The film traces the doctrine's beginnings in the radical theories of Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago, and its subsequent implementation over the past forty years, in countries and situation as disparate as Pinochet's Chile, Yeltsin's Russia, Thatcher's Britain, and most recently the neo-con invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It will expose the darker side of Friedman's ideology, which was so unpopular it could only be implemented through the use of torture and repression.