Interesting. Surely if, as you’re saying, the wealth disparity is so central to the current economic challenges facing China (both short and long term) there must be some people talking about it? Similar to yourself? Is this something that can be addressed at a local level or is all the power to change things in the hands of the central government? You talked about local government mostly concerning themselves with meeting goals/quotas (often by short-sighted numbers pumping as happened with real estate), but there must be someone yelling “bridges and trains are awesome but i also want socialism to mean having a house and luxury goods”
It’s the elephant in the room. Everyone talks about it, but the leadership will never admit it.
The inequality is built into the system since the 1994 Tax Sharing Reform: read my effort post here from a few months ago. Anyone who tells you why China should or shouldn’t have billionaires but without closely inspecting the historical development during this period, isn’t really tell you anything.
And if we want to interrogate this from a historical materialist perspective, it really is a 2000-year old struggle between a centralized bureaucracy and decentralized regional growth models that has never been resolved over the dozens of dynastic changes throughout centuries in China.
Thank you for the responses. Reading through the older post you linked it seems like the GDP KPI would be an easy place to start. Is there anyone pushing for such reform? Are there any factions making such criticisms of the system either at the federal or municipal level?
Interesting. Surely if, as you’re saying, the wealth disparity is so central to the current economic challenges facing China (both short and long term) there must be some people talking about it? Similar to yourself? Is this something that can be addressed at a local level or is all the power to change things in the hands of the central government? You talked about local government mostly concerning themselves with meeting goals/quotas (often by short-sighted numbers pumping as happened with real estate), but there must be someone yelling “bridges and trains are awesome but i also want socialism to mean having a house and luxury goods”
It’s the elephant in the room. Everyone talks about it, but the leadership will never admit it.
The inequality is built into the system since the 1994 Tax Sharing Reform: read my effort post here from a few months ago. Anyone who tells you why China should or shouldn’t have billionaires but without closely inspecting the historical development during this period, isn’t really tell you anything.
And if we want to interrogate this from a historical materialist perspective, it really is a 2000-year old struggle between a centralized bureaucracy and decentralized regional growth models that has never been resolved over the dozens of dynastic changes throughout centuries in China.
Thank you for the responses. Reading through the older post you linked it seems like the GDP KPI would be an easy place to start. Is there anyone pushing for such reform? Are there any factions making such criticisms of the system either at the federal or municipal level?