I'll be honest. I never read Naomi Klein's 'Shock Doctrine', and I have been pretty skeptical about her actual sophistication when it comes to the ability to debate economics. I only heard of the 'Shock Doctrine' as a way of using a crisis to force through drastic pro-market, neo-liberal reforms that would never be approved democratically.
But that's the perfect analogy for what's happening right now in Europe. Germany is using the crisis to force other countries to bust their unions, destroy labor protections, crush pensions and social security, slash wages, and bring up unemployment rates. Because German is in a currency union with the rest of Europe, it has, by necessity, a shared monetary policy. But Germany refuses to allow that monetary policy to work for Greece, Italy, Spain, and other countries. It prefers to force these countries into adjustments of the above described nature.
The problem is that the countries cannot adjust fast enough because they are under speculative attack by the markets, and face a liquidity crunch. Besides that, forcing these countries into adjustment is undemocratic. The correct solution is to break up the euro area.
There are now three options.
The first option is that all of the countries under pressure, including possibly France, go into sovereign default and political and economic chaos of the first degree, annihilating the European banking system sending the European economy into a tailspin.
The second option is that Germany authorizes unlimited printing of money by the ECB, recognizing that the problem right now is not moral hazard. The problem right now is a liquidity crunch. The ECB would then behave like any other central bank, such as the Fed, the BOE, the BOJ, and the SNB.
The third option is a breakup of the euro, preferably split into two parts: one part consisting of areas of the former Roman Empire, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Italy, Greece. Plus Ireland. The other part consisting of largely protestant countries Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Denmark, the Baltics, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, plus Austria. The difference between the two is that the first group prefers at the present time to run a deficit on its current account, the second group prefers to run surpluses.
Either way, the Germans are currently not being honest with themselves about their choices and are not acknowledging the failure of their Shock Doctrine plan to work as they want it to work. The problem is that they are out of time and the speeding train is upon them whether they want to open their eyes or not.
It is time for them to step up and go big, or go home.