Transcript: I think there needs to be a citizen’s revolt against the corporate takeover of politics. And we have to get out of this reality TV show that is just the endless popularity contest of elections. You know it’s an incredible distraction, and Americans are in an endless election campaign. It never ends. So the idea that after the election then there will be policy, there is no after the election. There is always another election, another fundraising campaign, and you know it never ends. It’s a big business unto itself. It’s entertainment. And it’s politics deferral. So you know before . . . Before this can actually lead to political change, we need to change the rules. We need to get corporate money the hell away from politics; or at least a huge separation. It has to . . . It’s the most pressing issue of our time. It’s the most pressing issue of our time because it’s what needs to happen before anything else can happen.

Recorded on: 11/29/07

Transcript: The reason why I focus on the disaster capitalism class and raise this possibility that people might be motivated by their economic self-interest in these areas is because it’s one way of explaining this phenomenon of . . . I call it sort of slouching towards the apocalypse, I guess. This is what I see when I read the newspaper; that the most pressing crises . . . collective crises of our time . . . what we really need to address now as a species – climate change, Middle East peace – that there is . . . There is an amazing __________ attitude about these disasters coming from our political leadership. You know the Annapolis Conference is going on right now. And before it even started there was this consensus that nothing would come of this . . . of this charade that is this peace summit. And next week is the Bali . . . Bali Climate Change Summit. And pretty much everybody knows that nothing is gonna come of the Bali Climate Change Summit; that before it even begins, the most significant measure which would be clear caps on emissions, you know, is pretty much off the table because of the U.S.-Canada . . . and some of the biggest emitters. So how do we . . . And on the . . . on the . . . On the other hand . . . So you have this __________ attitude, or this casual attitude in the face of catastrophe from our leadership. But then you have this hyperactivity around lesser . . . what I would argue are lesser threats – immigration . . . You have greater activity around the terrorist threat even though you have less . . . you have . . . there have been fewer terrorist attacks, certainly in North America and Europe. So how do we . . . How do we reconcile this . . . these trends; this inactivity in the face of . . . of major disasters? And inactivity that guarantees more disasters. This is the trend that we need to focus on. The trend that we need to focus on is why it is that when it is so clear . . . that when there is a scientific consensus that we are contributing to climate change; that this is creating more and more frequent and intense natural disasters; that it is creating mass . . . and will create even more mass migration of displaced people; that we are casual in the face of this disaster. Then we also see a huge amount of investment going on – the building of fortresses . . . the fortress economy. So we don’t see this investment in green energy. We don’t see the investment in policy that will really address the biggest crisis of our time, which is climate change. And what we see huge investment in is in the building of fortress continents, whether Europe or North America; major new investments in high-tech surveillance – virtual borders; the fortressing ourselves in. And I actually think that what we’re seeing is one way of responding to climate change and resource scarcity; that this is . . . There’s basically two ways that you can respond. You can try and get off this disastrous course through changes in the way we live; through aggressive policy; through real investments in alternative energy. Or you can say okay this is inevitable, and there’s gonna be more and more disasters – more natural disasters; more wars over scarce resources; more terrorist blowback from those resource wars. And what you invest in instead is protecting the elites, whether it’s the elite countries or the elites within those elite countries. And it’s very clear, if you once again follow the money, that there is more . . . for instance much more venture capitalist money going into Homeland Security than into green energy; that the market is banking on an apocalyptic future and sees a profit from protecting the elites from the worst of climate change, the worst of war, the worst of terrorism. This is a new economy, this fortress economy. And you know we have to get off this course because what we’re actually seeing is kind of an end game. It’s before us now. I don’t think we can deny that we . . . that we see it. I call it the war of the worlds, this kind of green zone and red zone world. And it’s one of the things that I think a lot of people who have been to Iraq and have carried . . . we carry with us is this image of the green zone . . . the world divided between green zones and red zones. And I always had this feeling when I was in Baghdad that we were seeing the future if we’re not careful; of just the armored neighborhoods; the blast walls everywhere; the private security guards with their guns pointed outwards, protecting the principal and everyone else can go to hell. I mean this is the world that’s created in these Wild West zones where these policymakers get their way – the people who don’t get everything they want at home. Well they got everything they wanted in Iraq and look what they created. So we have this ability now to look into the future. Look to Iraq. I mean this is the end game, and we have to make really, really hard choices to get off this course. But just trusting the market to do it for us, or trusting this political model to do it for us, we’re seeing what it’s doing.

Recorded on: 11/29/07

Transcript: Well I think one of the most famous . . . one of the most dangerous human impulses is the idea that you can start from scratch. This is an idea that has come up again and again in history. I almost called my book (Blank) is Beautiful, because it seemed to be this recurring idea that was at the root of this dream of transformation through disaster; transformation through shock, through violence. And I don’t think by any means that the right . . . the market fundamentalists are the only ones who think this way. I think it’s the indicator species for a dangerous ideology. It’s the year zero mentality of a __________, or the desire for blankness, cleaning the slate of Mao. But you hear it from the Donald Rumsefelds and the Cheneys as well – this idea that you can create a country . . . a model country in somebody else’s land. It’s the same dream of total power, total creation. It’s the colonial dream as well. It’s . . . And I think we are in denial that this is a deep part of our history here in North America – this dream of starting over, of rebooting the world that’s imbedded in some of our most powerful Judeo-Christian biblical myths of great floods, and great fires, and just a gang of us and our friends being saved and getting to start over. You know Noah’s ark and the rapture. I mean we are . . . We . . . It’s an amazingly seductive idea – this idea that you can reboot the world, start from zero. It’s an amazingly anti-human idea, and I think we need to understand that because it can be framed as a really idealistic concept, right? We just . . . We want utopia. That sounds good. And we know how to build it. But the problem with this dream is, you know, that people get in the way, right? So then you have to clean the slate. You have to wipe the slate clean because there are no empty lands. And that was the violence of colonialism. I think it’s been the most . . . It is the most powerful, most dangerous idea. It crosses political lines. It crosses religious lines, and it . . . it is the ideology that has rationalized the great cleansings, the great genocides. And we need to identify it is a dangerous ideology. We need to understand it in our history so that we don’t repeat it. And you know, and we need to counter it with something else. And in terms of my philosophy I tried sort of developing a philosophy that is the opposite of starting from scratch, which is starting from scrap. Because I think this idea that we do . . . that there will be some moment when we get to start from scratch, we need to excise it. There are no empty lands. There are no blank slates. There are no clean sheets. There are always gonna be people who disagree with you. You’re always gonna have to start from compromise. And one time I interviewed William Gibson who is a wonderful science fiction writer. Or he doesn’t only write science fiction. But I was talking to him about science fiction writing and he was saying there are two different kinds of science fiction writers – the people who believe that the future is shiny, and the people who know that the future is rusty, right? And it’s the shiny science fiction writers that you have to worry about. And you know I think the future is gonna be rusty. I think it’s gonna be built by, you know, whoever is around and whatever is left behind. And it’ll be this sort of patchwork. And we just need to resign ourselves to that. You know we leave . . . We leave big messes behind, and we need to start from scrap and stop dreaming of starting from scratch because it’s a very violent idea. And it sounds wonderful, but the flip side of it . . . of that clean slate idea is the scorched earth . . . is the scorched earth we’re seeing it in Iraq right now.

Recorded on: 11/29/07

Transcript: I see myself as part of a movement for social change. So when I think about what to write, I’m thinking about what would be useful. I’m thinking about what arguments would be mobilizing at a particular point. And so I . . . And maybe it’s a little bit of a different way of thinking about journalism . . . this sort of question of what would be . . . what would be useful as opposed to just what interests me; what am I curious about at this given day? I do ask myself that question. And in terms of philosophy, you know I think at this point in history just believing that every life is of equal value is enough to separate and define a mission at this point, because I think we are really up against a lot of people who just do not think that lives are of equal value. I mean even if you look at something like casualty statistics in Iraq, the idea that it’s somehow acceptable not to keep track of how many Iraqis have died, right? And what that says to the Iraqi people, to the Arab and Muslim world; just the extraordinary racism in that idea – the reporting of only American deaths; and that we don’t do body counts, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq. So just believing that every life is of equal value regardless of where you live or what skin color you are seems to be a radical idea these days.

Recorded on: 11/29/07

Transcript: There was a moment where I became involved in politics as a university student, and that was . . . It was a moment that I think Americans won’t remember, but Canadians do, which it’s known as the “Montreal Massacre”. And it was a . . . It was a school shooting, but it was a very political school shooting. It happened . . . It happened at the University of Montreal, and I’m from Montreal so it affected me a lot. And I was in first year university, and it was a shooting at an engineering school by a man named Mark Lepine who had tried to get into this school but he hadn’t gotten in. And he decided it was because there was affirmative action for women, so he went into the engineering department and he separated the men from the women and said, “You’re all a bunch of fucking feminists,” and killed 14 women . . . just gunned them down. So this was an amazing political awakening for a lot of women because the politics were just so clear, and we felt really vulnerable as women in universities at that point. So up until then I had really decided, you know, I didn’t wanna be involved in activism and I didn’t wanna follow in my family’s footsteps. But that was like a wakeup call.

Recorded on: 11/29/07

Transcript: Well first of all I mean mostly what I do is analysis. And if we think about analysis, whether it’s a book or an opinion column, when it works it helps you read the newspaper better, right? I mean it’s not just giving people information. It’s giving people analysis and connecting the dots between a few different pieces of information that creates that sort of “Aha!” click of clarity. And when you read strong analysis, clear analysis, it makes you feel better equipped, right? It’s sort of ammo. And so as an opinion writer, as a columnist, that’s my goal – is giving . . . helping people get more of those clicks of understanding. Because I think that we feel bombarded with information. We are bombarded with information. But we are extremely disoriented. And that what I’m doing now . . . what I’m trying to do now with this book is . . . I feel like we’re still in somewhat of a state of shock from September 11th. And that a state of shock is about a gap that opens up between an event and our analysis of that event. And that’s what shock means. Something happens that’s so big that we lose our collective story. And I think the Bush administration has been really adept at heightening that state of disorientation by telling people everything you thought you knew before September 11th is wrong. We’re rebooting history. We’re starting over, right? And if you think about what most people wanted to do after September 11th is they actually wanted to do the work, to integrate that event into their story. This was an event that seemed to come out of nowhere, but nothing comes out of nowhere. So people wanted to know history. They were hungry for that knowledge that could bridge the gap between event and collective . . . our collective story. So I guess that’s what I see myself doing, is helping that bridging process. Because when we’re in a state of shock we’re very vulnerable to political manipulation. We’re frightened. We regress. We think Rudy Giuliani is our long last daddy. You know, I mean it’s dangerous, and I think good politicians . . . effective politicians, not good politicians . . . Effective politicians understand that they are very powerful in those moments when people are disoriented. So analysis connects the dots, gives us a new story, and orients us. And that’s when we’re better citizens. That’s when we can engage in debates. That’s when we’re harder to manipulate. That’s when we’re smarter, calmer, more focused. So that’s what . . . that’s what all analysis should do.

Recorded on: 11/29/07

Transcript: I think it’s a basic principle of journalism to follow the money. And we have conflict of interest rules precisely because people are human. And when you can benefit personally, economically from policies that you are advancing, then those policies are called into question and the questions are raised. So that’s why we have this legal architecture to prevent obvious conflicts of interest. And the Bush administration . . . Key figures in the Bush administration have just shown enormous defiance in the face of those rules, and twisted the White House lawyers in knots trying to rationalize them holding onto these stocks. But to me it’s a broader question about the economy . . . what I call the “disaster capitalism complex”. And the fact that I don’t believe . . . Well I think that there’s a particular way of thinking that comes with being in the business of disaster; being . . . You know and I’m not talking about just any old economic holdings, right? I’m talking about those particular economic holdings that increase, or whose fortunes increase when things go bad, right? So oil and gas. You know bad things happen, the price of oil goes up. This we know, right, whether it’s a hurricane. Whether it’s a war. Whether it’s a fear of a war. Whether it’s Chavez and Ahmadinejad hugging. Whatever it is bad, the price of oil goes up, right? And the same is true for defense stocks. The same is true of Homeland Security stocks. The same is true of drug companies that are in the business of pandemics. So this is how I’m defining broadly the disaster capitalism complex, which is bigger than the military industrial complex. The reason why Eisenhower warned . . . gave that famous warning in his last presidential address about the danger of the military industrial complex is precisely because this is an industry that has an economic incentive for war and instability. So I think that there is something really significant that we need to talk about in that the Bush administration – the people who have been running the government in Washington, but also the occupation of Iraq – are card carrying members of the disaster capitalism complex. You know I realize . . . I don’t think it sounds conspiratorial. I think it sound obvious, right? I’m in fact embarrassed to be pointing this out because it’s such an obvious point. But it amazes me that people don’t talk about it all the time; that Dick Cheney was in the business of privatizing the U.S. military before he went into office; that Donald Rumsfeld was in the business of profiting from pandemics before he went into office; that Bush was in the oil and gas business before he went . . . came into office; that his father was connected to the Carlyle Group, which is a major weapons dealer; that Paul Bremer, the chief envoy in Iraq who laid the economic framework for the occupation, that one month after September 11th he launched a Homeland Security company to advise other corporations on how they could protect themselves in this new era; that Rudy Giuliani did the same thing three months later. So these are all people who see profit directly from terrorism, natural disasters, and pandemics. What is their economic incentive to get us off this disastrous course? I mean we need political leaders who think disasters are bad. You know, I mean that to me is a good starting premise.

Recorded on: 11/29/07

Question: Are markets taking on traditional government functions?

Transcript: I think it’s more complicated than simply that markets are usurping the role of government. I think what we’re seeing is a merger between big government and big business. And I think that’s part of the reason why it’s a little bit hard for people to understand because they know corporations have a great deal of power. But at the same time states seem more important, right? We’re seeing more active military intervention, more intervention in our lives in the form of surveillance. And so we’re seeing very active states, and we’re seeing big spending states – what used to be called military Keynesianism – and certainly a willingness to spend a huge amount of money, to take very bold policy measures. But I would argue in the interest of multi-nationals, not in the interest of people, and that’s the pattern that recurs. So it isn’t . . . It isn’t that states aren’t important. They’re crucial to this process. But the question is in whose interests are those states working? So it isn’t about the end of the nation state or the end of the government. It’s about this very dangerous merger between big government and big business.

Question: What is “corporatism”?

Transcript: I call the model that we’re living in “corporatism”, because I think it accurately describes it. Another phrase is “crony capitalism”. If we hear that phrase in reference to Russia or Indonesia, we understand what that means. You have a powerful, strong-armed government that uses their power to prop up members of their family, prop up the people who fund their political campaigns. It’s a trading of favors. I think it’s actually a pretty good description of what’s going on in the United States as well of the Bush era. Part of the problem is we don’t recognize it as a system in this country. There’s a tremendous resistance to that. So the whole debate is within the language of exceptions. This is one corruption case. This is one contractor scandal, whether you’re talking about Halliburton, or Blackwater, or Parsons. So you know if you think about what we actually read in our newspapers, it’s an endless parade of corruption scandals. But each one is individualized. You don’t take the extra step to say, “This is an economic model. This is how politicians fund their power base and this is the payback.” You know it’s a two . . . It’s an ATM machine in the sense that politicians or contractors withdraw their budgets from government in the form of these huge contracts, and they pay . . . They deposit . . . They pay back not in the form of reliable work, but in the form of campaign contributions. So it is a very effective model. It’s a very self-serving model. It’s not effective to the public, but for the players themselves it’s tremendously profitable both politically and economically. So I think that that’s what . . . that’s what we’re living. And I think the first stage is to identify it as a system and then figure out how you change it. You know it’s pretty basic what needs to happen. I mean there needs to be a real separation between the business of government and the world of business. And the first phase, I think, is real campaign finance reform. And this amazing . . . I think Americans have gotten used to this idea that political campaigns are so expensive that the first phase of even reporting on the campaign is . . . They’re now reported on as if they are themselves corporations. They have third quarter earnings, third quarter profits. You know and if Hilary has more money than Obama, then obviously she will win. So even the way we talk about political campaigns resembles the way we talk about corporations. So I think politics has to be way cheaper. That’s one phase. So then you’re talking about media all of a sudden too, because the relationship with the public airways and the corporatist deal that was made in handing over the public airways to private corporations was a lousy deal for the public because there should have been more negotiated in return for those licenses, like access to those airwaves for free during political campaigns so that politicians don’t have to raise so much money in order to run for office. So then you have this discounted politics, and I think that that’s the first phase of separating these worlds.

But in terms of what you are asking about – in terms of examples of this – there is this very fast moving revolving door and I think people realize that. In the Bush era it’s gotten pretty dramatic in that people don’t . . . Usually the way it works is politicians stay in office through their term. And then when the . . . when the Democrats . . . when the Republicans go to the private sector and cash in on their contacts, that’s the way it works. The Bush era has been different in the sense that people don’t even stay through their term. I mean they’re holding posts for very short periods; not even waiting for a change in administration before cashing in on those contracts. And that high turnover, particularly in the departments that issue . . . that . . . that are the prime ATM machines – like the Department of Homeland Security – one of the biggest problems they have is this extraordinarily high rate of turnover; and their inability to hold on to experienced staff because they immediately, as soon as they get those contracts, go into the private sector and then apply for the same contracts that they used to hand out. So you know that’s part of it – the speed of that revolving door. But I would argue that much more dramatic in terms of what the Bush administration has done is really take out the door and put in an archway. And in many cases there really isn’t . . . you have . . . you have politicians who never really got out of the private sector, and Cheney is the obvious example. He never . . . He went from Halliburton directly to Vice Presidency, but he never sold his Halliburton shares. So all this time that Halliburton has profited tremendously from the war in Iraq, tremendously from high oil prices, Cheney has personally been profiting and he will cash out when he’s out of office. Rumsfeld is another (34:00) example. He refused to sell his shares in Gilead Sciences. He used to chair the Board of Gilead Sciences, which is a pharmaceutical company that owns the exclusive patent on Tamiflu, which is the treatment for the avian flu. So his economic fortunes improved dramatically while he was Secretary of Defense because he wouldn’t sell those shares, wouldn’t sell those stocks. And while he was Secretary of Defense, there were many avian flu scares. Both the Pentagon . . . the Pentagon and the . . . I forget which department. Well the U.S. government bought a great deal of Tamiflu as did governments around the world – stockpiling in case of a pandemic. So the price of this stock went from $18 I think to $83 while he was in office. So there is no revolving door there. There’s just profiting from the very policies that you’re advancing.

Recorded on: 11/29/07

Question: Why did you write Shock Doctrine?

Transcript: It came out of reporting that I was doing in Iraq after the invasion the first year of occupation. But I guess it dates back earlier than that. I happen to have been in Argentina making a documentary film when the war in Iraq began. And it was a really amazing time to be in Latin America. This was 2002, 2003. And this was, I guess, the beginning of what we now think of as this pink tide that has swept Latin America. But it was a moment in Latin American history – certainly a moment in Argentinean history – where the economic model that Latin Americans call neo-Liberalism, Americans call the free market. But these policies of privatization; free trade . . . the so-called free trade deregulation in the interest of corporations; deep cuts to social spending; healthcare and education cuts; things like that, in Argentina they actually just call this “el modelo” – the model. Everybody knows what the model is. It’s the so-called Washington Consensus. It’s the policies that have been imposed on Latin America first through military dictatorships, then as conditions attached to loans that were needed during economic crises . . . the so-called “debt crisis” of the 1980s. When I was in Argentina the model was collapsing, and Argentineans overthrew five presidents in three weeks. So it was this moment of incredible tumult and political excitement because people were trying to figure out what would come next. But it went beyond Argentina. In Bolivia they hadn’t yet elected Evo Morales, but they had these huge protests against water privatization. And Bechtel had just been thrown out of Bolivia. And in Brazil they had just elected Lula. And of course Chavez was already in power in Venezuela, but he had successfully overcome a coup attempt. He had been brought back to power. So there were all of these things going on in Latin America that were all connected in this rejection of this economic model. So to be in Latin America when the invasion of Iraq began was a really unique vantage point from which to watch the war. I’m very grateful to have had that experience to have been able to watch that through the eyes of my Latin American friends who saw the war so differently from . . . from the way it was seen, I think, by so many of us in North America. They saw a real connection between their rejection of these economic policies and the fact that the same economic program was being imposed in Iraq through tremendous violence. And you really saw and felt those connections in Latin America. You know Bechtel just thrown out of Bolivia suddenly shows up in Baghdad with the exclusive contract to rebuild their water system. And what it felt like was that . . . was that there was a change going on; that this model that had been imposed coercively though peacefully through the International Monetary Fund, through the World Bank, through the World Trade Organization – that that wasn’t working anymore. People were rejecting it that the legacy of these policies . . . the legacy of inequality was so dramatic that the sales pitch of “Just wait for the trickledown” wasn’t working anymore. And so now there was this new phase. And it wasn’t even asking, and it wasn’t negotiating. It was just imposing through raw violence. And that’s where I came up with the thesis for the book, which is we have entered this new phase that I’m calling “disaster capitalism”; or the Shock Doctrine using a shock – in this case the shock and awe invasion of Iraq – to impose what economists call “economic shock therapy”. So I think it was . . . It was definitely that experience of seeing it from Latin America – a continent in revolt against these policies – that made it easier to identify this as a new phase. And once I identified that I started to see these patterns recurring. After the Asian tsunami there was a very similar push to use the shock of that natural disaster to push through, once again, these same policies. Water privatization, electricity privatization, labor market __________, displacing poor people on the coasts with hotel developers. So a sort of social re-engineering of societies in the interest of corporations, which I think is what we’ve been doing under the banner of free trade. But now it’s under the banner of post-disaster reconstruction.

Question: Is military shock necessary for imposing neo-Liberal economic policies?

Transcript: Well if we look at the history of the advancement of this really quite radical economic model of privatizing key state assets, deep cuts to these key social spending areas that people tend to protect – like healthcare and education; or these reforms to labor laws that take away protections, take away pensions, take away the safety net; what we know is that when politicians try to do this during normal circumstances, people tend to organize and resist because they like their healthcare systems. And they actually like, you know, having labor protections. So there . . . So the use of crisis for political ends has been a part of the advancement of this ideology in many lesser ways. You know in my country – in Canada – we have a public healthcare system. We have a pretty strong social safety net. This is really how we distinguish ourselves from the United States. We lost a lot of these protections in the mid-90s not because Canadians wanted to. In fact they had just elected a liberal government that ran on the platform slogan “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs”. But we ended (17:17) up getting an austerity budget with deep cuts to a lot of these social protections because there was a debt crisis. Now this is . . . That’s another kind of a shock, and it was very . . . It was really hyped in the media if we think back. You know it’s true in the United States as well – this endless rhetoric. You know, “Our country is gonna do bankrupt unless we do deep, deep welfare reform or unemployment . . . reform of unemployment insurance.” So what I do in the Shock Doctrine is I take another look at the 35 years of history in which this economic model has really swept the globe. From former eastern block countries – China, Latin America, Africa, and North America. And I look at how crisis . . . various different kinds of crises have facilitated the advancement of this ideology and prepared the ground. What I’m arguing in the book is that the shocks are getting bigger; that a debt crisis no longer does the trick. Or a hyper inflation crisis no . . . isn’t enough to disorient a whole society and let them . . . allow them to . . . or convince them to accept their bitter medicine; that there needs to be something more disorienting. And so what we’re seeing now is that bigger shocks are being harnessed. But I do believe that crisis is required to rationalize policies that would be rejected under normal circumstances. It’s not a secret that people do protect those policies that make their lives easier.

Question: How do you reconcile this with China and India’s development?

Transcript: Well my argument is not that no one benefits. My argument is that the legacy of this economic system is tremendous inequality. It’s an opening up of a . . . of a gap – a gaping gap between the “haves” and the “have nots”. And that’s certainly the case in China. That’s certainly the case in India. And in both countries you have governments that have identified inequality as the great . . . their greatest political challenges; challenges to what the Chinese call social stability. Because you know when you have such a dramatic gap between a peasant still living on a dollar a day and the super rich who are part of the kind of Davos stratosphere, it creates a tremendous level of resentment and instability within the country. So in China they’re seeing unprecedented levels of protests for, you know, this era that had 87,000 protests a year for the past . . . starting in 2005. And they’ve been going . . . the number of protests have been going up and up, which has required more and more surveillance, more and more oppression, particularly in the run up to the Beijing Olympics. A lot of concern about this instability. So I think the difficulty really about . . . about this economic model or free trade is generalizing the idea that you can just talk about, “Is it good for China? Or is it good for India?” It’s definitely . . . It’s good for a lot of people in India. It’s good for a lot of people in China. It’s brutal for a lot of people in both of those countries because part of these policies require displacement in the name of mega projects; in the name of building a new export processing zone. So a huge part of this economic model requires displacing millions of people from where they live. So then they become migrants. Where do they go? Well they go to the cities first and they move to the slums. And so the flip side of this economic model . . . of the sort of dazzling version of “the world is flat” is the explosion of slum dwellers, with the projections that one in three people in the world will be living in slums within the next decade. So you know this is . . . You really can’t make these generalizations, and that’s what we know from having lived with these economic policies now for some three decades. I think in the early stages of this economic transformation, it was possible to just use the language of GDP, growth is gonna trickle down, and all the promises that was . . . that were a part of the first phase of this expansion. But now you have all these parts of the world that have actually tried it, right? And the legacy in Latin America is this legacy of following the rules. Countries like Argentina which were held up as the model students in the ‘90s – the model students of the International Monetary Fund. And then so much inequality, so much capital flight that sixty percent of the population fell into poverty. So that’s why the model’s in crisis. The model’s in crisis because people have a track record, and they can measure the rhetoric against the reality.

Question: What system works?

Transcript: You know I think that . . . that mixed economies work better than a fundamentalist market system. And I . . . You know I’m not a utopian, and I don’t believe it’s perfect. There’s still gonna be violence. There’s still gonna be repression. There’s still gonna be poor people. But by acceptable to UN measures of standard of living, what we see is countries that have a mixed economy. You have markets. People are able to go shopping. So I’m not talking about a totalitarian communist state; but also have social protections that identify areas that are too important to leave to the market; whether it’s education, healthcare; the minimal standards of life that everybody must have. The countries that really commit themselves to that vision of a mixed economy – the Scandinavian countries are the obvious example; Canada before this restructuring that I’m referring to in the ‘90s. But it certainly in comparison to the United States and Britain, it continues to be . . . Germany as well before their transformation – by UN rankings these are the best countries in the world to live in. And the countries that are trying to resist neo-Liberalism – this economic model – are actually . . . Even if they’re being vilified as tyrannical, communist, and all the ways in which Hugo Chavez is being vilified right now in the United States . . . If you actually look at what the economic program is, it’s pretty Keynesian. And it’s really just a recovering of some of these basic principles that the state can have a role in the redistribution of wealth. And these ideas are treated as very radical when they’re coming from poorer countries that have traditionally played an economic role of just straight abstraction, right? They’ve just supplied . . . whether raw resources, labor . . . And that’s a very profitable relationship for North American and European multinationals. So when those countries challenge that and say, “Actually we’d like an economic system more like yours,” right, then there is tremendous push back. But historically if we follow the U.S. military coups – the CIA backed coups starting with Mosadec in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala – you have this pattern of presenting developing world leaders as much more radical than they actually are. Mosadec in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, these were the first two CIA coups in 1953 and 1954. They were economic nationalists who were trying to build mixed economies. And their attempts to build those mixed economies stepped on the toes of some powerful multi-nationals. In the case of Mosadec it was BP. And in the case of Arbenz it was The United Fruit Company. And that is actually what led to the blow back.

Recorded on: 11/29/07

Transcript: I didn’t start interested in economics. And I see myself actually much more as a . . . as a cultural and political writer who was driven to understand economics because economics was shaping our culture so powerfully. And you know I . . . I became interested in the loss of the public sphere and the degradation of working conditions. Those were two of the themes that I was writing about early on as a journalist. I was writing as a young activist . . . as a young student activist about how we were losing our non-commercial spaces – like schools, right, which used to be . . . I was in school when the first ads arrived. I’m not one of these people who is interested in economics because I’m interested in mathematical modeling. You know I respect people who are, I suppose. But I was forced to teach myself economics because it was affecting culture. And that . . . And I really see myself primarily as somebody concerned with politics, human rights, culture. And I first started trying to understand economics because I was writing as a student about the loss of a public space within the school system. I was writing about the first contracts to allow advertisements in schools and corporate sponsorship of research in universities. Because it was really a transformation when I was a student in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s where there was a real push to get more corporate influence, whether in the form of advertisement or control of a research in the university system. So that’s what made me wanna understand marketing better and understand this expansionist phase of the market into previously protected spaces. Like spaces that we had said, “Okay, the market doesn’t extend to here.” There is a difference between a mall and a university, and there’s a reason why we have this public space. So I guess I came to it backwards. I came to it as somebody interested in culture, education, politics, and facing this very expansionist economic agenda that actually didn’t see a role for the public. And this is the economic phase that we’re in which is so expansionist that it’s creeping into all of these previously non-market spaces. So it was in the process of trying to defend those spaces and draw those lines that I became interested in economics.

Recorded on: 11/29/07

Transcript: How would I describe it? I guess I see myself as a . . . as a . . . as an educator. Much of what I do is . . . it’s research and then explaining that research in as accessible a way as I can. So there’s a lot of different stages to what I do, so it’s a little hard to describe. I mean sometimes there’s the information gathering time, which is where it’s really important to just be a fly on the wall. And that’s, you know, whenever I’m traveling, whether it’s Iraq, or New Orleans, tsunami affected Sri (5:56) Lanka – where it’s really about just absorbing as much information as I can and being as invisible as I can, and really just like a conduit I guess. And that’s a particular kind of travel, and I get to . . . It’s quite a difficult kind of travel because you’re going to high risk places. And then . . . and then there’s the hiding phase, which is the processing of that information; putting it into an analytic framework, reading, thinking, writing, which is a very lonely process, and really the opposite of that engaged kind of travel out there in the world. And then the third stage is explaining it; taking it, talking to journalists about it, and more importantly to me you know talking to audiences of people who have read the work and want to learn more, and engage, and think about what to do next. So there’s many different phases. And to me it’s really important to not just do one thing. You know not just . . . just report, and not bother explaining and popularizing, you know and not just give speeches over and over again and not renew with new research. So it’s a cycle.

Recorded on: 11/29/07

Transcript: I’m Naomi Klein. I’m an author, writer, journalist. I’m Canadian. I was born in Montreal to American parents who chose to come to Canada for political reasons in the late ‘60s. You can imagine what those political reasons might have been. And we came back to the states actually and lived in the U.S. until I was five, and then chose to move back to Canada because my family liked it better there. So what I usually say is that we came because of the war but we stayed for the healthcare system. So I think being Canadian born of American parents who came to Canada by choice for various political reasons really has shaped my political outlook and my interaction with the United States; also being a dual citizen kind of straddling that border I guess. My mother is a documentary filmmaker, and she is an activist filmmaker and an . . . kind of an activist-journalist, which is how I identify myself. My mother’s filmmaking was really . . . It was part of the anti-war movement. It was part of the feminists’ movement. It was really imbedded in movements, and it gave me this amazing role model that, you know . . . in my home of another way of thinking about storytelling and another way of thinking about reporting, which is about being useful to movements for social change. That was . . . that was the model I grew up with – that you make a movie, you make a film, a piece of journalism, and the goal is to start a discussion. Some of my most vivid memories are of people watching films and then having big arguments about it, and crying, and talking, and confessing. And the idea is that media starts a conversation. But then people take it and act. And so I think that had the most profound effect on me. I didn’t think I would be an activist. I didn’t have really good associations with activism because I think being a child of ‘60s parents growing up in the ‘80s (Chuckles) was . . . You know people used to joke that I was a bit like Mallory on Family Ties – just kind of embarrassed of my hippie parents. So I didn’t think I would be an activist, but I did think I would be a writer because I always wrote. And that was always my primary means of self-expression, even if it was just bad teenage poetry.

Recorded on: 11/29/07