Studies Point to Inequalities That Could Strain Chinese Society

My suspicion is that any government, if left alone long enough, would eventually devolve to feature oligarchs or aristocrats with immense power and wealth. Perhaps it is in our DNA, but we need government policies to correct our evil predilections.

First, I was a business owner in China, for 15 years, and I learned many things about the distribution of wealth there. This article is absolutely true. I would go farther and say that the rising discontent is even larger than the writer says. I watched first hand the disparaging difference between those that have vs those that don't rise to a vast shrieking proportion both on the social media sites and in demonstrations across China, and importantly in Beijing.
Chinese citizens are right to ask why and how does President Xi's daughter attend Harvard and how does he pay the tuition costs, which is more than they will ever earn in their entire lifetime and is wholly at odds with his anti corruption campaign.
There is no equality in China and never has been. It was easy to sell the communist revolution to the Chinese, in 1949. Today, much less so. Nobody believes that nonsense any longer. Control is greater than ever to insure the party's continuation.
Distribution of wealth is a global issue. The one percent gets richer and the rest get screwed. Trump with his totally failed concepts of trickle down economics and cabinet of billionaires is just the same horse with a different color. It's never worked but some Americans keep falling for the promises. The Affordable Care Act, with its imperfections, was a small attempt at leveling the a corner of playing field. The companies have seen to its demise because they have lost capital gains since ACA's inception.

What this article omits is that the GINI coefficient of the U.S. is almost as large as China's.

Let China fix its problems. The U.S. (living in its own glass house) should fix itself.

I work for a Chinese company and communicate regularly with people in China. This article is 100 percent correct, and Chinese citizens know this is true, and are not content with the situation.

Goodness, they're just like us!

Economy equality utopia only exists on books because the DNA we inherited are not the same. Given the same amount of money and socioeconomic circumstance to start with, some people will become rich and others will be poor years later. People have different ability. For those with the right personality and making the right decision will moving ahead, for those who consistently making the wrong decision and fumble the opportunity in front of them will be left behind. This is why the poor and the rich coexist side by side across different societies and cultures.
After taking over power, Mao equalized the poverty and the economy became stagnant with the constant shortage of consumer goods resulting in several famines and millions die from starvation. Hundred million Chinese have moved into the middle class from their prior penury existence in 30+ years is a grand triumph of the Chinese people by any stretch of imaginations.
Income inequality general lead changes in political systems via revolution and bloodshed throughout our human existence – French revolution, Bolshevik revolution and numerous dynastic changes in Chinese history. For now, the CCP will be in power as long as the middle class is satisfied. The difficult question is what comes next after CCP since no dynasty last forever?

“The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.”
John Maynard Keynes wrote that in 1936
Keynes writing in the depth of the Great Depression still has a familiar sound today and this after a period of marked improvement in the standard of living and in income distribution. Today the 20 richest people own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans. China has matched the USA and now ranks as the most unequal distribution in the world, after coming from one of the world’s poorest states. It has surpassed America in number of Billionaires, but not yet on a per capita basis. The latest set of Communist Party directives promises to deal with inequality as did the one before, the difference is that Growth in GDP has to be downgraded and Social Programs set ahead. “Reform must substantially increase investment in public goods and services, and further improve the welfare level of the whole of society.”
The issue is alive in the PRC and may come alive in the USA as well. Which economic system is most likely to succeed? Neither?

I wouldn't believe one word of this report, what with the CCP notoriously known for putting out fake reports on the everything from the exchange rate to growth, particularly on this very sensitive subject of income inequalities and their allegiance to the corrupt CCP. Well of course "the people" are happy and love their government. I wouldn't expect their conclusion to be otherwise.

Dreamland for the leader, reality for millions of under served, unbelieving Chinese citizens. Xi would make a good Republican or evangelical Christian.

In which category would the U.S. be generating less societal "strain": wealth distribution? familial influence on wealth accumulation and success? citizen opinion of politicians? expansion of the middle class? citizen expectations of future personal achievement? The only area that China elites must envy U.S. elites is their corporate media's ability to weave a hypnotic narrative of economic inequality as failure of personal responsibility. Social justice still lingers in the Chinese post-communist mind.

Communist or capitalist,the problem of income inequality seems to be universal. When a problem is exposed and becomes public, the next step is t do something about it. I don't know about China, but I do know that in this country the problem, as of now, is being ignored.

Just as the Americanization of the Chinese economy has boomed, so has the Americanization of its income equality.

We are such a good influence in so much of the world!