Macau always reminded me of the American Gilded Age. Matthew Josephson, author of The Robber Barons, describes how Americans acclimated to sudden fortune in the 1870s. One man, he writes, “had little holes bored into his teeth, into which a tooth expert inserted twin rows of diamonds; when he walked abroad his smile flashed and sparkled in the sunlight.” The American political system at the time was subject to criticisms similar to those facing China’s political system today: corruption, lack of rule of law, weakness in the face of corporate monopolies. When strikes and demonstrations raged
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