For those of you who don’t know, Feudalism is a term used to describe the political system during the Medieval Age and since coining of the term in 1614, has been applied to multiple different societies throughout history. Feudalism is a system defined by three major parts, lords, vassals and fiefs. For accuracy, I refer to wikipedia:

The structure of feudalism can be seen in how these three elements fit together. A lord was a noble who owned land, a vassal was a person who was granted possession of the land by the lord, and the land was known as a fief. In exchange for the fief, the vassal would provide military service to the lord. The obligations and relations between lord, vassal and fief form the basis of feudalism

Keep this definition in mind as I (attempt) to dissect an article published by the NY Times earlier today, June 5th.

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The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is the new book from Naomi Klein detailing what she claims is a systematic foisting of Free Market Economics and Privatization upon countries, inlcuding our own, during times of shock such as “natural” disasters, war and terrorist attacks. From her web site:

At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater. After a powerful tsunami devastates the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts. New Orleans’s residents, still scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened.

Interesting.