A recent news item, treated as "fluff" in the reporting, stated that the amount of internet sales for November 11 in China surpassed "Cyber Monday" sales in the U. S. (November 11, or 11/11, is treated as a day of commiseration for lonely singles in China, and has become a day devoted to internet commerce, much as "Cyber Monday" in the U. S.) This set me to re-thinking something that has bothered me for some time.
How is it that "Communist" China can be the answer to every "western capitalist's" dream of a "perfect world"?
First, ask the question, is China a communist country? Certainly not in the Maoist sense, the Marxist sense, or even the Leninist sense. China is dominated and ruled by an elite which calls itself a "Communist Party," but, clearly, is just another tyrannical oligarchy in a world of many countries ruled by similar elites. It has even devolved into an hereditary aristocracy, mainly the descendants of the old revolutionaries and communist despots.
Second, consider the sheer size of the Chinese population. Current estimates put it at about 1.5 billion people, in a world of approximately 7.5 billion humans. Of the entire population of humanity, one in five lives in China.
Third, the great mass of Chinese are poor and will work in unspeakable conditions for long hours at low pay. China's greatest economic asset is virtually unlimited cheap labor. International corporations do not flock to China for its advanced technology, enlightened politics or scientific acumen. The great draw is, simply, lots and lots of cheap labor.
Finally, China has the potential to become its own vast consumer market. China does not need to spread the wealth, through high wages, to very many people to create what may be the largest consumer market ever seen. If five percent of the population has a "middle class" or higher purchasing capacity, that is 75 million people. If ten percent are permitted to reach that level (in a centrally controlled dictatorship), that is 150 million customers.
A dictatorship ruled by a (relatively) small hereditary elite controlling most of the country's wealth, commanding a virtually unlimited supply of cheap labor, and dominating a consumer economy of 150 million customers is the "capitalist wet dream."
Who needs Europe? Who needs America? A small cadre of people wealthy enough to buy the goods produced in China (and in other cheap labor countries dominated by the Chinese economy) is sufficient to "supplement" the Chinese market. Since "multinational" businesses (better, perhaps, "super-national" businesses) are almost sovereignties in their own right, the people who run them will make decisions based on what will further the wealth and power of those businesses. We already see so-called "American" corporations acting in their own self-interest, even at the expense of their supposed "homeland."
I have always believed that the reason the members of world's elites stay in power, even when the rest of us are suffering, is that they have a different perspective than the hoi-pallois. We think billions, they think trillions. We think years, they think decades. We have to concern ourselves with the day-to-day, they have the leisure to concern themselves mainly with the grand and distant. The rich-and-powerful are always ten steps ahead of the rest of us.
Perhaps that news item should be taken more seriously. It may represent something far more important than mere "fluff."