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Comment by asdflkj | Hacker News Reader

Her main thesis is that free market capitalism is bad. She doesn't try to disprove that free market capitalism is good. Instead, she attacks the character of famous proponents of it, by suggesting that they forced their will upon the unwilling populace. That's ad hominem.

I neither agree nor disagree with her about this last part, because I don't know enough about it. But I give her the benefit of the doubt.

The only way her argument could be not an ad hominem is if there was a causal link between the merit of the idea she is attacking and the populace's willingness to accept it. All I was trying to say is that there is no such link. I am not offering any solutions; just pointing out bad logic.

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>> Her main thesis is that free market capitalism is bad.

Not really her thesis at all. Her main thesis is that we're not really even given a chance to experience free market capitalism, we're just told we're experiencing it by people who are force-feeding us "free market solutions" during times when we're not thinking clearly (after a disaster) and that these solutions would never actually be adopted by people through a legitimate free market system.

I think she's not so much arguing against free market capitalism as saying that what passes for it is really a centrally-managed sham.

>> Instead, she attacks the character of famous proponents >> of it, by suggesting that they forced their will upon >> the unwilling populace. That's ad hominem.

She doesn't "suggest" that they forced their will upon an unwilling populace, she points to an actual, documented and verifiable economic doctrine of a person who advices presidents and Federal Reserve boards.

If she implies it, that is an attack on their character. If they themselves have actually said that this is a good way to force development that would otherwise be impossible in face of free-market opposition, than they damn themselves - she's just saying, "Look at their own words and theories, and see if recent history seems to follow this pattern, if it does, then these people are doing it on purpose - and they even claim as much themselves."

>> The only way her argument could be not an ad hominem is >> if there was a causal link between the merit of the >> idea she is attacking and the populace's willingness to >> accept it.

I'm not sure, I wasn't there, but I doubt any of the people affected by the Asian Tsunami would have given up their beachfront property for chump change to major corporations in the hospitality business who wanted to build resorts BEFORE they were traumatized by natural disaste, like they did after.

Or take domestic matters - how many people would have put up with all the domestic surveillance B.S. we have here now if no such thing like 9.11 happened?

Or New Orleans - hospitals and such shut down to be torn down to make way for upscale property development - what resident would have agreed to that prior to Katrina? None. But after, they were in no position to agree/disagree with anything because most of them didn't even have a place to live.

I think she's basically saying that what passes for "free market capitalism" is a sham perpetuated by people whose ideas/solutions would never be adopted in a free market system and so they rely on the irrational emotions produced by disaster to get otherwise weak ideas through the market mechanisms.

In other words, if there were no disaster, many "free market solutions" that saw the light of day after disasters would never actually be accepted in a free market.

This then leaves open a disturbing scenario: at what point do people whose economic contributions would never be adopted by others unless it was in a state of fear, panic, shock, emotion, etc., consider it useful to actually initiate disaster in order to have their ideas accepted more readily?

Naomi Klein is a hero to Western socialists, second in her hero status perhaps only to Noam Chomsky. She is most certainly against free market capitalism. Your post makes her ideas seem more attractive to me, but I think you're misrepresenting her.

I'll read the book. Maybe it's not as bombastic as this video. Still, from what I've heard about it, I have little hope.

>> Naomi Klein is a hero to Western socialists

Now THAT'S an ad hominem attack. I can see people's eyebrows furrowing, "Oh, she's one of those new-fangled, "Western socialists" I see now."

Whatever she is, at the very least the idea put forth is original, and, to the extent its true, disturbing, and, to the extent that it's true enough to allow us to predict, then it's useful to.

Think about it: let's say some "horrible thing" happens some time over the next year.

According to her view, first we'll see politicians on t.v. assuring us that "everything will be alright" and that "help is on the way." although no specific help is mentioned.

Then while we're huddled together scared and confused, wall street, major corporations and washington PACs will rush to put together deals that will wind up turning into some scandal 3 years from now.

Then three years later, we'll all look at the headlines and wonder, "They did what? When the hell did they put that together? I don't recall reading about that! Oh - wait - that was when XYZ disaster happened - that's right - I was too busy calling my relatives in the area to see if they were alright to be busy worrying what kind of business deals walls street was putting together."

Seriously - say a disaster happens - do you expect anything BUT that scenario to happen?

Here's a quick test for you: bush's family has had affiliations with Exxon all the way back to when it was called Standard Oil.

All the global instability caused by bush in the last 8 years has driven oil up to sky high prices.

Exxon corporation, during bush's reign, has more than doubled in market valuation, on the basis of nothing more than rise in oil prices, to over half a TRILLION dollars.

Did you know that? Like most people, I bet not. You were too busy trying to figure out how to survive the current market crisis, ie, you're too busy trying to refinance your home, negotiate with whatever credit company just jacked your rates up because they're losing money on defaults, etc.

See how that works? You're busy trying to keep your head above water, the fat cats are making hundreds of billions in ways that don't benefit you and are often at your expense. If you weren't dealing with all the problems you are in life, would you agree to that? No, of course you wouldn't. Ergo, the fatcats have an economic incentive to keep causing you problems so you never have enough free time / mental energy to figure out how they're screwing you.

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