* hi. when i heard recently about the spending power of the emerging chinese middle class and the western brands and advertisers fixated on permeating their everyday, i was totally confused. the last i checked up in-depth on china, the government was building cities that no one was living in. no one lived there because they couldn’t afford to rent or buy a place of their own and were barely surviving. this urbanization continues now, after the new president xi jinping took over things this year with a public asking for economic reform. so, what’s with this new middle class of people who have a bunch of disposable income?
well, most of china is still mostly comprised of the working class to the tune of 700 million people. these people live in households with annual disposable income of between $6,000 and $16,000, or just enough to cover basic needs. the organization for economic cooperation and development defines the global middle class as those households with daily spending between $10 and $100 per person, and the middle class in china is only 10% right now. most chinese people are unable to be “consumers” of sorts – consumer spending currently makes up as little as 35% of china’s total economy, a long way short of the 70% in other more developed economies.
with an economic framework based on exports, the government decided to grow the middle class with labor-market and policy initiatives that increase wages and help private enterprise. in 2012, 25 provinces raised minimum wages by an average of 20%. if all goes to plan, urban-household income could double by 2022. if 10% of china’s 1.3 billion are considered middle class now, it’s expected that 40% will be by 2020. that’s a lot of people. oops, i mean consumers.
i don’t like math nor does math like me, but things aren’t adding up and this false sense of progress is doomed at some point. it’s not sustainable and there’s not enough of the earth and atmosphere for everyone to consume it like whoa. i guess i should unplug, recycle my belongings, and become a self-sustaining granola type. but alas, here i sit in an air conditioned box in the sky with my laptop etc.
i’d offer a solution if i had one. how can the human race live the dream without it meaning this?
k *
a good chance 
