When he got back to China, Moses’ brothers took away from him the money he had saved in South Africa, and used it to start a grain-dealing business – the eternal ambition of the peasant, to climb the ladder of social and economic status by becoming a kulak, or employer of other peasants, or still better a dealer in grain and other peasant products. In other words, the peasant reaches out for wealth by exploiting his fellow peasants, within the only part of the social fabric he knows first hand.
[Owen Lattimore on Chinese peasants in early 20th century]