Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe

This “keenly observed and timely investigation” of how capitalism makes a fortune from disaster, poverty and catastrophe is “a potent weapon for shock resistors around the world” (Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine).

Disaster has become big business. Best-selling journalist Antony Loewenstein travels 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 cash in on organized misery in a hidden world of privatized detention centers, militarized private security, aid profiteering, and destructive mining.

What emerges through Loewenstein’s re­porting is a dark history of multinational corporations 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 valuable commodity.