The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists: Summary & Key Insights

Before Hurricane Maria ever made landfall, Puerto Rico was already crippled by a financial siege. Decades of colonial dependency had left the island economically subordinate to Washington, its autonomy eroded by the imposition of fiscal boards and debt repayments that bled public services dry. When I studied its history, it felt as if Puerto Rico was being prepared for the perfect storm—a territory denied sovereignty, forced to borrow, and then punished for its insolvency.

The United States treated Puerto Rico as a laboratory for neoliberal reforms long before the hurricane. Tax breaks lured corporations, but when global finance shifted, those same companies departed, leaving unemployment and debt behind. The so-called PROMESA law placed control of Puerto Rico’s finances in hands far removed from its people, a kind of modern colonial governor’s council that dictated austerity from afar.

This context matters because disaster capitalism thrives where democracy is weak. Years of privatization left the electrical grid fragile, social services underfunded, and communities dependent on external goods. By the time Maria hit, the groundwork for exploitation was already complete—an island stripped of self-sufficiency and primed for the selling off of its public assets.

When Maria struck on September 20, 2017, it didn’t merely tear through homes and forests; it tore through an entire way of life. Over three thousand lives were lost as the island’s infrastructure collapsed. But perhaps more devastating than the winds was the silence that followed—the deafening absence of federal support, the deliberate slow-walking of aid.

I spoke with people who had waited weeks for power, months for clean water. In the vacuum left by official neglect, solidarity networks began to form. Neighbors created community kitchens; youth groups reconnected isolated barrios. But amid the chaos, another force was mobilizing—not to aid but to capitalize. Investors flew in with visions not of restoration but of transformation, hoping to turn catastrophe into a chance to reshape Puerto Rico according to corporate dreams.

This moment—the shock itself—was the stage upon which disaster capitalism operates best. When people are disoriented and desperate, power brokers thrive. Maria did not create inequality; it exposed and accelerated it.