ASIA TIMES HAS A FASCINATING ARTICLE FROM CHINA'S RICHEST VILLAGE, IN MANY WAYS STILL RUN BY THE MAO MODEL:

Row after row of two-story mansions, with shingled roofs, stucco walls and the occasional mock-Tudor turret. A picture-perfect slice of American suburbia, except only a few meters to the south of this idyll, the smokestacks of steelworks belch out black vaporous clouds.

This is the quixotic world of what is officially China's richest village, Huaxi - a community whose enterprises collectively earned 40 billion yuan (US$5 billion) in sales last year. Every one of Huaxi's 400 families lives in a 600-square-meter home, owns at least two cars and has assets worth a million yuan. The average per capita income of the 2,000 villagers is $10,000 a year, almost 50 times that of the average Chinese farmer.


THE REST OF THE ARTICLE IS HERE:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IA31Cb03.html

So the true communists are the richest? China never stops surprising me! But I doubt the Huaxi model would work for most other places.

They are just crooks who have been misusing their political connections. The political left of the communist party is still strong.

David