Okay, so maybe money can't buy you love. But, as any moderately successful capitalist in the world can tell you, it sure can rent it!

China's getting the hang of this capitalism thing, and no wonder: they pretty much invented it. Restaurants? Invented them. Money? Yup, invented it, including the paper it was printed on. And throughout much of Asia, when you hear about violence against the prosperous middle class, it's pretty much indistinguishable from violence against the Chinese, who form the bulk of the merchant class throughout the region. Is this racism, or revolution?

Sometimes the protest can be very subtle indeed. This week the dreadfully-named Guardian arts blog Culture Vulture features really very good reporter Jonathan Watts at Beijing's Dashanzi International Art Fair. You won't find any bombastic revolutionary types there; they were rounded up a few weeks ago and, frankly, carted off to the void. But you can still see social criticism of a more restrained nature.

Cash is used for political ends by veteran artist, Huang's Rui, whose "Chairman Mao 10,000rmb" spells out Cultural Revolution slogans with banknotes. The same material is exploited by young artist Wang Sishun, who has cut and folded a giant 100rmb note into the shape of a vagina. "Before you couldn't buy anything in China. Money was useless," he explains. "But now it can buy anything, even sex."

 It's charming and, I suppose, heartening that we live in a world where there are people who still find that noteworthy. So to speak.