The Shock Doctrine

What a fantastically eye-opening book! I will quote from the introduction to show you what the book is about,

"This book is a challenge to the central and most cherished claim in the official story - that the triumph of deregulated capitalism has been born of freedom, that unfettered free markets go hand in hand with democracy. Instead, I will show that this 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. The history of the contemporary free market - better understood as the rise of corporatism - was written in shocks"

This book is absolutely compelling. The claims above are big ones, but they are well supported with documentary evidence. In fact part of what amazed me in reading the book was the extent to which some of these atrocities and corrupt practices were documented.

You may not agree with all of the interpretations which are offered here, although I believe the arguments are strong, but the facts are enough on their own.

For example,

"In 2003, the Bush administration spent $327 billion on contracts to private companies - nearly 40 cents of every discretionary dollar" (p301)

On Donald Rumsfield's refusal to sell shares in the company which owns the Tamiflu vaccine, for which his department - Defense was responsible for purchasing on behalf of the government...

"Rumsfield's defiance definitely paid off. If he had sold his Gilead stocks at the inauguration, in January 2001, he would have received a mere $7.45 each. By keeping them all through the avian flu scares, all the bioterror hysteria and through his own administration's decisions to invest heavily in the company, Rumsfield ended up with stocks worth $67.60 each when he left office - an 807 per cent increase"

And that's the tip of the iceberg! this is just an example regarding the Bush adminstration. The book also covers CIA torture programs, coups in Chile, Argentina, Indonesia, post soviet Poland and Russia, the IMF, World Bank...you really need to read it for yourself to get an idea. But be prepared, your hair will curl.