Author and activist Naomi Klein. (photo: CharlieRose.com)
Shameless Disaster Capitalism
By Naomi Klein, The Nation, 12 November 12
Yes that’s right: this catastrophe very likely created by climate change-a crisis born of the colossal regulatory failure to prevent corporations from treating the atmosphere as their open sewer-is just one more opportunity for more deregulation.
The following article first appeared in the Nation. For more great content from the Nation, sign up for their email newsletters here.
Less than three days after Sandy made landfall on the East Coast of the United States, Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute blamed New Yorkers’ resistance to big-box stores for the misery they were about to endure. Writing on Forbes.com, he explained that the city’s refusal to embrace Walmart will likely make the recovery much harder: “Mom-and-pop stores simply can’t do what big stores can in these circumstances,” he wrote.
And the preemptive scapegoating didn’t stop there. He also warned that if the pace of reconstruction turned out to be sluggish (as it so often is) then “pro-union rules such as the Davis-Bacon Act” would be to blame, a reference to the statute that requires workers on public-works projects to be paid not the minimum wage, but the prevailing wage in the region.
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