You’ve felt it. That weird, hollow sensation when a massive crisis hits—a pandemic, a sudden war, or a climate-fueled flood—and while most of us are just trying to figure out where to get bread or how to keep our kids safe, a very specific group of people is already making a killing.
It's not just "business as usual." It’s something far more deliberate.
Naomi Klein called it the "Shock Doctrine" back in 2007, and honestly, the world hasn't really stopped proving her right since. Back then, people thought her ideas on disaster capitalism were a bit fringe, maybe a little too "conspiracy-adjacent" for polite dinner conversation. But look around. In 2026, we are living in the peak of the shock economy.
Basically, the theory is simple: when a society is hit by a massive "shock"—something that leaves the population disoriented and traumatized—it creates a window. In that window, while everyone is too busy surviving to protest, governments and corporations push through radical, "free-market" policies that would be impossible to pass during normal times.
The Core Mechanics of the Shock Doctrine
Klein’s thesis didn’t just pop out of nowhere. She traced the roots back to the 1950s and a guy named Ewen Cameron, a psychiatrist who did some pretty horrific experiments with electroshock therapy. He wanted to "blank slate" patients by blasting their memories away and then rebuilding their personalities from scratch.
It didn't work on people. But economists like Milton Friedman realized it worked great on entire countries.
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Friedman, the godfather of the Chicago School of Economics, famously said:
"Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around."
That’s the playbook. You wait for the crisis. You have your deregulation, privatization, and social spending cuts "lying around." Then, while the smoke is still clearing, you jam them through.
Real Examples That Actually Happened
- Chile, 1973: After the bloody coup that overthrew Salvador Allende, the "Chicago Boys" (Friedman-trained economists) rushed in. While people were being disappeared and tortured, they privatized everything they could touch.
- New Orleans, 2005: After Hurricane Katrina, while residents were still scattered in shelters, the city’s public school system was almost entirely replaced by charter schools. Klein calls this a "raid on the public sphere."
- The Iraq War: This was the ultimate "over-shock." The literal "Shock and Awe" bombing was followed by a literal "economic shock therapy" that tried to turn Iraq into a privatized, corporate paradise overnight. Spoiler: It fueled an insurgency instead.
Why 2026 Feels Like Shock Economy 2.0
If you think this is just history, you haven't been paying attention to your energy bills or the way AI is being rolled out. We’ve entered a phase Klein now refers to as "End Times Fascism" or "The Great Reset" (but not the way the YouTube theorists mean it).
Today, we are seeing disaster capitalism on steroids.
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Take the energy crisis. Over the last few years, as supply chains buckled and wars flared up, energy companies didn't just survive—they hit the jackpot. While you were debating whether to turn the heat up or buy groceries, companies like Exxon and Shell were posting record-breaking profits. In Texas, during the 2021 winter blackouts, natural gas prices surged so high that some firms made $200 million in a single week.
That's not a bug in the system. That's the system working exactly as described.
The New Frontiers: AI and Climate
We are currently in a "technology shock." The sudden, aggressive expansion of AI is being used as a pretext to bypass labor laws and gut job security. "The tech is moving too fast for regulation!" they say. That’s a classic shock tactic. It's meant to make you feel like resistance is futile because the "future" has already arrived.
Then there's the climate. Klein’s more recent work, like This Changes Everything, points out that we are now facing "the mother of all shocks."
Instead of using the climate emergency to build better public transit or stronger social nets, we see "green capitalism." This is basically the same old privatization but with a leaf logo. Private firms are moving in to "protect" water rights or build "resilient" luxury bunkers, leaving the rest of us to deal with the crumbling public infrastructure.
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Critiques and the "Both Sides" of the Argument
To be fair, not everyone loves Klein's take. Groups like the Cato Institute argue she oversimplifies history. They'll tell you that countries often move toward free markets because their old systems were failing, not because they were "shocked" into it. They argue that liberalization has lifted millions out of poverty in places like China and Eastern Europe.
But even the critics have to admit: the timing is often suspiciously convenient.
When a country is underwater or under fire, that is objectively the worst time to have a nuanced democratic debate about whether to sell off the national postal service or privatize the hospitals. Yet, that’s exactly when it happens.
How to Spot a "Shock" in the Wild
You don't need a PhD to see this happening. You just need to look for the patterns.
- The Narrative of Necessity: "We have no choice but to cut these services because of the [insert crisis here]."
- The Speed Trap: Laws are passed in the middle of the night or through "emergency powers" that bypass the usual public hearings.
- The Private Solution for a Public Problem: Suddenly, a private company is being paid billions to do a job the government used to do (often poorly, but at least it was accountable).
- The Distraction: While the media is hyper-focused on one dramatic event, boring but massive shifts in corporate law are happening in the background.
Actionable Steps: How to Not Be a Victim of the Shock
So, what do we actually do about it? If the whole point of the shock doctrine is to catch us off guard, the only defense is to be "un-shockable."
- Build the "Ideas Lying Around": This is the most important thing Klein talks about. If the right-wing has their "ideas lying around" for a crisis, we need ours. We need plans for public housing, community-owned energy, and universal healthcare ready to go before the next crisis hits.
- Demand Transparency During Emergencies: Whenever a politician uses the word "emergency" to justify a contract or a law, that is the exact moment to start asking who is getting paid. Follow the money, every single time.
- Focus on Resilience, Not Just Resistance: Stop waiting for things to go back to "normal." Normal is what got us here. Focus on building local networks—food co-ops, tool libraries, neighborhood watch groups—that don't rely on the "disaster capitalism complex" to survive a storm.
- Identify the "Doppelganger" Effect: In her latest book, Doppelganger, Klein warns about how we get lost in "mirror worlds" of conspiracy and tribalism. Don't let the noise distract you from the material reality of who owns the land, the data, and the power.
The shock economy relies on your exhaustion. It relies on the fact that you’re too tired to fight back. But once you see the pattern, you can’t un-see it. And once you can see it, you can start planning for the window when it opens next. Because it will open again. Be ready.