.
I dont believe she maintained that crisis was the central and historic motor of capitalism, only a current aspect of it, and at that, not an exclusive one. You gotta admit that the last eight years can't be better explained than by the self-professed administration doctrine of "creative destruction".
In a speech in Oakland last year, Klein added some material to the book that gives the thesis a different look. After the recent San Diego fires, it was discovered that in neighborhoods otherwise totally destroyed, some homes survived unscathed. It turns out they were all covered by special "disaster" policies issued by AIG. These policies include the use of private fire-fighters to protect houses covered and special evacuation services where necessary -- including helicopter and planes. Apparently, AIG and others are building or contracting with private companies to provide these services, and charging a bundle for them. In this sense, "shock doctrine" appears to be part of the old trend of privatizing public services, and the shock can be understood as the unfunding and dismantling of government as a provider of public safety.
BW
Patrick Bond <pbond at mail.ngo.za> wrote:
Marvin Gandall wrote:
> Also not my impression that the crisis came as a "great surprise" to Henwood
> and others on the left.
Comrade Marvin, have you not been following the debate within Socialist
Register family the past few years? One position is based a sense of
capitalist vulnerability to internal contradictions of accumulation;
the other is to assert that since the class struggle is at an ebb,
capitalism is powerful.
To remind: http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-12/03bond.cfm http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-12/26bond.cfm
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