To start off on the right foot, I do not presume to know everything there is to know about solving great and grand issues like the gap between rich and poor in China. That should not stop us from delving into some of the possible solutions, though.
First, I would like to make a comment on some of the source of the problem. Many people cry out, "the gap is widening!" Well, sure it is. As Benjamin Franklin noted and we have all seen played out in life, "after getting the first hundred pound, it is more easy to get the second." It is only natural that the Chinese middle class are developing (i.e. become richer) faster than their rural counterparts. "It takes money to make money."
So, I would guess that any statistics that mourn the widening gap are probably not worth the paper on which they are printed, because those results only follow an age-old characteristic of business that we already know to be true. The rich will always get richer faster than the poor. That is a given.
Now to the solutions. One solution, though I certainly would not suggest it, is to strip the money from the rich and deliver it to the poor in true Robin Hood form. This has been tried in China, and I think we can agree that is not going to work.
Why would it not work, though? Silly as it may be, thinking through the ridiculous solutions to the income gap discrepancy may yield some fundamental truths. One, if you suddenly poured all that money on the peasants, I am guessing you will not get the development you desire. More than likely, it will be squandered...but that is another issue.
The problem is training, education, knowledge. Dumping investment money into China's countryside is not going to help much unless accompanied by business professionals, patient teachers, or some kind of system of accountability. The real need is business experience and financial training.
And since we have started this reversed thinking, why else would flipping the money from rich to poor not work? Well, besides making a lot of people increadibly angry, you would lose all development momentum. Why is China able to develop this fast? Why did the United States industrialize faster than Great Britain?
China can ride on the back of previous innovation. Britain did it the really hard way, but was among the first. America takes that and moves it a few steps further, which doing so faster and cheaper. Now, more than one hundred years later, partially due to China's destructive war time and the following thirty-five year sleep, China is bursting into a brave new technologically advanced world with buckets full of fresh resources and is able to start up faster and cheaper than all which have preceeded.
So, looking at it from this perspective, I would guess we want the middle class and China's cities to continue steaming ahead. Their innovation and development will make it all the easier for the rest of the country. At least, this idea seems to stand to reason, though things do not always function by our logic.
What I really wonder when we ask questions like the solution to the income gap, is if we are not missing the more fundamental questions. Is the income gap a problem that can be fixed? Is it just a natural occurance of the way the world works?
I would say yes. Yes, but.
I think there is no doubt that there is a need for the development of China's less developed regions. I just do not think looking at it in terms of closing the gap of income level is really worth the effort.
Maybe that is all talk coming from a small town boy. Living in small towns in Oklahoma and Texas may not provide the same possibilities of America's East Coast, but everything costs less too. There is a balance to be made. I think a part of that balance is asking the right questions.
