China Moves from "Great Similarity" into an "Age of Great Divergence"

From 2000 to 2020, China experienced flourishing industries, progress for every family, and rising values for every home. The dividend from university education continued, as did the dividend from the new imperial examination system. A collective ideology of vast collectivity and unity, centralized media, shared pivotal moments—the 2008 Olympics, the explosion of mobile internet in 2013–2014, the beginnings of electric vehicles, and so on—and similar urban development, housing complexes, and commerce everywhere meant that commercial demand was extraordinarily similar. This was an era of great convergence, with the needs of hundreds of millions of people moving in sync. It was a golden age for product marketing and internet products: reaching sales of over 100 million was all too easy.

Dreams of upward class mobility, Silicon Valley, striking gold, and a petty-bourgeois life allowed petty-bourgeois ideology to draw in peasants and the micro-propertied class, producing a high degree of ideological unity among the public. The success doctrines of the generation born in the 1970s held sway. So much so that the Austrian School, the philosophy of the petty bourgeoisie, found new life in ancient China. The dream of an olive-shaped society in which everyone belonged to the middle class became popular.

But beginning in 2022, housing prices fell, public finances tightened, and the era of great dividends ended. Industries diverged, provinces diverged, and families diverged. China bid farewell to the era of great convergence and entered an era of great divergence.

K-shaped divergence and increasing concentration are laws of the “economy,” one manifestation of the polarization Marx and Engels predicted.

Divergence between industries

The frenzy and rapid growth in industries such as AI and semiconductors stand in contrast to the silence and stagnation across many other industries.

Divergence between those on shore VS those at sea

In terms of resources and understanding, those on shore and those at sea increasingly inhabit two different worlds.

Of course, being at sea is nothing to fear. Workers and peasants have always been at sea. It is the petty bourgeoisie and the micro-propertied who panic at the prospect of slipping down and falling into the ocean, which is why they cling to straws to save themselves.

Divergence between the petty bourgeoisie VS the micro-propertied

As I wrote earlier in “Our Generation May Have Witnessed the Peak of the Petty Bourgeoisie”: undergraduate education is becoming widespread in developing countries, and China will add 210 million university graduates over the next 15 years. This will send shock waves through the global supply of white-collar workers.

The petty bourgeoisie is losing its ability to build a united front by promising rewards down the road. Dreams of upward class mobility are shattering, and the dividend from the college entrance examination is disappearing. The gulf between the micro-propertied and the petty bourgeoisie will widen. Some of the petty bourgeoisie will be cast down into the ranks of the micro-propertied, while the micro-propertied will become desperate and turn to the far right. Right-wing voices will grow louder.

Divergence among university graduates

China will add 210 million university graduates over the next 15 years, bringing the “university graduate” dividend to a definitive end in China and sending shock waves through that dividend globally. An undergraduate education will no longer mark the point at which someone has “made it ashore” in human civilization. University graduates will undergo profound internal divergence and cease to share a unified identity. This will encourage intellectuals and ordinary university graduates to explore ideas and ideologies. Although the micro-propertied will move further right, the new “working-class university graduates” will be an entirely new species.

Divergence between super-individuals VS ordinary players

AI expands individuals’ reach and capabilities. For example, the generational gap between a top programmer or designer equipped with AI and an ordinary player is greater than before. Only super-individuals will be able to keep their seats at a given “table.”

Divergence between those born before 2000 VS those born after 2000

In this new period of great upheaval, the experience of those born in the 1980s and 1990s is rapidly losing value. They need to evolve actively.

Earlier article: “Around 210 Million University Students Will Graduate over the Next 15 Years: Intense Competition Will Produce Great Talent”

Class consciousness among ordinary workers will rise

From 1990 to 2020, what were the historical-materialist factors behind the low class consciousness of 500 million to 1 billion workers? The era of great upheavals and great dividends drew intellectuals from the petty bourgeoisie and the micro-propertied into its orbit; the peasant class and the rural extended-family way of life had yet to leave the stage; the dividend in happiness and quality of life had yet to run out; and the dividends from upward class mobility and the college entrance examination had yet to run out. With class stratification hardening and identities and understandings diverging, class consciousness among ordinary workers will rise.

As educational attainment rises and AI and the internet develop, understanding among the 1 billion ordinary people at the bottom of society continues to improve.

The left will grow stronger, and Marxist social science will also pass through its lowest ebb.