in the U.S. and elsewhere, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc. that there was general economic growth. It was like the world was going to hell, there was no stability in sight and the global economy was roaring its approval. Why this “near complete disconnect” between politics and the markets? The markets have learned to thrive on disaster. Klein reports, “Like the global economy in general, Israel’s political situation is, most agree, disastrous, but its economy has never been stronger, with 2007 growth rates rivaling those of China and India.” (p. 428) Given the violence in the Middle East “Israel has crafted an economy that expands markedly in direct response to escalating violence.” (p. 428)
Klein entitles her Conclusion–“Shock Wears Off: The Rise of People’s Reconstruction.” As I indicated at the beginning of this book review, it is a shocking, disturbing story of the rise of disaster capitalism around the globe. This chapter provides hope for those who have been exploited by this movement. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia has described one of the outcomes of free market capitalism as a drift “toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century.” (p. 444) Trickle down economics simply did not happen. By 2006 key players in disaster capitalism around the world were either in jail or up on charges. At the turn of the century the shock was wearing off in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, China, Lebanon. The people who were exploited are demanding more democracy and more control over markets, which challenges Friedman’s thesis that capitalism and freedom are part of the same indivisible project. Those who have experienced shock were becoming shock resistant. They value memory, both individual and collective, in their battle against the shock doctors, for memory is the greatest shock absorber of all. Memory gives people the tools to fight the exploiters in the midst of new crises and disasters. Working in community to help others rebuild, taking what’s there and fixing it, reinforcing it, making it better and more equal is essential. Most of all, they are building in resilience–for when the next shock or crisis strikes.
In conclusion, Naomi Klein has written a wonderfully controversial book that has to be reckoned with. It is in the muckraker tradition of Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle, and I. F. Stone, editor of I. F. Stone’s Weekly.