Forty years ago, farmers on the verge of starvation decided to ignore rules that required them to work in state-controlled agricultural collectives. Instead, they revived family farms and tilled their land as they saw fit. The result was a boom in agricultural production, setting off a series of capitalist-style overhauls that remade China into one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

But those reforms failed to reverse earlier policies that had nationalized ownership of land.

That has several concrete implications. Lack of ownership means farmers cannot buy, sell or rent plots to create economically viable larger tracts, or use the land as collateral for loans, limiting their ability to raise capital. And while they can leave the land to work in cities, their lack of property rights means they cannot use the land help finance their new lives.

The result has been widespread stagnation. In 2018, urban incomes were nearly three times higher than those of rural residents, roughly the same gap as in 1978 when economic reforms began.

To be sure, the government recognizes the problem. Every January for the past four decades, the government makes the first document that it issues a new rural policy. In recent years it has come up with changes meant to create a virtual property market — but without actually granting property rights.

“Land ownership is one of these tough issues that they still haven’t addressed,” said Jean Oi, a professor at Stanford University in California who is the co-author of an upcoming book on China’s future challenges. “The question is when, or if, they’ll tackle it.”

Given how the country’s founding myths have been constructed, the answer seems to be never.

The party has long argued that one of traditional China’s main problems was that land was concentrated in the hands of landlords. After taking power in 1949 it introduced a violent campaign that killed up to two million farmers labeled “landlords.” State ownership of land became a nonnegotiable policy and farmers had to work in state-run collectives.