I see where you’re coming from. Having read the article, it feels a little self congratulatory, especially since we can only guess as to the motives of the party members and the state in general. There are interesting perspectives in the article which do point to a general trend towards the “belittling of Capital” and improving the general quality of the workers (*who fall in line with the state [*separate topic]).
I’m trying to avoid words like Marxism/Socialism since I’m still learning and it’s hard to label without full knowledge. I am making a critical assumption that in a global marketplace, where there are monetary and non-monetary transaction costs and discrepancies over value, there will always be billionaires. A metric of “time to billionaire status” is probably better than “number of billionaires” to compare how Marxist/Capitalist the environment is. From the articles it seems that China would have a longer “time to billionaire” than a regular capitalist country. And there is a ceiling to that growth.
In a billionaire corporation, would you rather the workers be on a higher level of Mazlows hierarchy than one where the workers never get to see the fruits of their labor? Yes the exploitation of any worker is bad but at least from the articles perspective, the average Chinese worker has access to some level of housing and bullet trains and food etc. I presume that’s what you meant by the “inequality in the micro” but please correct me if I’m wrong. The inequality suffered by a Chinese worker vs an American or Indian worker (or any other country where Capital has power over policy) is different. I have absolutely no data to back that claim but at least in principle, the worker in a less Capitalist environment is a little less exploited.
For the “inequality of the macro”, the Chinese state is trying to be the only Power in town and making sure that Capital (and by proxy the billionaire corporations), does not control the government. When it tries e.g. Alibaba, examples are made. If billionaires are legit terrified of showing off wealth and are slaves to the party, that at least offers a ceiling to growth of the corporation, and by proxy a ceiling to the exploitation.
As I understood from the article was that the Chinese state has a slightly higher incentive to look after worker and make sure they’re relatively happy since they’re not “corrupted” by corporate interests/billionaires. They have shown some examples in the past to either infiltrate the corporation or keep the bourgeoisie in line. Of course I’m critical of the positive ratings and examples they are stating since it’s hard to separate the noise from false/true signals. Happy to hear critique!
(Stating my position just in case: I’m terrified of one party wielding that much power over people and opinions. I value freedom over security past the line drawn by my potentially uninformed perceptions of China. Happy to update my beliefs based on data)
My pleasure!
Ah yeah the article is somewhat circular referencing when it comes to evidence provided that having x amount of billionaires is fine and sign of a lovely healthy and beautiful society (as long as they align with party interests). It’s interesting how there’s an implicit assumption in China that there are things like reputation and power which can’t be bought by money. But yes, I see where you’re coming from.
I’m still trying to chew on your second point. It’s gotten me questioning some assumptions. Billionaires feel like an inevitable emergent property of a market mostly because there are at least 1 billion people in the world who have different estimates of “value”. I’m imagining an “ethical” billionaire who got rich creating some video game in his spare time charging folks a low $5. Would you say there’s a flaw in the society for creating such a billionaire? Maybe it’s on the backs of exploitative low cost chip manufacturers who make computers or some energy provider… or is it that the market will balance since competition will cut into the profits of the first developer which then should, in an ideal world, would curb the growth of the billionaire. If I’m reading you right, you’re claiming that there’s a threshold after which there’s implied “corruption” or collision to allow for unchecked growth?
In China’s case (at least from the article in this thread, not OP), it seems they ‘cautiously allowed’ the formation of billionaires back on the day to ‘supercharge’ the economy with that extra profit incentive. It’s what that money can buy is the big question and in which China claims to have a limit.
Thanks for engaging :)