Yes, they thought China would turn into a plutocracy. Of course they were modeling after themselves.

> Modeling after themselves

This is such a polite way to say that they are idiots, lol

They thought China would in the footsteps of South Korea and Taiwan.

Guys, this is just flame bait. Don't bother engaging in this throw away comment.

My comment isn’t throwaway. It was intended as a counterpoint. If you seek some clarification, then ask.

My point is to paint the picture that leveraging extremes doesn’t work. It is often the case that the west, in particular the U.S., assumes their way is the best and that this way should be applied, forcefully if necessary, elsewhere. In reality, the world’s two most powerful nations, that is the U.S. and China, are at the extreme opposite ends of political and economical ideology. One has corporations controlling everything and the other has the government controlling everything. In both cases, it is an extreme but minority so-called elite group that controls the fate of the people.

My lament is this scenario, because it is clear, at least to me, that the ideal is somewhere in between.

Why do they need to dissolve something they already control and/or own?

Because all the billionaires aren't on the same team.

No, what we have been shown in the US is that it takes a billionaire to challenge the two existing political parties. Parties who through laws and regulation pretty much isolated themselves from other means of being challenged and even go so far as to have us pay for their conventions and even security at times.

The difference in the US is the billionaire was able to challenge the existing parties in control and beat them both, in China your wealth is pretty much meaningless unless you came upon it through your party affiliation; there of course is only one party that matters.

It is working well in my opinion. I would rather live in a world where billionaires are happy to dissolve a corrupt and disgusting politician than other way around.

I wouldn’t. Billionaires can be corrupt and disgusting too, and unlike politicians, are unaccountable to the citizenry. Important difference.

Billionaires can't take your money by force like government can. Government can not just take money by force (taxation), through indirect means (regulation) or by simply reducing its worth (inflation). And while they do that they make you stand in a line and clap for them.

The only way Bezos makes money is if I chose to buy something on Amazon. Surely, billionaires are not angels and are just as corrupt as politicians and would love to force me to buy their stuff one way on another but in every single of those instance they use government as their partner.

USA elected Trump, how much accountable was he to you ?

What you're seeing isn't billionares vs. government, but warring billionaires via government.

Belligerents are difficult to suss out, but the Mercers, Adelson, Kochs, Murdochs, Larry Ellison, Peter Thiel, possibly Mark Zuckerberg on one side. Bezos, Gates, Steiner, on the other

You’re assuming one came before the other. It is the corporations that corrupted the politicians, or at least catalyzed the process.

Lol no. Countries with the least corporations have the most corrupt politicians.

Corp-to-population ratio suggests otherwise. Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Isle of Man, the Channel Islands including Guernsey and Jersey, Crete, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, and Virgin Islands in the Caribbean, Panama, Hong Kong, and Singapore.