China's Poor vs. America's Rich

During the era of Chairman Mao in mainland China, the stark dichotomy of “good” people and “bad” people was simply a class distinction. The rich people fell into the bad category, and the poor people were always in the good category. I do not know how they educate children in mainland China today with regard to rich and poor, but according to my observations online, it seems as if the complex resentment toward the rich is still present.

When I attended university in China, I remember a comment my foreign teacher made during English class. He made a reference to how the poor people in the U.S. were quite lazy. To hear poor people being described as such at that point in my life was both novel and shocking. Nowadays, after living more than 20 years in the U.S., how has my attitude changed regarding America’s rich and poor?

Let’s begin with the rich. From what I have heard about rich people, I can separate them into several categories. The first category is the creators and founders of high-tech companies, such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. There are also the several young billionaires who started companies like Google and Facebook. These people relied on their own innovation and creativity to accumulate wealth. You could say they benefit other people, as well as themselves. Within this group of people, we have somebody like Bill Gates, who used his own fortune to create a public welfare enterprise to give back to society. He clearly is not a bad person, but quite the opposite; he is an amazing person. Although these people are part of the “1 percent,” I bet even the Chinese would not say they are exploiting the poor.

What I know of the second category of wealthy Americans is that it consists of politicians. Take the Clintons or President Obama, for example. They use their talent and charm along with their passion for serving society and engaging in social services to become America’s leaders. I have a great amount of respect for them, and I do not hate them because of their wealth. More importantly, their wealth was not dependent on power and corruption.

The third type of rich people are sports and entertainment stars. They bring us entertainment. We could not possibly categorize them as bad people; otherwise we would not be willing to spend our own money on going to see them perform in movies or sporting events.

The fourth type of rich person is perhaps more related to the traditional idea of the wealthy person. He does not make any obvious contributions to society, other than making money, being famous and having a luxurious life. One example is the famous real estate tycoon Donald Trump. Although if you have ever seen his show “The Apprentice,” then you probably have discovered that not only is he a very capable person who has an overall sense of what is right and wrong, but that he also has intuitive knowledge and a sense of responsibility to society.

I have never been someone who particularly despises the rich, but I cannot say that the class education I received during my youth has not made any impressions on me, and my past has helped form my opinion on the traditional idea of the rich. After watching Trump’s television show, I finally realized that not every rich person is a bad person. They can even be good people. Especially in the U.S., good and capable people have the opportunity to become wealthy. Therefore, the rate of good people among the rich is higher.

But of course, in human society a perfect Communist society does not exist, and among America’s rich there are bad people. Consider some of the people on Wall Street, for example: They used loopholes in the system to accumulate their wealth. There were also some financial advisers who cheated other people out of their investments to fatten their own wallets.

I watched a documentary that introduced the descendants of wealthy families. One particular descendant talked about how his ancestors accumulated their wealth; he basically called them crooks. But then again, in the early 1920s, were not all the wealthy some sort of crook? While this young man’s comment was a little extreme, it holds true on some level.

During the rudimentary stages of the Western capitalist society, because there was not a lot of experience with capitalism and we did not fully understand our fellow men’s greed, the law was not very mature and society’s transparency did not match today’s. There were many examples of bad rich people who accumulated wealth through unfair means — a lot more than there are today. The development of Western society has been a long, continuous learning process that has finally led to a fair and just society, relatively speaking.

Even though in the West today the system is far from perfect and still has a lot of room for needed change, I believe that most of the rich people in the West accumulated their wealth through their own ability, wisdom, diligence or bravery. Most among the rich and middle class are honest, desiring to do better and take social responsibility seriously. As for those “bad” rich people who look to the holes in the system to accumulate their wealth, while we are condemning their behavior, we should spend more energy on how to better the system and cover up the holes in order to prevent a similar case from happening again, not incite class hatred. A conniving society is consumed by the useless feelings of class hatred.

From this perspective, Western society is rather sensible and has done a better job understanding how to control and manage society. Take the Occupy Wall Street movement, for example. At the end, it was just a bunch of out-of-work people making noise; it did not lead to any social unrest. There were no politicians cheering on the protestors, using their movement to reach their own political agendas, and the media was not used to inciting social antagonism. A famous television host urged the Wall Street protestors to run for elected office and use the laws to change the system, rather than stand outside and protest; that is the only way you can really change the behavior on Wall Street.

Now let us speak of the poor. Are good poor people those who have been oppressed and treated unjustly, or are they just lazy people who are not diligent or striving for progress? Let us just imagine that Chairman Mao was reincarnated and came to the U.S., and he took all of the proletariat and exalted them to the most powerful leaders and then took all of the homeless and poor people on welfare and assigned them as CEOs of companies and to the job of directing municipal construction. Would not that be ridiculous?

Honestly speaking, under the current U.S. system, it is understandable if you are a first-generation, poor immigrant, but if you are the second or third generation that is still living off of welfare without any mental issues — a lot of homeless in the U.S. are so due to mental problems — then you are just lazy.

The U.S. is a country that supports diligence and advancement. It fosters a system that gives most people a fair starting point. The American system is still a very weak system. The people with the lowest salaries have to pay the least in taxes and conversely, the people with the highest salaries have to contribute the most to the society. On the other hand, the poor and their children receive the most help from the government. Becoming one of the “1 percent” in the U.S. is maybe not that easy, but as long as you are not too lazy and you do not have any major disabilities, then you will not have any problem not becoming poor.

In a normal society, not having money does not mean you are a good person and having money does not mean you are a bad person; a person’s moral character is not dependent on his class status. In Western society, this type of equality between people encourages good and diligence; under such an intelligently reasonable system, the rich and middle class are the good people who do the most for society, and the poor are the people who do not have the ability to help society. On the contrary, they are the ones who need society’s help the most. This may not be the most politically correct thing to say, but from the perspective of contributing to society, America’s rich and middle class have a higher rate of contribution than America’s poor. Most poor people cannot help themselves, let alone contribute to society.

During Chairman Mao’s era, good people and bad people were categorized according to their class. Any rich person was bad and would be beaten and sometimes executed; every poor person was looked upon as a powerful and advanced leader. Looking back on it now, it seems utterly ridiculous.

Of course, I am not saying that America’s poor are not good people or that, even if they are sick or lazy, rich people should not look after them. It does not matter if you are poor because of a lack of intelligence or mental issues or a question of willpower. Poor people will always be the weak part of society. They will never have the ability to change themselves. Looking at it from the perspective that all humans are inherently good, the strong help the weak, the fortunate help the unfortunate, and this makes society kinder and gives people a sense of security. It creates a fair world. The strong helping the weak is also a way of leading society; the strong are always the models of society.

Strong kindness can make people more willing to help others and can make more people feel socially responsible, thus leading to a virtuous cycle. From a practical perspective, the rich helping the poor can help avoid emotional conflicts. It can help keep the crime rate go down and, besides ensuring possession of wealth, it can also ensure safe and stable days. Furthermore, when there is a large middle class, opportunities for the rich and middle classes to make money will increase. The rich will take a portion of their own income to help serve society and help the poor — especially their sons and daughters — get out of poverty. This is a win-win situation for the rich and the poor. Therefore, looking after the interests of the poor is not only good for the poor but for the wealthy as well. It is good for all of society.

I would like to add that, while I support the rich, I am more opposed to another extreme: equalized wealth. For example, I support a system that taxes people more when they make more, but this higher percentage should be a moderate increase and nothing too extreme. If the taxing of the rich causes them to become less hard-working, have less business power and become people who support the lazy, then that is too extreme. Chairman Mao’s tactics could not have been more foolish. Stripping the rich people of all their wealth and then distributing it among the poor created a more unjust society. If we take the wealth accumulated by the dishonest means of cheating and corruption and divide it among the poor, then I can support that. If we take the wealth accumulated by means of intelligence, diligence and bravery, then spreading it among the poor is equal to supporting the lazy and foolish. It is equal to supporting the people who do not dare to innovate or take chances.

Therefore, equalized wealth is not fair; it is the exact opposite. Equalized wealth is another type of injustice. It is not practical because when a system supports the lazy and foolish, in the end, it undoubtedly will end up evil and destitute. China in Chairman Mao’s era was an example of this. North Korea is another contemporary living fossil of Chairman Mao’s era.