Ying Ma on Life Under Mao and China's Economic Miracle

"For a long time, people were not allowed to have dogs in the city, because that was also a capitalist indulgence," says Ying Ma, author of the memoir Chinese Girl in the Ghetto, which chronicles her childhood in China's final days of communism.

Ma's family lived through the crumbling of Maoism and the rise of economic liberalism, and talked with Reason TV about the dramatic changes that Chinese citizens saw in their everyday lives. 

"For the first time, people got to choose where to work. For the first time, they got to choose where to live. For the first time, they actually got to choose what to buy on the market," says Ma. 

Ma also discusses the future of the Chinese economy and explains why pundits like Thomas Friedman are mistaken to laud China's continued authoritarian rule. 

About 8 minutes.

Interview by Nick Gillespie. Edited by Zach Weissmueller. Shot by Josh Swain and Weissmueller. Additional camera by Sharif Matar. 

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