# How can the economic crisis be used as a leninist strategy to promote progressive policies

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-economic-crisis-be-used-as-a-leninist-strategy-to-promote-progressive-policies/688484
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [May 15, 2014, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-economic-crisis-be-used-as-a-leninist-strategy-to-promote-progressive-policies/688484 "2014-05-15T01:12:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 6

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### Author: ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2014, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-the-economic-crisis-be-used-as-a-leninist-strategy-to-promote-progressive-policies/688484/6 "2014-05-15T15:35:37Z")

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> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> In the shock doctrine Naomi Klein talks about how crises are used to promote Friedman economic policies, something of a leninist strategy of using a crisis to achieve an end.

Indeed she does, and Naomi Klein tells lies constantly throughout the book. I highly recommend reading [this article](http://reason.com/archives/2008/09/26/defaming-milton-friedman), which debunks the book at length. To give a few highlights:

[ul]  
[li]Klein says that Milton Friedman was an “adviser” to Augusto Pinochet. This is an outright lie. In their entire lives Pinochet and Friedman met only once for a few minutes, and there is zero evidence that Pinochet was ever influenced by Friedman’s ideas.[/li][li]Klein lists Argentina as an example of a country practicing “contemporary capitalism”. [In reality, Argentina has one of the world’s most centralized economies](http://www.heritage.org/index/country/argentina), and that’s been true for quite awhile.[/li][li]Klein says that the Tiananmen square massacre featured protestors opposed to capitalism being massacred by a government seeking to advance capitalism. This is the exact opposite of the truth. The government that did the massacring was, of course, the communist party; the protestors opposed the communist party and were in favor of democracy and freedom.[/li][/ul]

The list could go on for a very long time. Even though we’re all somewhat jaded by the many pundits who are less than intellectually honest, it’s still rather shocking to see Klein packing a whole book with these lies and being widely praised on the left.

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