Rogue Economics

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 e

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 pro

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.

This excellent and informative book should serve as a Wake-Up Call to those of us in the west who believe in fair play, honesty and other "obsolete" values. These monsters in China, Iran and other third-world countries will stop at nothing to further their nefarious objectives. Unless we dig in now and prepare for the "Clash of Civilizations" - a clash between all that is right and true and all that is evil and despicable - we will be swept away along our civilization.