A more accurate term for a system

that erases the boundaries

between Big Government and Big Business

is not liberal,

conservative or capitalist

but corporatist.

Its main characteristics

are huge transfers

of public wealth to private hands,

often accompanied by exploding debt,

an ever-widening chasm between

the dazzling rich

and the disposable poor

and an aggressive nationalism

that justifies

bottomless spending on security.

For those inside the bubble

of extreme wealth

created by such an arrangement,

there can be no more profitable way

to organize a society.

But because of the obvious drawbacks

for the vast majority of the population

left outside the bubble,

other features of the corporatist state

tend to include aggressive surveillance

(once again, with government

and large corporations

trading favors and contracts),

mass incarceration,

shrinking civil liberties and often,

though not always,

torture.

 - Naomi Klein

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

(art by Beau Stanton)