Broken Windows vs Broken Promises and Irresponsible International Finance

By Roger Picton 29 June 2010

As Canada’s national media obsesses over a few burnt cars, the shock doctrine has played out in full force in the Canadian context. During this week’s G20 meetings, the use of massive police and security operations masked the (re)imposition of unpopular neoliberal policies. 

As Naomi Klein has detailed, the shock doctrine works like this: at a point of crisis, force people into a state of shock, then impose severe and unpopular measures, often with the use of force. In this case, a state-sanctioned policing strategy allows for property damage to be used as a pretext for massive police action. As shock reins and media suffer whiplash (a burnt police, and also broken windows, oh my, how can that be, this is Toronto!), the G20 leaders, hidden behind fences, and far from public view, agree to the return of the politics of austerity. 

In fact, while seemingly unrelated, the outside and the inside of this summit are, in fact, part of the same game. The police strategy, perhaps unwittingly, acts as a cloak for what an article on G20 Breakdown calls the “(re)triumph of neoliberalism as global economy’s modus operandi”. Nowhere is this more true than in heart of Canada’s financial capital, where the very financial institutions that led us to the precipice, were able to avoid calls for responsibility by lobbying Harper's neoliberal government.

The impacts of these measures will be quite severe. Although they caused a major global metldown, financial institutions have successfully hidden from dereliction, as the G20 has rejected a broad and increasingly popular call for a Robin Hood tax on banks. And, despite lip-service on maternal health, a few days earlier over supper, the G8 did nothing to cover the remaining $14 billion short on its commitment from Gleneagles 5 years ago.

A recent article by G20 Breakdown, written before the G20, remains an important statement: “Now it is on the people’s backs to clean up the mess. It is post-crisis shock doctrine for all of us. A clear reason to challenge the G20 agenda.” The massive police attack on concerned citizens makes this task to relocate the narrative even more important. The story is not one about broken windows, but of irresponsible international financial capital, and broken promises.