When Donald Trump wants to stick Kamala Harris somewhere between dangerous and treacherous, he’ll call her a “communist.” No matter that Trump couldn’t distinguish between a communist and a socialist or name who coauthored the Communist Manifesto. In his lexicon a “communist” is the worst of the worst.
Far be it from me to defend communism – under the banner of communism have been some of the most repressive and indeed murderous regimes in history. Still, it’s worth dissecting Trump’s insult because it comes at a moment in history when the differences between communism and capitalism are starker than they have been in decades.
The Soviet Union was a communist country. Russia is not. Communism in Russia was formally dismantled when the Soviet Union crumbled. Since then, China has replaced Russia as by far the most powerful Communist country in the world – hence America’s most formidable ideological as well as political, economic, and military competitor.
The degree to which the United States is capitalist waxes and wanes over the years – depending in the 20th and 21st centuries on whether Democrats or Republicans control the levers of power. Similarly, the degree to which China is communist waxes and wanes. This explains the title of this post, for in the last several years the difference between being a leader in the United States and being one in China – a leader in any sector – has grown greater.
In America corporate leaders who strike it rich are rewarded and admired in the extreme. They thrive on becoming rich and then richer, and most love to strut their stuff. Jeff Bezos famously sports the world’s largest sailing yacht. Ken Griffin ostentatiously just added a $90 million pad in St. Tropez to his already humungous real estate empire. And while Warren Buffet is conspicuously inconspicuous when it comes to possessions he cannot resist even as a nonagenarian adding to his mountain of money – he is now worth $144 billion. Additionally, notwithstanding our moaning and groaning about income disparity, the differences between them and us continue to grow. America’s CEOs now make about 200 times more money than their average employee. Moreover, although the stock market has been hovering at all time highs not everyone stands to gain. Well over a third of Americans have not a nickel in the market, and the top 1% of all Americans hold 50% of all stocks.
In China things are dramatically different. While in the US capitalism has grown starker and more extreme in recent years, in China the opposite has been true. It is communism that has grown starker and more extreme. In my last book, Leadership from Bad to Worse, I document how in the last five years especially President Xi Jinping has taken an increasingly hard line. He has become a much more rigidly ideological Communist, which has had implications for every aspect of Chinese life, effectively from the cradle to the grave.
For Americans Xi’s now relentlessly tight grip is probably most obvious in the private sector. After years of being bullish on China, we now shy from investing in China. And leaders in American business have become trepidatious about dealing with their Chinese counterparts. For good reason. While America’s corporate leaders are gadding about and flying high, China’s corporate leaders are hunkering down, playing down their wealth rather than showing it off. No accident because, not being fools, they are acutely aware of the national mood. A mood that is a direct reflection of Xi’s metamorphosis from a leader who tolerated some signs of a market economy to one who does not; to one who is, instead, cracking down on what the regime deems signs of excessive wealth.
So, while in America there is scant serious interest in leveling the playing field, in China there is deadly serious interest. Xi wants to return to his country’s communist roots, which means his interest is in a “common prosperity,” not in one in which a few individuals prosper in the extreme.
One could lament – and I do – that both American and Chinese leaders are unwilling to move closer to a happy medium. Where wealth is somewhat more evenly distributed in the United States than it is now; where relentless repression as in China has no place.
Meantime we need to be clear: whenever leaders are at opposite ends of whatever the spectrum, connecting, communicating, the one with the other, is difficult. So if, as in this case, American leaders relentlessly reflect capitalism while Chinese leaders relentlessly reflect communism, the language they speak is radically different in more ways than one.