Interesting question. There is a saying that wherever you see 3 Chinese together they are only ever eating, gambling or planning how to make money in business. Chinese are among the most capitalist people on earth. They have had generations of living in a planned economy where your annual income was already determined by the government before the year started. In business you could lose no customers nor win new customers. It was all intricately balanced and controlled, unless you knew someone who could pull some strings to help you make more money. Today the economy has opened, and it's every man for himself. There are more choices in personal goods and standards of living and people are doing what they can to upgrade their income, status and opportunity. China is learning all it can from the multinationals that are pouring money into China. Western know-how is upgrading local knowledge, and people who work in Western companies here accept lucrative deals to defect to local competitors and bring all the operating manuals and processes. Then local competitors with government sponsorship launch a price war against the very brands that gave them the money and knowledge in the first place. Nokia & Motorola led the field in cellphones. They are now losing ground against new local Panda and Bird brands. GM and VW commanded the auto industry. Legions of local car brands have now launched. Proctor & Gamble launched shampoo and cleaned up 35% of the market, which local competitors are now attacking at prices one-third of P&G. Blue Levis jeans were a huge craze three years ago. Now there are dozens of alternatives, just as well-made, at a fraction of the price. It is happening or will happen in most major markets. So the capitalist economy helps attract foreign money and knowledge, which is used to upgrade local skills, which in turn is used to compete more effectively at lower prices. Capitalism is a phase of government policy to inject money and expertise into China. The effect on individuals and families is that in a country where the average annual income is still only US$3500, many people are becoming obscenely rich by comparison. People working with multinationals like Philips or IBM are earning between 10 and 100 times the average. People flock to the large cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou to make money. Families that were once multigenerational under the same roof are splitting up as people fan out to wherever they see a dollar to be made. There is little opportunity in the country towns. Couples generally both work, and when a baby is born it is typical for the parents to both keep working and pass the child to grandparents in the country to raise for several years. Parents and child might see each other once a year. So the capitalist economy is helping people step away from generations of relative poverty. But with the disintegration of the family, and the widening gap between rich/educated and poor/uneducated, one can only wonder what the social and cultural cost might be.

1. Everyone wants money, money, money! 2. Everyone wants money so badly that one can sell his mon and dad. If possible, sell twice. 3. Everyone worship the rich and step the poor. Everyone pretend to be rich even he's poor. 4. Everyone wants to get rich quick. The quickest way is to rip off the customers, close the business, open another one, rip off again. Normal business is too slow. 5. Those that become rich now are the capitalists. They are bad people (as taught by Chairman Mao). We have the right to take their money from them and support my own family. 6. Those from western countries are our enemies, according to Chairmen Mao. We can protend that we welcome them to do business here, find an excuse and rip them off, then kick them away. They won't know what happened. They would think it was their fault. We are right to do that, because Chairman Mao taught us so. 7. Those who were rich and educated are "exploiters", therefore should be and have been suppressed. Our children should keep oppressing their children. Therefore it is the right thing to do if we take their money from them and support my own family. However, since they are always so hard-working and intelligent, we cannot compete with them in school or workplace. We can take their money by marrying to their children. Those people are good at work but not good in street-smart. They often don't cause trouble if we bully them. They are dead meat. 8. Those who give us money to spend, take us to restaurants are good people. They remain good people until they stop giving us money. Then we can do all mean things to them, say all mean things behind their back. 9. Whoever make us feel inferior are bad people. Those who are richer, better educated, prettier looking, raised from good families, come from overseas and can travel around the world without visas...We will bring them down! It is our mission to eliminate all "exploiter class" in the world. We "exploited class" should remain rough, uneducated, rude...and we should take everything in the world. We should rule the world!