Time Running Out on China's Boom

China's leaders clearly anticipated some growth in inequality when they opened the door to a market economy. Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who more than anyone else set this boom in motion, famously said, "Let some people get rich first."

But I suspect that Deng, who died in 1997, would be deeply troubled by the extent of the inequality that has been unleashed -- and even more troubled by the clear resistance by the "haves" to share more of the pie with those who have been left behind.

As any student of givebacks in the U.S. economy knows, at some point the workers who sacrificed will look at the success of the enterprise and say, "Hey, I want some of that."

Fighting for Payback

That's exactly what we're seeing right now in the airline industry. With oil costs down from the heights of 2006 and with planes flying closer to full because of cuts in industry capacity, companies that were bleeding red are now solidly in the black. (At least for the moment. This is the airline industry, after all, with its genetic aversion to profit.) If US Airways Group(LCC Quote) can launch a $10 billion bid for Delta Air Lines, pilots at the two airlines want payback for the cuts they took to keep the two airlines flying.

There's a good chance they'll get something, too. Delta's pilots union, for example, has carefully kept pilots' voting rights intact so they get a say in any plan that would bring Delta out of bankruptcy. And the union negotiated performance-based pay raises and profit-sharing bonuses as part of the last round of givebacks that cost pilots a 13% pay cut.