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This is a radical oversimplification of what has happened and is happening in China, conflating several things into one. China is still very much a communist c

This is a radical oversimplification of what has happened and is happening in China, conflating several things into one. China is still very much a communist country, and the raising of many people out of poverty is in large part a result of the government distributing the gains that have come from "special economic zones" into rural areas on a scale that would make a "tax on billionaires" seem like a quaint half-step. Allowing people to own and control private enterprises is a big step for China, but the gains from those private enterprises are still very much under the control of the Chinese government.

simonh 5y ago
The vast majority of the cash flowing into rural areas is actually remittances from sons and daughters that went to work in the special economic zones, or the main urban centres to mainly work for private enterprises. Anyway the hundreds of millions of people I'm taking about are the urban middle class. Their wealth almost entirely flows from the capitalist sector, in fact the majority of the wealth in the state sector comes from the capitalist sector one way or another. Source, my wife is Chinese and we have extensive family connections over there. China is a single party state with a command economy, but is in no way shape or form Communist or even Marxist. It's social security system is barely existant; it's public health care is radically fee based to a degree that even makes the US system look socialist; many tens of millions of urban residents get zero public support or even schooling for their children because their families come from the countryside.