As China’s four decades of export-fueled economic growth come to an end, access to land might become a crucial safety net for millions of demobilized factory workers with nowhere else to go.
“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters.”
— Winston Churchill, in Parliament, 1947