Naomi Klein

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Naomi Klein

Born May 5, 1970 (1970-05-05) (age 38)
Montreal, Quebec
Occupation journalist, author, activist
Subjects anti-globalization, Neo-Liberalism
Official website

Naomi Klein (b. 5 May 1970, Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian journalist, author and activist well known for her political analyses of corporate globalization.

Klein ranked 11th in an internet poll [1][2][3] of the top global intellectuals of 2005, a list of the world's top 100 public intellectuals compiled by Prospect magazine[4] in conjunction with Foreign Policy magazine. She was the highest ranked woman on the list.

Contents

[edit] Family

Klein was brought up in a Jewish family which has a history of activism, as does that of her husband, Avi Lewis. Her grandfather was fired for labour organizing at Disney in the United States. Her father Michael, a physician, was a Vietnam War resister and a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Her mother, film-maker Bonnie Sherr Klein, directed and scripted the anti-pornography documentary film, Not a Love Story.[5][6] Her brother Seth is director of the British Columbia office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Her in-laws are Michele Landsberg and Stephen Lewis, son of David Lewis. An aunt of Klein's is married to architect Daniel Libeskind.

[edit] Education

Klein's writing career started early with contributions to The Varsity, a University of Toronto student newspaper, where she served as editor-in-chief. She credits her wake-up call to feminism as the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre of female engineering students.

Klein once lectured as a Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics.[7]

Klein was the keynote speaker at the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians (ACJC)'s first National conference.

[edit] Career in journalism

In 2000, Klein published the book No Logo, which for many became a manifesto of the anti-corporate globalization movement. This movement had shut down the WTO Meeting of 1999 one month before the release of No Logo.[citation needed] The book lambasts brand-oriented consumer culture by describing the operations of large corporations. These corporations are also accused of being often guilty of exploiting workers in the world's poorest countries in pursuit of ever-greater profits, she writes. Klein criticized Nike so much in the book that it became one of the first publications to receive feedback from the company.[8] No Logo became an international bestseller, selling over one million copies, and translated into over 28 languages.[9]

In 2002 Klein published Fences and Windows, a collection of articles and speeches she had written on behalf of the anti-globalization movement (all proceeds from the book go to benefit activist organizations through The Fences and Windows Fund). Klein also contributes to The Nation, In These Times, The Globe and Mail, This Magazine, and The Guardian.

She has continued to write on various current issues, such as the war in Iraq. In a September 2004 article for Harper's Magazine entitled Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia,[10] she argues that, contrary to popular belief and criticisms, the Bush administration did have a clear plan for post-invasion Iraq, which was to build a fully unconstrained free market economy. She describes plans to allow foreigners to extract wealth from Iraq, and the methods used to achieve those goals.[11][12] The 2008 film War, Inc. was partially inspired by her article, Baghdad Year Zero.[13]

Also in 2004, Klein and her husband, Avi Lewis, released a documentary film called The Take, about factory workers in Argentina who took over the closed plant and resumed production, operating as a collective. The first African screening was in the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the South African city of Durban where the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement began.[14]

[edit] The Shock Doctrine

Klein's third book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, was published on 4 September 2007, becoming an international and New York Times bestseller,[9] translated into 20 languages.[15] The book documents the concept of economic shock therapy and argues that the deregulated policies of free market neoliberalism, as advocated by the Chicago school of economics, have not risen to prominence because they were democratically popular, but because they were pushed through at various times when citizens were in a state of shock from a traumatic event, such as a natural disaster, a war, a coup, or an economic crisis. Detailed in the book are case histories of Chile under Pinochet, Russia under Yeltsin, New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the privatization of Iraq's economy under the Coalition Provisional Authority.

The Shock Doctrine was also adapted into a short film of the same name, released onto YouTube. The film was directed by Jonás Cuarón, produced and co-written by his father Alfonso Cuarón. The video has been downloaded over one million times.[9]

[edit] Reception

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Economist Joseph Stiglitz praised The Shock Doctrine in the New York Times, adding, "the case against these policies is even stronger than the one Klein makes."[16] Paul B. Farrell from the Dow Jones Business News called it "one of the best economic book[s] of the 21st century".[17] John Gray wrote in The Guardian, "There are very few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is one of those books."[18] William S. Kowinski of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Klein may well have revealed the master narrative of our time,"[19] and it has been named one of the best books of 2007 by the New York Times,[20] the Village Voice,[21] Publishers Weekly,[22] The Observer,[23] and the Seattle Times.[24]

The book has received mixed reviews from Alexander Cockburn of CounterPunch,[25] Shashi Tharoor in the Washington Post,[26] and Tom Redburn in the New York Times.[27]

Critics of the book include economist Tyler Cowen, who called Klein's rhetoric "ridiculous" and the book a "true economics disaster."[28] In the London Review of Books, Stephen Holmes is critical of what he sees both as Klein's "naive celebration of ‘joyous’ populism, democracy and mass movements" and her conflation of "'free market orthodoxy' with predatory corporate behavior."[29] John Willman of Financial Times describes it as "a deeply flawed work that blends together disparate phenomena to create a beguiling – but ultimately dishonest – argument."[30] Robert Cole from The Times said it is "too easy to dismiss [Shock Doctrine] as a leftist rant".[31] Johan Norberg has contested much of the book in a 20 page briefing paper,[32] and the section on Russia has been challenged by Anders Åslund[33] and Fred Kaplan.[34]

[edit] Books

[edit] Filmography

[edit] References

  1. ^ Herman, David (November 2005). Global public intellectuals poll. Prospect Magazine. Prospect Publishing Limited.
  2. ^ What Are We Fighting For? January 27, 2005
  3. ^ Democratic Rights in Wartime Feb, 2005
  4. ^ Prospect Magazine List of Top 100 Public Intellectuals. Prospect Magazine. Prospect Publishing Limited. Retrieved on 2007-09-09.
  5. ^ National Film Board of Canada (Producer), & Bonnie Klein (Director). Not a Love Story: A Motion Picture About Pornography.
  6. ^ DiCaprio, Lisa (March 1985). "Not a Love Story: The film and the debate". Jump Cut (30): 39-42. 
  7. ^ Visiting teaching fellows. London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved on 2007-09-09.
  8. ^ Nike's response to No Logo. Nike (2000-03-08). Archived from the original on 2001-06-18.
  9. ^ a b c The Nation | Unconventional Wisdom Since 1865
  10. ^ Baghdad year zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia. Harper's Magazine. The Harper's Magazine Foundation (September 2004). Retrieved on 2007-09-09.
  11. ^ Interview by Amy Goodman about Klein's article, "James Baker's Double Life", October 13, 2004 (video, audio & print transcript)
  12. ^ PBS Frontline: The Persuaders: interview via KQED, November 9, 2004
  13. ^ 'I'm basically a brand' | Interviews | guardian.co.uk Film
  14. ^ "Seattle to Baghdad" - An assessment of Klein's shift from analyzing 90's corporate culture to the War in Iraq, by Kim Phillips-Fein in n+1 magazine.
  15. ^ RandomHouse.ca | Author Spotlight: Naomi Klein
  16. ^ Stiglitz, Joseph. "Bleakonomics", New York Times, 2007-09-30. 
  17. ^ Farrell, Paul. "War, Terror, Catastrophe: Profiting From 'Disaster Capitalism'", Dow Jones Business News, 2007-10-16. 
  18. ^ Gray, John. "The End of the World as We Know It", The Guardian, 2007-09-15. 
  19. ^ Klein alleges U.S. used 'Shock' tactics to privatize public sector
  20. ^ Critics' Picks - Art and Architecture Books - 2007 - New York Times
  21. ^ village voice > books > The Best of 2007
  22. ^ PW's Best Books of the Year - 11/5/2007 - Publishers Weekly
  23. ^ That's the best thing we've read all year | Review | guardian.co.uk Books
  24. ^ Books | Seattle Times book reviewers pick 2007 favorites | Seattle Times Newspaper
  25. ^ Alexander Cockburn: On Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine"
  26. ^ Doing Well by Doing Ill - washingtonpost.com
  27. ^ It’s All a Grand Capitalist Conspiracy - Tom Redburn, New York Times, September 29, 2007
  28. ^ Cowen, Tyler. "Shock Jock", 2007-10-03. 
  29. ^ Holmes, Stephen. "Free Marketeering", 2008-05-08. 
  30. ^ The profits of doom - John Willman, Financial Times, October 20 2007
  31. ^ [ http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article2645272.ece The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein] - Robert Cole, The Times, October 12, 2007.
  32. ^ The Klein Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Polemics
  33. ^ "Free-Market Mischief in Hot Spots of Disaster", New York Times, 2007-09-10. Retrieved on 2007-11-27. 
  34. ^ Kaplan, Fred. "Blame Yeltsin", Slate, 2007-10-02. 

[edit] External links

[edit] Media


Persondata
NAME Klein, Naomi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION journalist, author, activist
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Montreal, Quebec
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH