China’s “Socialist“ Billionaires

Following the Latest Report about the Global Super-Rich

By Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 16.11.2015, www.thecommunists.net

A few weeks ago, the annual report about the richest people in the world was published – the co-called Hurun Global Rich List (see http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/china-dethrones-us-has-maximum-number-billionaires-1524295 and http://www.hurun.net/en/ArticleShow.aspx?nid=14678). It contained a number of interesting facts. Most importantly it reports that China has overtaken the US as the home country to the largest number of billionaires throughout the world.

According to this report, out of 1,877 dollar billionaires worldwide, 596 have their homes in China. 537 dollar billionaires live in the US – which was until now the leading country for the super-rich. Noteworthy is that the figure for China does not include billionaires residing in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, the first two of which formally belong to the Chinese state. (Together, these three entities are home to another 119 billionaires.)

This means that even without the Chinese billionaires residing in Hong Kong and Macao, 31.8% of the super-rich layer of the global monopoly capitalists are Chinese. Of course, if we compare the figure of billionaires with the total population per individual country, the Western imperialist countries and Japan are still way ahead of China. Nevertheless, it is an undisputable and crucial fact that nearly a third of the top layer of global monopoly capitalists has its home in the Chinese state and is closely networked with the ruling state apparatus.

There are persons who claim that China is still a “deformed workers state.” Do they want to tell us that these 596 super-super-rich are “socialist” billionaires?! Do others, who belittle China as a “semi-colonial” country which supposedly serves US imperialism as an extended workbench, still deny that this Asian country is home of a potent monopoly capitalist class – one of the global “big players”?!

No, the simple truth is that China became capitalist long ago (in the early 1990s) and through two and half decades of hyper-accumulation of capital, a significant big bourgeoisie has emerged there. As we have elaborated in a number of works, China has become an emerging imperialist power.

For our analysis of China as an emerging imperialist country we refer readers to various works of Michael Pröbsting:

The Great Robbery of the South (Chapter 10), http://www.great-robbery-of-the-south.net/great-robbery-of-south-online/download-chapters-1/chapter10/;

China‘s transformation into an imperialist power. A study of the economic, political and military aspects of China as a Great Power, in: Revolutionary Communism (English-language Journal of the RCIT) No. 4, http://www.thecommunists.net/publications/revcom-number-4;

No to chauvinist war-mongering by Japanese and Chinese imperialism! Chinese and Japanese workers: Your main enemy is at home! Stop the conflict on the Senkaku/Diaoyu-islands in the East China Sea! 23.9.2012,in: Revolutionary Communism No. 6, http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/no-war-between-china-and-japan/;

Russia and China as Great Imperialist Powers. A Summary of the RCIT’s Analysis, 28 March 2014, in: Revolutionary Communism No. 22, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/imperialist-china-and-russia/;

More on Russia and China as Great Imperialist Powers. A Reply to Chris Slee (Socialist Alliance, Australia) and Walter Daum (LRP, USA), 11 April 2014, in: Revolutionary Communism No. 22, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/reply-to-slee-on-russia-china/;

The China Question and the Marxist Theory of Imperialism. Again on China as an imperialist Power. Reply to a Polemic from CSR (Venezuela) and PCO (Argentina), December 2014, in: Revolutionary Communism No. 32, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/reply-to-csr-pco-on-china/