Capitalism

I came across a rather interesting Chinese talk show today. Its focus was on capitalism and whether the increasing income inequality was a favourable or acceptable by product of capitalism. Some rather interesting points were brought up, which I would only be too glad to add in this discussion.

China, for its vast land size and large demographical size, is a little overdue for the capitalism bandwagon. Despite having a relatively immature capitalist system, China is already impregnated with some of the adverse effects of capitalism - income inequality, inequity and environmental degradation. The question is, can more be done to cushion the detrimental impacts of capitalism?

In China, the amount of super rich - multimillionaires and billionaires - are swelling. And this trend is heading upwards. If nothing esle, the projected figure is set to balloon by 2 fold in a decades time, which is frankly speaking a rather subdued estimation. Many has feel that with the increase in cost of living, the barriers to wealth has subsequently increased. Wealthy people have considerable leverage in terms of money, influence and even land, and the poor on the other hand faces a playing field tipped in favour of the rich and powerful. Such has led to increase cynicism among the poor and economist, who view the stretch of income gap has a lamentable issue that should be rendered more attention from the government.

Capitalism, even for its pitfalls, is ultimately a paragon of wealth creation. This is not an issue that concerns whether China should dissociate itself from capitalism and hark back to the former days of socialism and communism because it is no longer relevant and realistic. China has, with the benefit of hindsight, recognize that capitalism is what they need to propel the country and fight neck to neck with the West, and Deng promptly steered the country towards capitalism and get the country together from the messy shambles of communism. Rather, it is a question of how much leeway should be accorded and how much should be curtailed to exploit the most of capitalism while minimizing the subsequent ill effects of it.

China has opened up considerably, liberalizing trade as well as business conditions, and the influx on investment and the freeing up of private markets have given rise to a new social cadres of superrich.Most capitalise on the property market and made a sizeable fortune out of it, and this has raised more than one eyebrow since China is after all, living in the shadow of its socialist past, whereby people still have lingering memories of equitable allocation of resources. 20 years is not short, but yet not long enough for people to uncouple themselves from the notions of communism that has been entrenched in their country for far longer than capitalism has. So achieving too much during such a short span of time is indeed a feat that is remarkable, yet rigged with problems. With mega cities slated for construction and impending renovations, many poors are increasingly disillusioned by displacements and erosion of some of the old landscapes and structures. Even the new China demands greater knowledge (shares market, property markets etc) and expertise which obviously is lacking in poorer, less educated people. So with the poor finding themselves edged out of competition, and subsequently stifled and stuck at the lowest rungs, can there be any solutions to address this problem, or is it consigned to a fate of inevitability?

Some has mentioned that capitalism is not a zero sum game. They believed that the rich and the poor need not be polar, antithetical opposites and that the idea of the rich and the poor coexisting is not an incongrurity. The rich has paved a new course for China, and the poor indeed could be beneficial recipients in an age of weath and opulence. They argue that with increasingly affluent Chinese and the sprouting of mega firms all over China, taxes revenue would be boosted and more could be channel to aid the poor. And more consequentially, with richer Chinese, the poor could help themselves as more jobs are created. One of the greatest hurdles of China is the lack of infrastructure and societal conditions, and this increase in affluence could help to bolster and create such favourable conditions neccessary for China to grow.

The truth is, given China's demographics, population and land size, it is impossible for everyone to feast on the benefits of Globalisation. The country's startling, unbridled growth might not be commensurate with the increase in wealth of the average citizen, as is any other capitalist countries in the world. Capitalism offers a cornucopia of riches, but as they say, only those who are worthy of it would be able to partake in the feast of capitalism. There are trade offs in the path of capitalism, and as most will attest, those who indeed make it rich usually possess a keen sense of acumen or a sharp vision that differentiates them from the many who never managed to leap the hurdle. People just don't get rich overnight; and whether one accepts them or not, one ultimately has to concede that these people worked for it, and just for that they deserve a decent level of respect.