What is Disaster Capitalism?

Coronavirus is a dangerous time for the economy – and nothing makes this clearer than having a Treasurer come out as a Margaret Thatcher fanboy.

Van takes us back to the 1980s to unravel the source of today’s economic inequality, stripped services and dislocation.

Sources & Credits:

“What is Disaster Capitalism?” Video by Van Badham and David Molloy, 2020 

Further Reading: 

Van Badham, “Australia doesn’t need Thatcher and Reagan’s neoliberal economics of misery” (Guardian, Monday 27 July, 2020)

Frank Bongiorno, The Eighties: The Decade That Transformed Australia (2015)

Milton Friedman, Free To Choose (1980)

 Chris Harman, A People’s History of the World (2017 ed.)

Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007)

Peter Kornbluh, Still Hidden: A Full Record Of What the U.S. Did in Chile (Washington Post,

Sunday 24 October, 1999)

Videos: 

Music: 

More from Australian Trade Union Institute

An introduction to the Australian Living Peace Museum

An introduction to the Australian Living Peace Museum

May 24, 2023

By Associate Professor Bobbie Oliver, the University of Western Australia The histories of the peace…

Read More

The right to paid union training leave – a short history

The right to paid union training leave – a short history

By Professor Anthony Forsyth, RMIT The establishment of the Trade Union Training Authority (TUTA) by…

Read More

The 1967 referendum

The 1967 referendum

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article does include images of…

Read More