Disaster Capitalism
Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe
Published on 15. September 2015
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-1-78478-115-6 (ISBN)
Description
Best-selling journalist Antony Loewenstein trav-els across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Haiti, Papua New Guinea, the United States, Britain, Greece, and Australia to witness the reality of disaster capitalism. He discovers how companies such as G4S, Serco, and Halliburton cash in on or-ganized misery in a hidden world of privatized detention centers, militarized private security, aid profiteering, and destructive mining.
Disaster has become big business. Talking to immigrants stuck in limbo in Britain or visiting immigration centers in America, Loewenstein maps the secret networks formed to help cor-porations bleed what profits they can from economic crisis. He debates with Western contractors in Afghanistan, meets the locals in post-earthquake Haiti, and in Greece finds a country at the mercy of vulture profiteers. In Papua New Guinea, he sees a local commu-nity forced to rebel against predatory resource companies and NGOs.
What emerges through Loewenstein's re-porting is a dark history of multinational corpo-rations that, with the aid of media and political elites, have grown more powerful than national governments. In the twenty-first century, the vulnerable have become the world's most valu-able commodity.
Disaster has become big business. Talking to immigrants stuck in limbo in Britain or visiting immigration centers in America, Loewenstein maps the secret networks formed to help cor-porations bleed what profits they can from economic crisis. He debates with Western contractors in Afghanistan, meets the locals in post-earthquake Haiti, and in Greece finds a country at the mercy of vulture profiteers. In Papua New Guinea, he sees a local commu-nity forced to rebel against predatory resource companies and NGOs.
What emerges through Loewenstein's re-porting is a dark history of multinational corpo-rations that, with the aid of media and political elites, have grown more powerful than national governments. In the twenty-first century, the vulnerable have become the world's most valu-able commodity.
Reviews / Votes
The forces of disaster capitalism are increasingly on the defensive, but their attacks on the global commons have expanded in the years since I wrote The Shock Doctrine. I am very grateful that Antony Loewenstein has brought his meticulous reporting to this subject, and the result is a keenly observed and timely investigation into rampant resource plunder, privatized detention centers, and an array of other forms of corporate rapacity on four continents. This book will serve as a potent weapon for shock resistors around the world. -- Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine Chilling study, based on careful and courageous reporting, and illuminated with perceptiveanalysis, helps us understand all too well the saying that man is a wolf to man. -- Noam Chomsky A journey into a world of mutated economics and corrupt politics that we ignore at our peril. -- John Pilger A devastating, incisive follow-up to Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. -- Jeremy Scahill Our economic system now depends upon transforming emergency relief, incarceration and the processing of asylum seekers into profits . [an] unnerving and convincing book. -- Owen Hatherley * Guardian * Antony Loewenstein offers us a superb description of the diminishing power of national governments and international organisations to exercise power in the modern world -- ROBERT J. BURROWES * The Lahore Times *
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 40 mm
Weight
700 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78478-115-6 (9781784781156)
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Schweitzer Classification
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Book
01/2017
Verso Books
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Additional editions
E-Book
09/2015
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Person
Antony Loewenstein is an independent Australian journalist, documentarian and blogger who has written for the BBC, Nation, Washington Post. He's a weekly Guardian columnist and the author of three best-selling books, My Israel Question, The Blogging Revolution and Profits of Doom: How Vulture Capitalism is Swallowing the World, co-editor of After Zionism and Left Turn and co-writer of For God's Sake. His books have been translated and his journalism has been a finalist in many global awards. He's currently working on a documentary about disaster capitalism.