This thesis examines the various intellectual currents from mercantilism, Physiocracy, early Chinese nationalism and Maoist socialism, and their interrelation with various institutions of power such as that of the Orientalist archive, the institution of the State, and the practice of politics. I interrogate a particular “hall of mirrors” narrative wherein an Orientalized China was the object of economic theories by Physiocrats who proved to be influential to Marx, which through networks of imperialism those theories made their way to said Orient during the latest 19th century, underpinning the political program of revolutionaries who would then take state power in 1949. Although criticized during the Mao-era for “economism”, the milieu of economists such as Sun Yefang carried the day, as economics as theory, prescription and practice proved more difficult to reform or revolutionize than one would have imagined for a strong Party government. Using frameworks developed by Edward Said and late 20th century continental thinkers such as Sylvain Lazarus – who themselves often took the radical image of Maoist China as an object of inspiration – to examine where this inertia comes from, why economics seems so imbricated with institutions of power, how certain economic ideas come to prominence, and what we are to do with the still-lingering realities of Empire.