Abstract

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

The article argues that disaster relief masks a form of colonialism in which the United States moves its organizations into other countries in order to bring capitalism and change. On August 5, 2004, the White House created the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, headed by former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual. Its mandate is to draw up elaborate "post-conflict" plans for up to twenty-five countries that are not, as of yet, in conflict. Fittingly, a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive reconstruction. The office's mandate is to create "democratic and market-oriented" states. Ever-larger portions of the globe are under active reconstruction: being rebuilt by a parallel government made up of for-profit consulting firms, engineering companies, mega-nongovernmental organizations, aid agencies and international financial institutions. There is a rise of a predatory form of disaster capitalism that uses the desperation and fear created by catastrophe to engage in radical social and economic engineering. And on this front, the reconstruction industry works so quickly and efficiently that the privatizations and land grabs are usually locked in before the local population knows what hit them.