"Rectifying disorderly low-price competition among enterprises" is probably the most important one. It sounds like something of the order of "houses are for living, not for speculation", the expression Xi used to announce the deflation of the real estate bubble.
Xi is saying he wants an end to "involution" ("内卷", Neijuan), a term he mentions several times in his text, and which is very trendy in China right now. Probably the best translation for it is not actually "involution" but more something akin to "rat race", "race to the bottom" or "destructive, zero-sum competition". It doesn't only relate to businesses, but also to social issues in China like the extreme competition for education, the 996 culture, the feeling of running faster and faster just to stay in the same place.
It's true that when you look at the current extreme competition in business, it makes everyone worse off: for instance China leads the world in solar because of this competition but when you look at it individual companies' margins are razor thin, making this quite the pyrrhic victory for individual Chinese companies.
Same thing for education for instance, where you need ever-higher degrees for the same jobs. What once required a bachelor's now needs a master's; everyone studies harder but no one is better off.
To call changing all this "major" is even an understatement given how deeply embedded these competitive dynamics are in all layers of Chinese society and economy. This isn't just tweaking policy at the margins: this is a bit like trying to transform a Formula 1 race into a marathon while the cars are still on the track. He's right that this is more and more of a problem in Chinese society but at the same time much of China's current architecture is built around this hypercompetitive model.
What Xi promotes instead is "high-quality development" which, when it comes to business, means innovation and differentiation rather than price wars, sustainable margins and market consolidation.
He doesn't touch much in his article about the social changes this implies but we got a preview about what that could mean a couple of years ago when China banned the tutoring industry - an attempt to break the education arms race where parents were outcompeting each others to give their kids every possible edge, which wasn't good for the kids and the families' wallets. A typical example of "Neijuan."
Let's see how this all materializes but the one thing is sure: the level of ambition here is staggering, even by Chinese standards.
What once required a bachelor’s now needs a master’s; everyone studies harder but no one is better off.
This is also true in the West.
61
☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ - 3mon
Yup! For example, a lot of programming jobs that demand university degrees absolutely don't need them. A side effect of this has been that universities have been focusing on churning out developers for the industry instead of focusing on actual research. The point of a university should be to focus on the science, and programs shouldn't be driven by the industry needs.
37
Marat - 3mon
I've recently been searching for (paid) internships for when I graduate, and something i heard from a couple people is while people in my degree (civ engineering) get paid a decent amount for their internships (I think I saw between $18-33 an hour depending on company), computer scientist majors got basically entirely unpaid. Of course they have more opportunities since basically every business needs a programmer nowadays, but it doesn't really matter if you're not making money at the same time. But I'm guessing they don't need to incentivise CS majors since theres just an absolute crap ton of them
Of course this is anecdotal and not at a top uni so dont take this as a given everywhere
15
steakboi - 3mon
I studied computer science and graduated 2 years ago from a good (not great) school. Back then unpaid internships were unheard of in cs. It’s crazy how much the job market has shifted for cs in just a few years
11
Saymaz - 3mon
The CS departments in universities have become cattle farms.
6
☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ - 3mon
Absolutely
3
redparadise - 3mon
It's true everywhere, I would eat my non existent hat if my government did a single thing to deal with real issue like this instead of just cutting funding to public colleges and letting the "free market' solve it.
21
Saymaz - 3mon
Based pfp, comrade. Indian?
3
redparadise - 3mon
Yes, fascists can whitewash his past as much as they want, his work will not be forgotten.
2
Saymaz - 3mon
90% of Indian right wing larpers of Bhagat Singh don't even know he was a revolutionary ML.
1
-6-6-6- - 3mon
It's particularly interesting that with the guildance of marxism-leninism and objective class analysis you have a much healthier and more informed attempt at changing or diagnosing the issues in your society instead of fundamentalist Christian nonsense.
57
☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ - 3mon
Indeed, scientific analysis rooted in material conditions will necessarily produce better results than dogmatism born out of superstition.
Value comes from work. As long as there are workers willing to work, a society won't collapse
5
Thordros [he/him, comrade/them] - 3mon
Yes, but have you considered my bad vibes?
4
senseamidmadness - 3mon
The Great Chinese Vibe Collapse Of 2026 incoming
4
Duplexity01 [none/use any] - 3mon
You heard it here first
3
Tabitha ☢️[she/her] - 3mon
I noticed this was a problem in the US like decades ago. Nice to see China addressing the issue while the US will foreseeably plunge further into madness. The world has enough low quality products designed to be nearly single-use (often behind the consumer's back). The entire economy of the world needs to have its mind raised out of the gutter. I hope this is far more successful and prosperous than expected.
12
小莱卡 - 3mon
Damn not sure what to think about this. The race to the bottom competition is what makes chinese companies a global boom to the worldwide population, having access to commodities with prices near their production cost is good for the people (even after having to deal with all the middlemen costs involved in international trade), this destructive competition in China makes it awesome to my eyes.
11
☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ - 3mon
It should be possible to have competition without the burnout. There shouldn't be a human cost associated with producing things cheaply and efficiently. It's also worth noting that competition doesn't necessarily need to be zero sum style competition. For example, USSR had different design bureaus and they would compete with each other, and submit different proposals that got evaluated. However, at the end of it all everybody would share what was learned in the process creating a positive sum scenario. This approach avoids duplication of effort where different companies keep reinventing the wheel instead of sharing their findings.
40
Marat - 3mon
The competition in the USSR sounds interesting. Do you have any further information on that?
7
☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ - 3mon
The competition between the MiG and Sukhoi fighter design offices, for example, was quite significant. They designed pretty good aircraft for far less money than the Western aircraft companies. In the same way, the OKB-1, OKB-52 and OKB-586 design offices competed fiercely, with different ideas of how the space and missile programmes should be organised. At the end of the day though, all these design bureaus were owned by the state and the innovations they came up with weren't intellectual property of a particular company the way it works with competition under capitalism.
13
prof_tincoa - 3mon
People die from being too overworked and chronically stressed out. That's why it's unhealthy for kids to be academically competing with each other since their early days. It's definitely an issue that needed to be addressed.
That's to say, I'm extremely interested in knowing where this is going.
yogthos in china
Major changes in the Chinese model have been announced by Xi
https://www.gov.cn/yaowen/liebiao/202509/content_7040745.htm"Rectifying disorderly low-price competition among enterprises" is probably the most important one. It sounds like something of the order of "houses are for living, not for speculation", the expression Xi used to announce the deflation of the real estate bubble.
Xi is saying he wants an end to "involution" ("内卷", Neijuan), a term he mentions several times in his text, and which is very trendy in China right now. Probably the best translation for it is not actually "involution" but more something akin to "rat race", "race to the bottom" or "destructive, zero-sum competition". It doesn't only relate to businesses, but also to social issues in China like the extreme competition for education, the 996 culture, the feeling of running faster and faster just to stay in the same place.
It's true that when you look at the current extreme competition in business, it makes everyone worse off: for instance China leads the world in solar because of this competition but when you look at it individual companies' margins are razor thin, making this quite the pyrrhic victory for individual Chinese companies.
Same thing for education for instance, where you need ever-higher degrees for the same jobs. What once required a bachelor's now needs a master's; everyone studies harder but no one is better off.
To call changing all this "major" is even an understatement given how deeply embedded these competitive dynamics are in all layers of Chinese society and economy. This isn't just tweaking policy at the margins: this is a bit like trying to transform a Formula 1 race into a marathon while the cars are still on the track. He's right that this is more and more of a problem in Chinese society but at the same time much of China's current architecture is built around this hypercompetitive model.
What Xi promotes instead is "high-quality development" which, when it comes to business, means innovation and differentiation rather than price wars, sustainable margins and market consolidation.
He doesn't touch much in his article about the social changes this implies but we got a preview about what that could mean a couple of years ago when China banned the tutoring industry - an attempt to break the education arms race where parents were outcompeting each others to give their kids every possible edge, which wasn't good for the kids and the families' wallets. A typical example of "Neijuan."
Let's see how this all materializes but the one thing is sure: the level of ambition here is staggering, even by Chinese standards.
https://xcancel.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1967520398112878698
This is also true in the West.
Yup! For example, a lot of programming jobs that demand university degrees absolutely don't need them. A side effect of this has been that universities have been focusing on churning out developers for the industry instead of focusing on actual research. The point of a university should be to focus on the science, and programs shouldn't be driven by the industry needs.
I've recently been searching for (paid) internships for when I graduate, and something i heard from a couple people is while people in my degree (civ engineering) get paid a decent amount for their internships (I think I saw between $18-33 an hour depending on company), computer scientist majors got basically entirely unpaid. Of course they have more opportunities since basically every business needs a programmer nowadays, but it doesn't really matter if you're not making money at the same time. But I'm guessing they don't need to incentivise CS majors since theres just an absolute crap ton of them
Of course this is anecdotal and not at a top uni so dont take this as a given everywhere
I studied computer science and graduated 2 years ago from a good (not great) school. Back then unpaid internships were unheard of in cs. It’s crazy how much the job market has shifted for cs in just a few years
The CS departments in universities have become cattle farms.
Absolutely
It's true everywhere, I would eat my non existent hat if my government did a single thing to deal with real issue like this instead of just cutting funding to public colleges and letting the "free market' solve it.
Based pfp, comrade. Indian?
Yes, fascists can whitewash his past as much as they want, his work will not be forgotten.
90% of Indian right wing larpers of Bhagat Singh don't even know he was a revolutionary ML.
It's particularly interesting that with the guildance of marxism-leninism and objective class analysis you have a much healthier and more informed attempt at changing or diagnosing the issues in your society instead of fundamentalist Christian nonsense.
Indeed, scientific analysis rooted in material conditions will necessarily produce better results than dogmatism born out of superstition.
That sounds an awful lot like he's gonna https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/3472894d-896e-490a-85e8-b0841d8c99b5.png
But at what cost?
The Chinese economy is now days from collapse.
Value comes from work. As long as there are workers willing to work, a society won't collapse
Yes, but have you considered my bad vibes?
The Great Chinese Vibe Collapse Of 2026 incoming
You heard it here first
I noticed this was a problem in the US like decades ago. Nice to see China addressing the issue while the US will foreseeably plunge further into madness. The world has enough low quality products designed to be nearly single-use (often behind the consumer's back). The entire economy of the world needs to have its mind raised out of the gutter. I hope this is far more successful and prosperous than expected.
Damn not sure what to think about this. The race to the bottom competition is what makes chinese companies a global boom to the worldwide population, having access to commodities with prices near their production cost is good for the people (even after having to deal with all the middlemen costs involved in international trade), this destructive competition in China makes it awesome to my eyes.
It should be possible to have competition without the burnout. There shouldn't be a human cost associated with producing things cheaply and efficiently. It's also worth noting that competition doesn't necessarily need to be zero sum style competition. For example, USSR had different design bureaus and they would compete with each other, and submit different proposals that got evaluated. However, at the end of it all everybody would share what was learned in the process creating a positive sum scenario. This approach avoids duplication of effort where different companies keep reinventing the wheel instead of sharing their findings.
The competition in the USSR sounds interesting. Do you have any further information on that?
The competition between the MiG and Sukhoi fighter design offices, for example, was quite significant. They designed pretty good aircraft for far less money than the Western aircraft companies. In the same way, the OKB-1, OKB-52 and OKB-586 design offices competed fiercely, with different ideas of how the space and missile programmes should be organised. At the end of the day though, all these design bureaus were owned by the state and the innovations they came up with weren't intellectual property of a particular company the way it works with competition under capitalism.
People die from being too overworked and chronically stressed out. That's why it's unhealthy for kids to be academically competing with each other since their early days. It's definitely an issue that needed to be addressed.
That's to say, I'm extremely interested in knowing where this is going.