ABSTRACT
The tragic events of mid-1989 in the People's Republic of China make it clear that we should never ignore noneconomic factors in considering any aspect of life. One cannot escape the fact that a group of octogenarians was willing to impose enormous costs upon the people they represented to maintain their power and to prevent the sharing of that power. The students who led the democratic movement can be criticized for the lack of concreteness in their objectives, but it is equally difficult to determine what (except for memories and pride) caused these old men to inflict such pain and hardship upon the citizens of China.
