
Flickr/dcmaster
, CC BY-NC 2.0
China leads the way
the Chinese people surrender democratic citizenship for the promise of individual gain through private consumptionOver the decade of the 2000s I visited China several times. At some point on each trip a Chinese acquaintance would assure me, unsolicited on my part, that “the Chinese” were not interested in democratic rights. Rather, their priority was material improvement, greater incomes for greater private consumption.