India and China spawning world's new moneyed class
- Source: Global Times
- [21:07 March 15 2010]
- Comments
Illustration: Liu Rui
By James Chau
In 1956 Nancy Mitford wrote Noblesse Oblige, a book that guided post-war Britain through the social minefield of the spoken English language.
Using a system of Upper Class (U) and Non Upper Class (Non U), she told her readers which words they should use and which they shouldn't.
For example, while "jam" (U) was acceptable, "preserve" (Non U) wasn't, as much as "lavatory" (U) was preferable over "toilet" (Non U).
What is ironic is that what Mitford wrote as a personal amusement, poking fun at Britain's class structure, became a serious bestseller, read by sociologists, debutantes and housewives alike.
The discussion of money in itself is most certainly Non U, yet in much the same way the Forbes Rich List that came out last week is its modern day equivalent.
Never mind the war in Iraq or the earthquake in Chile, headlines are guaranteed for the world's wealthiest, even though it has little bearing on the rest of us.
It is also because of Gates' initiative plus the support of investor Warren Buffett, that Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim has leapfrogged them both to the top of this year's Forbes rankings.
His $53.5 billion is just ahead of Gates' $53 billion and way ahead of Buffett's mere $47 billion. Slim, who made his fortune from the 1990s privatization of the Mexican telephone system, heads so large a business empire than he has lost count of the number of companies he owns.
The emerging economies are also storming through. Much like their resilience to the global financial crisis, tycoon after tycoon from countries that hardly figured even a decade ago are right up at the very top. According to the latest Forbes Rich List, Mexico is at the top.
China now has more billionaires than any country outside of the US. Indians Mukesh Ambani and Lakshmi Mittal finished fourth and fifth. And Russia and Brazil, which make up the other half of the BRIC grouping of developing powers, both made strong showings.
Gone are the gilded names like Vanderbilt, Astor and Mellon, none of which made an appearance on the latest list, and in come a new aristocracy like Eike Batista, Iris Fontbona and Oleg Deripaska. Yesterday's American robber barons are today's developing world energy giants.
But whether they will be as renowned another century from now remains to be seen and though the emerging economies have made a large dent, private wealth is still firmly in the hands of the same few families from the Swedish Rausings (Tetra Laval) to Britain's Duke of Westminster (Grosvenor Estates) and France's Lilliane Bettancourt (L'Oreal).
Interestingly, all three of these European fortunes are inherited and diversified across packaging, landowning and cosmetics. In contrast, the billions that represent the emerging economies are largely self-made and mined in gas, petrochemicals and oil.
China, too, looms large. Li Ka-shing with his $21 billion (his son, Richard Li, has $1.3 billion of his own) is still the richest man on these shores.
On the Chinese mainland, the list is led by beverages magnate Zong Qinghou, followed by Liu Yongxing who once raised quails and now sells animal feed. Third-ranked Zhang Jindong founded his electronic appliances retail empire Suning on 200 square metres of floor space and just $12,000 in cash.
Meanwhile, Baidu's Li Yanhong (also known as Robin Li, $3.5 billion) and Alibaba's Ma Yun(also known as Jack Ma, $1.2 billion) will represent a country with a huge and growing Internet popula-tion whose new generation is bred on a multinational diet of Google, Kaixin and QQ.
