Recent discussion over Zhang Lei’s multimillion dollar donation to Yale University reminded me of an Op/Ed by Chen Weihua I read a couple weeks ago. I thought it was worth dusting off since it pertains to charitable giving and the actions of China’s new wealthy class.

The thrust of Chen’s argument is that all these rich folk are making China look bad, particularly in comparison to some of the filthy rich in other countries:

On the east coast of the Pacific, 40 billionaires joined The Giving Pledge – launched by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, his wife Belinda [sic] and investor Warren Buffett – to give at least half of their wealth to charity.

Gates and Buffett are hoping their campaign can produce $600 billion from the wealthiest from inside and outside the United States.

On the western side of the Pacific, Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing has pledged to donate more than HK$10 billion ($1.29 billion) over the next 30 years.

But on the Chinese mainland, it was farce after farce staged by upstarts.

Like Chen, I certainly laud the actions of Gates, Buffett, Li and others, who have done a hell of a lot of good with their money. Let’s not forget, however, that when you have tens of billions of dollars, even giving away 50 or 75% does not exactly make you a pauper. I’m not trying to minimize their contributions, but it is something to keep in mind.

Chen’s examples of China’s nouveau riche gone wild are reasonable. He mentions Tang Jun and Guo Degang by name, along with some details. No argument there.

I’m not a big Tang Jun fan (he’s the fake PhD guy), but I think taking a few cases like that and extrapolating is unfair. Chen could have added a lot more examples, such as Huang Guangyu or others who have engaged in corruption and/or insider trading.

But let’s stipulate that there are a lot of bad guys running around China these days that have a lot of money. These are not solid citizens, but what does this tell us about the country as a whole?

I say not much. Chen mentions Bill Gates, but not Ken Delay. He uses Warren Buffett as an example, but not Bernie Madoff. For every example of an American with a sterling reputation, I can come up with a convicted felon prick. This says very little about American society as a whole.

What might be going on here is that as a society gets richer, its nasty folks are able to act out their disgusting little habits and lord it over all the peasants. I honestly believe that a majority of guys you see on bicycles or walking down the street have an inner Audi-driving asshole deep in their brain hoping to get out some day. That douche bag in the BMW that sideswiped your bus this morning? He was probably an asshole twenty years ago; he just has more money now and doesn’t have to ride the bus these days.

Chen’s “solution” to this moral decline is vague and frightening:

I am not a fan of government interference in such matters. But just as the failure of market mechanism calls for government intervention in the financial crisis, the free fall of the moral standards in our society has caused such a crisis that only strong and immediate intervention can halt.

Even if China was undergoing a moral crisis, I would hardly call that a market failure. That’s so amazingly technocratic. This is not so useful either:

I am not calling for a war on these individual performers and businessmen. But as a nation, we need to make a collective decision and demonstrate to our people and the rest of the world that we won’t confuse right from wrong, and that we have moral criteria.

We should not let moral degradation to prevail in our society.

Our message should be loud and unambiguous.

A collective decision? An unambiguous message to the rest of the world? I’m really interested to know what that would look like, but it sounds rather scary.

I think calling out assholes when we see them is sufficient. Not glorifying wealth and kowtowing to the rich and powerful would be good too. Any chance of those things happening?