Asia’s new elite — wealth without wisdom

Forbes has noted that Asia is now home to the world’s highest number of billionaires, with two new ones being created in China every week.

In addition, Chinese billionaires tend to be younger (average age 55 years while their American equivalents are firmly in their 60s) and are overwhelmingly first generation, rather than obtaining their wealth though inheritance.

The information is not new, and the changes have been under way for some time, but the effects are now filtering through to the collective consciousness of the West and are contributing to the wave of populist sentiment infecting many countries there.

The rich, like the poor, have always been with us. From the earliest times they based their wealth on land and the number of labourers or slaves that could be coerced into producing wealth from it.

Every society in recorded history had its ruling elite, who mostly savagely exploited those below them in order to stay on the top of the heap.

Changes began to happen in the late middle ages with the introduction of the printing press and got a great kick-along in the 19^th century as literacy spread though the labouring classes.

For the first time in history people who did not have much money could learn the details about the activities of those who appeared to have a surfeit of it — and began to question why this was so.

Philosophers, social reformers and agitators pointed out that it was the toiling workers who produced the means by which the wealthy could live in comfort, and questioned why there should not be a more even distribution of wealth.  

After the spread of communism and the savagery of the Russian revolution, the response of many of the elite was to keep their heads down — to separate themselves from the toiling masses as far as possible.

They retreated to their country estates and their city clubs, mixing only with their own kind, mentioned fleetingly in the social pages of newspapers and often seeking to link this publicity with some act of philanthropy – a hospital wing endowed here, a series of scholarships there.

Even so their numbers gradually decreased as heavy taxation forced many back into the middle classes, which were also being fuelled from below as increased education and opportunity allowed the industrious to rise.

It was this unwritten and informal social contract that allowed the two groups to tolerate each other and, according to some utopian thinking, would eventually result in a single large class living together in harmony.

It was never going to happen, but for several generations, the possibility that it could — to you if not the guy next door — kept social pressures at a manageable level.

The remarkable rise to wealth of elites in Asia, and especially China, and the ubiquity of social media have changed this comfortable equation.

A new class of fabulously wealthy Chinese (in a country that is still generally poor) have the means to show off to the world without the restraint that long acquaintance with the responsibilities of money might provide.

Suddenly the internet is laden with their pictures sporting designer clothing and accessories, riding in luxury cars and sipping the most expensive (though not necessarily the best) French Champaign.

Realising the dangers this presented, the Chinese Government has sought to curb their excesses, so far with little effect.

Authorities in Beijing rightly fear that this brazen flaunting of wealth will stir up trouble among the less fortunate in China, but this new look glitterati’s jet-setting lifestyle is also sparking resentment around the world as they parade themselves at the best hotels, buy up luxury apartments and swamp high-end resorts.

With countries in the West still struggling with the after-effects of the global financial crisis and austerity still the norm in many of them, coupled with constant media references to the ‘Asian Century’ and the ‘Rise of China’ is bringing about a growing resentment among their populations that they are being left behind.

While terrorism and refugee movements are still front of mind among most Westerners, there is also a realisation of growing inequality and a feeling that their own leaders have failed them.

Asia’s ultra-wealthy are a tiny fraction of the continent’s overall population, but their addiction to flaunting their wildly extravagant lifestyle is storing up trouble, both for them at home, and the countries they visit.