Maonomics

The end of the cold war was thought to signal the triumph of Western capitalism over Communism. In Maonomics: Why Chinese Communists Make Better Capitalists than We Do, Napoleoni argues just the opposite: what we are witnessing instead is the beginning of the collapse of capitalism and the victory of "communism with a profit motive." Maonomics charts the prodigious ascent of the Chinese economic miracle and the parallel course of the West’s ongoing insistence on misconstruing China and its economy even as we acknowledge its growing influence and importance. Maonomics is a warning call whereby Western governments can avoid economic collapse by learning how to understand more clearly what the lessons of the Chinese economy really are. Based on first-hand reporting from China during frequent visits in the last several years, Maonomics lends credence to the Chinese view and translates it for Western readers. For example, the Chinese too are attached to their vision of democracy, but it is different from ours. It isn’t focused as much on voting as it is economic opportunity and the fair distribution of wealth and prosperity. Napoleoni also separates failed Leninist political ideology from true Marxist theory, showing that Marx’s writings do not reject profit so long as it is used to benefit the people. Marx’s dictatorship of the proletariat is being realized in China, she argues, where giant steps forward are being made in the name of progress and the wellbeing and prosperity of the Chinese people. Looking at the Chinese economy up close, any economist would be hard pressed to say that they are not on the right track. Here Loretta Napoleoni offers a front row seat on the greatest show on earth: the peaceful economic revolution that is shifting the balance of power in the world from West to East."Timely and fascinating, Napoleoni’s top-notch reporting, in which her attention turns from Viagra to blood diamonds to the banana price wars in a few pages, works in the vein of Freakonomics and Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, but much grimmer." -Publishers Weekly on Napoleoni’s Rogue Economics, a PW Book of the Year 2008

"This thoughtful and incisive inquiry yields much insight into some of the most important issues of today, and tomorrow" -Noam Chomsky on Napoleoni’s Terror Incorporated


“… In urging the West to abandon its prejudices and fundamentally rethink its ideology, [Loretta Napoleoni] is asking the right questions.” –Morning Star


“With her hands on China's skull, Napoleoni can map the phrenology of a billion and a half Chinese minds as they struggle with the complex contradictions of this new and still-churning mix of capitalism and communism. . . . If you want to understand the force that will direct your children and your children's children, read this book. Twice.” –Greg Palast

A woman of the Left who garners praise from Noam Chomsky and Greg Palast at the same time as she is quoted respectfully in Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, LORETTA NAPOLEONI was born in 1955 in Rome. In the mid 1970s she became an active member of the feminist movement in Italy, and later studied as a Fulbright Scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. She began her career as an economist, and went on to work as London correspondent and columnist for La Stampa, La Repubblica and La Paîs. Napoleoni is the author of the international bestsellers Rogue Economics: Capitalism’s New Reality and Terror Incorporated: Tracing the Money Behind Global Terrorism. She has served as the Chairman of the countering terrorism financing group for the Club de Madrid, and lectures regularly around the world on economics, money laundering and terrorism. Napoleoni lives in London and Montana. 

Lessons to be learned from the Chinese economic rise