The richest 70 of the 2,987 members
have a combined wealth of 493.1 billion yuan ($75.1 billion), and include
China’s richest man, Hangzhou Wahaha Group Chairman Zong Qinghou, according to
the research group Hurun Report. By comparison, the wealthiest 70 people in the
535-member U.S. House and Senate, who represent a country with about 10 times
China’s per-capita income, had a maximum combined wealth of $4.8 billion, data
from the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics show.

Unions do not provide a countervailing force to
the supposed power of big business. Whenever
big business gets rents from monopoly power, unions often manage to share some
of those rents (this explains why unions are more present
in concentrated industries like automobiles, as opposed to, say, retail trade).
This benefits the employees of big business, and it has indeed been shown that
these employees enjoy higher wages and greater fringe benefits. But by raising
labour costs it further adds to the harm done to consumers (and workers in the
competitive sector) by the monopoly power of business. In addition to being too
high because firms collude, the price is also too high because employees collude.
Furthermore, the interests of the union and their employers are convergent
whenever they deal with the outside world: both want to increase the revenue
that the firm or the industry can extract through lobbying activities. To the
extent that union leaders provide additional voices, unionisation adds to the
lobbying power of an industry.

… this is why my brow furrowed when Mr Klein
said unions “push back” on business models that aren’t
environmentally sustainable. I think you’ll find that unionised coal miners are
as unenthusiastic as the coal companies they work for about regulations that
would restrict the growth of mining operations or reduce demand for coal.

However, Mr Klein is surely correct that unions
are antagonists to businesses that seek to enlarge the cake in ways unlikely to
be shared by domestic union workers. When unions successfully resist outsourcing, they hurt
consumers, foreign workers, and the competitiveness of their firm, which
eventually leads to domestic layoffs or reduced domestic job-creation.This
is not the sort of countervailing we’re hoping for.

“China on Friday raised required reserves to a record 19.5 percent,
adding to an increasingly aggressive effort by Beijing to stamp out
stubbornly high inflation.

“Over the past four months, China has also raised interest rates
three times and ordered banks to issue fewer loans in an attempt to make
sure it can meet a 2011 inflation target of 4 percent.”

In
January 2011, consumer price index rose by 4.9 percent over the same
period of the previous year. Of which, urban area and rural area was up
by 4.8 percent and 5.2 percent respectively; the price of foodstuff,
non-foodstuff, consumable and services expanded 10.3, 2.6, 5.0 and 4.6
percent respectively. Compared with December 2010, CPI increased 1.0
percent. The price of foodstuff climbed 2.8 percent.

It’s an interesting point that I think is
relevant, and overlooked, in any discussion about Egypt and China: uprisings are what happens when people don’t have any
other means of venting their dissatisfaction and anger. Now, I’m
quite aware that uprisings sometimes happen in countries where there are
elections, and I’m also aware that non-democratic societies have their own,
sometimes effective, venting mechanisms. But I’m not going to argue that point.
Instead, I’m going to suggest that instead of journalists/columnists/bloggers
opining on whether the “average Chinese citizen” has an appetite for chaos and
revolution, it might be better – if not more empirical – to step back and ask whether China has sufficient,
robust institutions whereby average Chinese citizens can vent their
frustrations, anger, and grievances. And I’m merely talking about
the same kinds of grievances that might exist in a Democratic country: taxes,
schools, roads, eminent domain. Feel free to take it further to, say, human
rights. However you want to extend it, I
think the answer – rigorously reported – might offer a more reasonable
and empirical answer to whether or not China is at risk of an
Egypt-style uprising.