Customer Reviews

Rogue Economics

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An interesting, eye-opening, provocative book; very outside-the-box. But also a very self-indulgent one. Conceptually, its oddest feature is the lack of any discussion of the corporation as a socioeconomic institution, with no sustained discussion of the most important political institution, the state. Napoleoni is perhaps typical of certain lightweight Italian intellectuals inclined to portentousness (e.g. Julien Benda, Nicola Chiaromonte). Napoleoni does not use terms precisely and does not define terms, including "rogue economics" (in her Mar, 31, 2008, interview on Democracy Now! she asserted that "all Western economies are rogue economies," but she does not use the term "rogue economy" in this book); "GDP" is used for for annual growth in GDP (45); she misspells Philip Bobbitt as "Philip Bobbit" (79, 295) but also gets it right once (162); a key reference to Hannah Arendt refers only to an anthology in Italian, not the original (275n.23). Her rambling discursive style may be due to her desire to incorporate topics to which she has devoted journalistic work. Napoleoni also writes in a journalistic style, using short, simplistic, punchy sentences. She tends to toss out statistics, then move on. There is a regrettable tendency to hyperbole in her writing: "American middle-class families cannot plan holidays, birthday parties, even a future for their children, because they do not know if tomorrow they will still have a home" (43). "China's overwhelming and unchallenged absolute advantage revolves around an endless supply of cheap labor, a resource so powerful that it has stripped industrialized economies of their comparative advantage" (35). "It is in the domain of chaos, therefore, that Western thinking fails" (82; actually, Western thinking has been extremely fruitful in the domain of chaos: cf. Henri Poincaré, Jacques Hadamard, G.D. Birkhoff, M.L. Cartwright and J.E. Littlewood, Stephen Smale, Edward Lorenz, Benoît Mandelbrot, James Yorke, Robert Shaw, Albert J. Bichaber, Mitchell Feigenbaum, etc.; see James Gleick, Chaos: Making of a New Science (1987)); "foreign aid is the true cause of the malaise of Africa" (196); Islamic finance is "growing at the speed of light" (252).

Brilliantly informative and interesting. Having lived personally through the changes of the world since the collapse of the WALL initially as a Soviet Analyst based in Geneva Switzerland, and through the downsizing and offshoring of the Multinational world as a manufacturing exec, it is the closest approach to my own observations of the changes in the world. Growing hidden & open forms of slavery emerging across the world. The undermining or destruction of the market supervision capabilities of National Governments and inefectiveness of the International Organizations in the face of the mushrooming grey offshore universes of the Internet and extra-National (or offshore) financial markets.

WOW - private sector currencies developing on the net.
- Muslim Banking pushing for a return of their ancient Gold
Standard currency.

My own obserbvations re the collapse of the USSR and the parallels today in the erroading public faith in our own system frighten me, and this well written and catching book is both fair and non-alarmist, but provides insite into major frightening trends that are shaping the new order.

BRAVO Loretta Napoleoni

It would take an independent publishing house like A Seven Stories Press plus a striking Italian intrepid investigative writer to cast a light upon the coming darkness: Rogue Economics. It is a recurrent phenomenom in history caused by a sudden unexpected great transformation; unfortunately, in this eternal battle between politics and economics, globalized politics has been SLAMMED to the economic mat in a stranglehold of slave labor, piracy of the internet & seas, of fraud & fakes, of theft & money laundering, pornography & prostitution, usury & sweat shops, Fascism with Capital, Communism with Capital, & capitalism without capital!
In this global economy of today it is increasingly difficult for politics to regulate the market. In 50 years, less than a lifetime, the American dream has turned into an American nightmare where globalization has laid the groundwork for the socioeconomic decline of Middle-Class America, the backbone of the victorious U.S./ Corporations outsourced jobs and relocated production abroad. Dismantling of communism can be compared to the melting of the North Pole's ice cap: cheap labor flooded the market redesigning the economies of entire markets.
Global capitalism, driven by speculation & finance is robbing the middle class of its share of the productivity & new wealth. Aggressive and unethical groups of hedge funds are today among the most powerful of globaliization's outlaws. They are the bullies of finance, using the size of their portfolios to crush industry and circumvent legislation, because they are unregulated they elude national monetary & financial controls.
The author gives specifics in many areas of the "outlaw economy". For instance, in the telling of how the n'drangheta has gone beyond crime by cornering the global market in the supply of illegimate infrastructure. She goes into detail of how the new model of globalized organized crime revolves around business ventures between foreign and local crime.
Again and again she gets back to the point: Politics, as freedom of choice, remains the sole force to prevent economic & social injustice!
Globalized politics goes well beyond nations' high ideals to the extent that it can become a vicious, highly unpredictable battle for economic power. Economics has gone global and has broken away from the restraints of domestic politics!
Power is achieved and maintained only through violence & force.
In 1992 the World Bank admitted that consumers were the greatest losers in privatization! Counterfeit erection pills net more money than heroine. These and many, many other facts abound to lighten up the heavy duty subject matter. Also the author's observations are not only astute, sometimes they are astondingly intuitive. In her informative & detailed discussion of the market-sate in China she observes that this "real market-state" is moving toward the "virtual market state"/she describes this virtual world breathtakingly well in her chapter entitled, "High Tech: A Mixed Blessing?"
Also of significance to those looking to the New World Order(FAT CHANCE!) is her chapter on its pending nemesis: Islamic Finance - the fastest-growing, most dyanamic sector of the global economy!
I could go on & on & on/ like the enegizer bunny about this coming paradigm shift of reality, but sufice to say. when you turn the last page you'll be looking for her next book. She is ahead of the power curve. Cutting edge. But most importantly she speaks and writes truth to the powers to be.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED !!!!!

Terrific condition, fast delivery, and WOW !

What a read?

You will devour this quick, and it WILL damage your quaint faith and belief in mankind, society, and the Criminal Foodchain from southeast Asian counterfeiter to Russian Pimp to Intellectual Property larcenists-sabateurs to elected officials to the amoral Captains of Industry who puppeteer them like Caligula did on a wedding day if you recall that scene. Elbow deep, readers.

Wow. What an author. What a great seller too.

Read anything, so you can think, write, or at least spell better. Read this if you want a "Welcome to the Modern Day, Gramps !" moment.

The read, the ride, will change you.

I'll be honest I have nowhere near the academic depth of the Author, and I to some degree understand the criticisms relating to her subjective analysis, but she's entilted to it (and to the previous reviewer who's unhappy with that--let's hear your take). Not withstanding, the book is a fascinating glimpse into the true reality of our corrupt, venile world, and the way she relates our collective ignorance of it to the illusion portrayed by the movie "The Matrix" has been verified through her impressive research. I'll never again look at this world in the same way after reading this book.

"There is not a righteous man, not even one; there is no one that has any insight, there is no one that seeks for God. All men have deflected, all of them together have become worthless; there is no one that does kindness, there is not so much as one. Their throat is an opened grave, they have used deceit with their tongues. Poison of asps is behind their lips. And their mouth is full of cursing and bitter expression. Their feet are speedy to shed blood. Ruin and misery are in their ways, and they have not known the way of peace. There is no fear of God before their eyes." Romans 3:1-18

Amen

Whatever happened to all the profound social philosophers? In earlier days, everything about society was explained to you in verbose and turgid prose by, among others, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, and Oswald Spengler. After World War II a number of Jewish thinkers became popular, among them Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, Elias Canetti, and Arthur Koestler. Alas, these towering intellects, once celebrated for their insight and wisdom, read by undergraduates everywhere, have all fallen into disfavor. Their books lie in the stacks, and on the rare occasions that their names appear, they're mentioned dismissively. The only exception to this neglect that I have come across in my reading is in Loretta Napoleoni's "Rogue Economics," for she quotes the oracles Veblen, Popper and Arendt at length. Not only that, but I have a faint suspicion that she longs for her own pedestal in the pantheon of great thinkers.

A portion of "Rogue Economics" is filled with information about everything that's wrong with the world today. No problem is overlooked or omitted, and all of these new misfortunes and crimes have but one cause -- likewise new -- greed. Greed in the form of capitalism run amok. Most of the topics have been given adequate coverage in the various media -- for instance, the kidnapping of young women in Europe for the purpose of keeping them in brothels or selling them to Arabs or Turks, a practice that was once known as White Slavery, and Mozart wrote an opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio on the subject. But other misdeeds had escaped my attention -- such as the fact that one-third of the fish consumed in the UK is caught illegally. Governments have done nothing to stop this poaching which threatens the remaining fish in the oceans, and this is something that people need to know.

The portions of the book regarding such criminality are certainly worth reading, and more attention should be devoted to all these examples of villainy. But then, the book goes screechingly off the rails as Madame Napoleoni attempts to demonstrate her powers as a great thinker. You see, for each of the world's problems, she has a theory.

A theory? Your bartender has a theory of why things are going to hell in a handbasket, and so does every teamster. One might expect that, given her academic credentials and renown, Madame Napoleoni's theories would be far more sophisticated than those of your cabdriver, and they are, but are they any more accurate or insightful? Are they far more enlightened and sensible? Put your thinking-cap on and be the judge.

Everyone knows that there is a flood of counterfeit and bootleg goods issuing from China. Why are the Chinese doing this? My guess would be that, because few Chinese hold any stock in, or are on the boards of directors of, Viacom, NBC Universal, Warner Chappell (the owners of all music), Gucci, Rolex or other plutocratic entities, it's no skin off their noses (such as they are) if they rip these businesses off. It's pure profit for the counterfeiters, and they can then afford to buy the goods shown in the movies they copy. Does that make sense to you?

If it does, it shows how illiterate and shallow you are, because Madame Napoleoni has a superior, more advanced theory:
"Piracy in China remains a way of economic life inextricably linked to centuries of historical recycling. Once history is written and rewritten to fit the needs of the power of the moment, reality evaporates. The value of its accessories, from works of art to music, from literature to fashion . . . also vanishes, and unique ideas and objects find themselves easily replaced by piles and pyramids of cheap replicas." (pg.108)

Got that? Piracy in China is due to the nation's inaccurate recording of history. (And here, I thought that, until Mao seized power in 1949, Chinese history was actually more accurate than Western history which had been adulterated to fit theology. But then, what do I know?)

You have presumably wondered what the cause of violence at football (soccer) matches is, and if you've given this new conflict enough thought, you have come to the same conclusion as has Madame Napoleoni:
"Football hooliganism is one of the surreal outcomes of globalization. [pg.233-235] . . . Globalization radicalized football fans and spread hooliganism, which in the 1990s became a universal phenomenon. . . . Thus, football became a window into our society as society is a window to football. . . . As described by Popper and Bergson, this retrenchment is a response both to the threat posed by the big, globalized teams . . . and to globalization's message of a homogenized society, where everything local, including football teams, vanishes."

There you have it. Violence from football games is something new, and it is caused by globalization. (The 1969 "Football War" --La guerra del fútbol-- between El Salvador and Honduras doesn't count because . . . because it's not related to globalization, I guess.)

But the Oracle Napoleoni cannot be dismissed as merely another left-wing muckraker. No, it's much worse than that. Those who are against giving humanitarian and developmental aid to the poor nations in Africa will be happy to learn (on pages 196-197) that she is vehemently against giving such aid. " . . . It becomes clear why foreign aid is the true cause of the malaise of Africa: foreign aid is an economic virus as infectious and deadly as AIDS. . . . Far from being the cure, foreign aid has caused the disease. The more money a country receives, the more it sinks into poverty." Such is Madame Napoleoni's talent for subtle understatement, but then, off come the kid gloves when she reveals that what's more, foreign aid "does not bring political stability." How do we know this? Because Kenya and Tanzania received foreign aid, and then, "members of al Qaeda attacked the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, causing hundreds of deaths." What more proof do you need that foreign aid is the cause of all suffering? "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc" must be her motto, and a fine motto it is.

The Oracle Napoleoni apparently admires "The Matrix" series of movies, and she uses them as a metaphor throughout the book. She does not, however, have a high regard for Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code. Why was this book so popular? Shallow thinkers like you and me might assume that people simply found the fast-paced and mildly-educational novel entertaining, but Madame Napoleoni has discerned that there is a deeper and more sinister cause for the novel's popularity -- globalization! "Culture, too, has not escaped this globalization trend. The success of the blockbuster 'The DaVinci Code', for example, well illustrates the appetite for widely recycled art history and religion. . . . historical novels satisfy readers' desire to rapidly consume junk history and culture as an escape mechanism. Culture has become a commercial product . . . Authenticity has become a fugitive because it is encoded in time and not in space." (pg.107)

This last sentence is one of Madame Napoleoni's leaping attempts to create a pithy phrase on the order of Hannah Arendt's "the banality of evil," so be sure to copy that onto a card and paste it in your hat, so the next time someone poses an intellectual question, you can just take your hat off and say, "Authenticity has become a fugitive because it is encoded in time and not in space." Such an unbounded axiom can be dropped into any conversation, and you can follow it up with Madame Napoleoni's theoretical hairsplitting such as the difference between nationalism and state tribalism: "State tribalism is alien to nationalism where the state is constructed around the national identity of its people: that is, the state is an expression of such identity."

If you haven't found all that astonishing enough, there are many more profound jaw-droppers to be discovered in the pages of this book. For instance, you will be intrigued to learn (on both pages 254 and 256) that the one-hundred years preceding World War I were years of peace in the world (apparently Madame Napoleoni has never heard of . . . of . . . oh, never mind), or that "Northern states are actually looking forward to global warming." Most astounding of all is the fundamental cause of all problems. Globalization is merely a proximate cause, but civilization went wrong because of one thing: the fall of the Berlin Wall. This catastrophic event is cited about every 3 to 5 pages and when you read the phrase "the fall of the Berlin Wall" it means that a new predicament is about to be discussed. Curiously, most of these references to the ruinous fall of the Berlin Wall are not listed in the book's index -- such as on page 219, where it is cited as the cause of street-gang violence in Los Angeles.

Books of ordinary muckraking are written to move the reader to howls of indignation over the injustice of it all, and they seldom suggest practical solutions to the wrongs they describe, but this book is exceptional as it offers an antidote to the poison of rogue capitalism. What does The Oracle Napoleoni recommend as a specific remedy to our global grief? You will (I hope) be relieved to learn that she does not advocate rebuilding the Berlin Wall. Instead, she foresees but one hope if mankind is to be saved from the ravages of capitalism run amok, and the only thing that can save us is . . . [cue-in heavenly choir]. . .is . . . [sunrise on camera three] . . . *Islamic finance*!

"Partnership between leaders and clerics . . . serves as the root of Islamic finance. . . . Partnership is the heartbeat of Islamic economics . . [which is] the opposite of Western finance, which revolves around the individual's self-interest.
Above all, Islamic finance represents the sole global economic force that conceptually challenges rogue economics. It does not allow investment in pornography, prostitution, narcotics, tobacco, or gambling. As discussed above, since the fall of the Berlin Wall [!], all these areas have blossomed thanks to globalization outlaws under the indifferent eyes of the market state."

Why will we be better off once we all live under the laws of Islam? Because, "a sharia-compliant product requires a fatwa, or religious edict, from a recognized scholar . . . and its roots are intertwined with the religious pride of being a Muslim. . . . This gives Islamic finance a greater degree of flexibility than traditional Western finance, while at the same time it offers investors a degree of security unknown to Westerners. The ethical issue, central to modern finance, does not arise in Islamic finance because the fatwa clears investment from any notion of wrongdoing."

Although The Oracle Napoleoni does not go into the specific details of exactly how the marvel of Islamic finance actually works, we know it will be wonderful, because anything produced under a fatwa must be good, and the coming utopia she describes far surpasses the "worker's paradise" envisioned by Lenin.
"Patents and trademarks will disappear, reducing capitalism's ancient privileges, giving impetus to hard-working individuals, who will flourish thanks to this form of liberalization. History will lose its shine and be recycled to fit the needs of the moment. The quality of fake goods will improve until it becomes all but impossible to distinguish the original from its replica Western brands' edge will vanish. This simple fact will trigger a massive redistribution of wealth at global levels."

That sure sounds great, doesn't it? Where do I sign-up for this utopia? Will I have to get circumcised first? The only lingering uncertainty I harbor is that over at the nonprofit Transparency International website, where nations are rated as to the degree of corruption in their society, the nations where Islam is the state religion and sharia is the law are rated without exception as among the most corrupt societies on earth. Iran comes in at 131 out of 179 (Somalia), and Malaysia, which Madame Napoleoni hails as the Islamic-finance nation of the future, is shown to be far more corrupt than the USA, Uruguay, or even Italy. Ironically, the least corrupt of all Islamic nations, Qatar, is precisely where many of the kidnapped girls from Eastern Europe end up as the prostitutes Madame Napoleoni laments over at the beginning of the book. (I guess sharia says it's o.k. if they're infidels, huh?)

Thus it is that we starving/dieting masses can rejoice that the Golden Caliphate is soon at hand, and that we will thus be redeemed, but I wouldn't over-rejoice, because Meet the new boss -- same as the old boss.

Highest rating! This is the most amusing book I've read since the fall of the Berlin Wall!

Rogue Economics is an interesting look into some of the seamier aspects of the 21st century global economy. The author looks at world economic phenomena like trade in fake pharmaceuticals, brand intellectual property violation, the sex-trade coming out of Eastern Europe and tries to attach meaning and relevance with some of the recent economic forces like globalization, unregulated financial markets, outsourcing, etc.

While some of the authors observations are powerful, I felt there were places where this became a bit of rabble rousing. Some of the author's biases about the role of the US and the Western world in general came through in lot of her causal analysis of world situations. Also, some of the conclusions could have been better supported by facts and numbers rather than based on the author's opinions.

All in all, an entertaining read and an interesting window into all that's seamy and illegal in today's global economy. Not sure whether I would believe many of the analysis though.

I studied social science, majoring in sociology. I thought that I had the "way the world works" sussed until I discovered the writing of economist and writer, Loretta Napoleoni.
Napoleoni's writing has given me a perspective on the global economy that I have never had before.
She gives an understanding that allows one to penetrate beneath the thin veneer of the news that we see in the popular media, into the causes of major world events. I have also read her book, "Modern Jihad, Tracing the Dolalrs behind the Terror Networks which is equally insightful and illuminating.

Loretta Napoleoni is an Italian Marxist who, in her book Rogue Economics: Capitalism's New Reality, makes her case that Capitalism is the cause of all the world's ill's and that the collapse of the Soviet Union, beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall, was where all our problems started. Globalization and more specifically Capitalism are the villain. Furthermore, Democracy itself is the very root of all evil in the world.

Falsely promoting itself as a rigorous economic study, the publisher attempts to coattail its sales onto the bestseller, Freak-O-Nomics, by endlessly comparing itself to the other on the book jacket and with adjacent product placements. The two books have absolutely nothing in common what-so-ever.

Readers accustom to non-fiction economic writing will find nothing familiar in this book. Any arguments built on facts and an unemotional objective analysis of the data are strangely absent. Little information is sourced.

The book plays on every logic fallacy in the catalog-- straw man arguments, appeals to sympathy, appeals racism, appeals to nationalism, you name it, it's in there. What a piece of trash and a waste of my money.

No surprise that this book is marked down to a blowout fire-sale price here on Amazon.