China and U.S.'s Related, but Inverse, Dilemmas

The U.S.’s struggles with lobbying, pork-barrel spending, and the corporate sector’s general overlord status in Washington are well documented. Campaign finance reform is long past. Corporate personhood is well-entrenched. Super PACs are ascendant. A representative democracy is being crowded out by a capitalist one. The cycle is hard to break. Politicians’ interests become aligned with those of the corporations that help them get elected. But even more troubling is that so many American politicians are gearing up to join the lobbying machine after they retire from government. In 1974, 3 percent of retiring members of Congress became lobbyists. Today, the figure stands at half of senators, and 42 percent of the House. China has a related but different problem: its politicians control too much of the money themselves. Politicians and elites in China enrich themselves, their friends, and their families by managing and siphoning China Inc. — China’s state capitalist enterprise. Chinese industry is controlled by the state, and thus it’s the property of the people who run the state. Last year, state-owned enterprises and affiliated businesses accounted for over half of Chinese economic output and employment. There were 70 mainland Chinese companies on the 2012 Fortune Global 500 list; 65 of those were state-owned.