The personal wealth of state office holders and their associates has exploded during the three decades of China’s revived market economy. This is seen in such varied phenomena as the recent reports on the $2.7 billion in assets of Premier Wen Jiabao and family, and the high number and rank of state officials linked to a private firm in the Yuanhua smuggling scandal. How can corruption of this magnitude be explained? Drawing on Bruno Lator’s concept of the social, this talk uses data from documents and interviews to trace the networks of actors, functions, and interactions that constitute wealth accumulation by state office holders.