The Failure of the Green New Deal
Without a theory of change, the green transition will come too late.
“Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change.”
This is perhaps Milton Friedman’s foremost insight, and one which has shaped the world over the past five decades.
Friedman — the Nobel Prize winning economist whose free market ideology shaped the Reagan and Thatcher administrations as well as the Pinochet dictatorship — was the pioneer of what Naomi Klein calls the “shock doctrine.” The key insight of the shock doctrine is the parallel between the medical procedure and economic theory — a parallel which Klein illuminates brilliantly. The shocked patient (or citizen) exists in a state of blankness and uncertainty; where the grey matter and neurons seem disconnected from their previous positions and must be rewired; a moment where almost all ideas seem possible and permeable.
To continue Friedman’s quote:
“When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas which are lying around.”
At its core, the shock doctrine is a theory of change: a model of how ideas are created, move through and ultimately become adopted by individuals, institutions and society.
