ABSTRACT
In recent years China has acquired a reputation as a country that has abandoned its socialist past and embraced a particularly virulent form of capitalism. There is plenty of evidence to buttress this reputation, including a rapid rise in interpersonal income inequalities as measured by Gini coefficients; an urban-rural income gap that is among the biggest in the world and continuing to grow; an ever-increasing divide between coastal and inland provinces; a third-to-last place ranking by the World Health Organization on the fairness of health-care provision for its citizens; a residency permit system (hukou) that imposes a caste-like divide between urban and rural populations, denies rural migrants access to social services and exposes them to exploitation by employers; and a National Land Law that ensures that farmers cannot reap the benefits of rising land prices even while urbanization gobbles up their farmland.1
