Serving the People and Making Money

A report from China puts the total net worth of the roughly 3,000 members of its legislature–delegates to the National People’s Congress and alternates–at about $500 billion.  As more entrepreneurs and tycoons take their place in the political system, that figure keeps climbing (www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/business/china-wealth-rich-parliament.html).

For comparison, the estimated total net worth of the 535 members of the US Senate and House of Representatives is $7 billion, with the average member being worth just over $1 million (www.moneynation.com/the-net-worth-of-congress/).  There, too, the rich get richer with each new session of Congress–but nowhere near as rich as Chinese legislators.

Conclusion: money talks under both capitalism and “market socialism.”