I have a niece who is a junior at college. She’s very bright and articulate and politically engaged. However, she seems to be a libertarian. So I sent her The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein to start a discussion with her. That was in April. Here’s the follow up email.

I have been delinquent in engaging in the discussion I intended to start with you about politics via The Shock Doctrine. I understand that you became disillusioned with it after a while and decided it wasn’t worth the time. No matter. The point is that the last time we spoke, you seemed to have some libertarian-like ideas that gave me the impression you believed in free market capitalism. I wanted to engage you on this point because there is no such thing as free market capitalism, unless you mean that those with the capital are free to call the shots and everyone else should believe in the myth that they too can become rich and keep their mouths shut.

The Shock Doctrine shows that many of the dictators in the recent past, such as Pinochet, who used torture and murder to maintain power, was secretly backed by the free-market capitalists of the University of Chicago and the IMF. This capitalism, in essence, delivered state assets and the country’s natural resources into private hands at the point of a gun. Free market capitalism equaled brutal dictatorship. The brutality—the shock—was a necessary accompaniment because without it, in a democratic system, the populace would never have allowed such pillaging of the common national resources.

The official story in the US media was that we were of course against this brutality, as most human beings are. However, when you dig down, as the author did, you find that all of the financial institutions of the capitalist world—IMF, banks, and others—were supporting the brutality for economic gain.

The point being that free market capitalism is not free, not virtuous, and not in the best interests of most humans in most countries. Capitalism that is properly managed by governments elected by the will of the people, as we have in this country, is superior to free market capitalism because it brings other important values into the equation.

When capitalism is not regulated aggressively enough, it runs amuck. That’s why we’re in the economic mess we’re in now. And yet, we remain committed to a system where less than a year after they were allowed to drive the economy of the world into the ground, the capitalist demigods of Wall Street are once again reaping bonuses that total more that what most people make in ten years.

I suggest that this money has nothing to do with the value these demigods delivered to society. Which is OK. Neither do the salaries paid to sports stars or entertainers. It is natural to want to be a demigod. But we should not be confused that the type of capitalism being practiced in this country, and indeed since kings and noble people controlled all wealth, is the best way to organize societies concerned with things like social justice and ending human suffering. There needs to be a careful nurturing of the instinct that allows people to transform themselves into demigods along with the authority to keep these demigods from controlling the system solely for their own benefit. For that is the natural course of free market capitalism.