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Chairman Mao was right: The 'noblest' and 'elite' are (sometimes) stupidest
By Wu Jiayin |
January 5, 2010, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IN a statement broadcast on Shenzhen Satellite TV late last month, real estate marketer Dai Xinming created an enormous controversy:
"It's not at all strange for people like us to own several houses, as we are social elites," he said in an interview.
In other words, Dai believes that social elites are entitled to better living standards than ordinary people.
This reminds me of many Wall Street financial wizards who argue that they need rich compensation to be motivated.
Indeed, neoclassical economic theory, which has dominated the West for a century, argues that each individual's compensation reflects his marginal social contribution - what he adds to society.
Obviously, both Dai and those Wall Street financial wizards regard themselves as social elites, believing that they've added great value to society.
However, as 2001 Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz once retorted in an article, those Wall Street financial wizards - rather than introducing new products to improve ordinary people's lives or to help them manage risks - put the global economy at risk by engaging in short-sighted and greedy behavior.
Likewise, many real estate developers and marketers in China have deliberately pushed up housing prices and profited from the resulting bubbles, rather than contributing anything to social welfare.
They are cunning speculators, not real elites.
Real elites may or may not have several or dozens of houses. Real elites identify with the general public, not against it.
The late Chairman Mao Zedong once said: the "noblest" are the most stupid.
People like Dai, who believe themselves to be "noble" men, are the most stupid.
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