Reply #28: WRONG -- I'm gonna have to disagree with your so-called "fatal flaw" theory. [View All]

[ColbertWatcher]

Normal capitalism is when business is done based on the free market, supply and demand, etc.

Disaster capitalism is when businesses exploit--not supply and demand--but that period of lawlessness following a disaster, when people are still in shock.

In fact, in disaster capitalism businesses ignore the market. What the GOP is doing is nothing like old-fashioned gouging, but a complete change of the rules, from the top down.

Klein's first example of Friedman-style economics is Chile. What the Chicago boys did there was not grassroots; they did not supply what the people demanded. The first thing they did was assassinate Allende. They did the opposite of supply and demand; they removed the opposition--not through a convincing marketplace of ideas--but through use of force.

With Katrina, the GOP removed the voters who have disagreed with their failed policies over and over. First by ignoring their cries for help (and thus, allowing them to be removed from the voter rolls by dying), then by evacuating them.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Immediate monetary profit is not the defining characteristic of disaster capitalism. Shock and awe is.