“Only a crisis produces real change, and when that crisis occurs, the change that occurs depends on the ideas that are lying around.” - Milton Friedman, American Nobel Laureate Economist.

One of the sources that has been helpful in defending the use / suggestion of violence in my thesis is a book entitled “The Shock Doctrine,” by Naomi Klein. The basic premise is that by using the public’s disorientation following a massive collective shock – wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters (corporate induced violent revolutions), etc. – it is easier to achieve social and economic control. In the words of Washington State Congressman Jim McDermott in the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, “You can make people do anything when they’re afraid.”

One of the best examples of what Klein calls “Disaster Capitalism” (the corporate re-engineering of societies still reeling from shock), was the days and months following 9/11 when former president Bush – in addition to increasing government spending, outsourcing the War on Terror to companies like Blackwater and Haliburton, passing legislation that gave the president more power, and introducing the controversial Patriot Act – asked Americans to go shopping.

While the promotion and use of the violence may not be the most clever instrument of change it does result in a malleable public which can be used to bring about drastic economic and social reform. If I were a corporation trying to stage a public backed coup using brand loyalty as catalyst, I can’t think of a better way to get citizens to fall in line than through the use of violence and the propagation of fear.

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