Why Are Young People So Pessimistic Now? (A Conspiracy Theory)
CategoryReading Notes
Young people are waking up to reality: the door to upward mobility is closing. (This is a conspiracy theory, treat it as fiction if you want.)
Actually, I rarely answer questions on Zhihu anymore. I mostly read and seldom post, partly because I’m worried about getting my account banned. I’ve reviewed my own content, and honestly, I haven’t said anything provocative—I don’t understand why I keep getting silenced or banned. When I saw this question, I couldn’t resist hitting follow, and now that I have some time, I’m back to answer.
I answered a question a while back that can serve as a simple example to give you a direct sense of what’s going on:
In that answer, although I left room for hope, what I was really describing was a helpless choice. Put another way, real estate is no longer friendly to young people today. For most of us, buying a home means draining all six family wallets and betting our entire financial future on a risky gamble. (I’m guessing many of you have checked court records on enterprise credit platforms—you’d be surprised how many personal loan defaults end up in litigation. I take that as people unable to keep up with their mortgages.) So what exactly is this financial risk? It’s the kind of situation where you empty your family’s savings for a down payment, maybe even take out a “bride price loan” on top of it. Families without any sense of financial vulnerability will surely face urgent crises within the next twenty years. The most direct one: can you guarantee your income over the next two decades won’t drop? Can you miraculously avoid the age-35 unemployment crisis? Can you successfully pivot from being a wage earner to an investor and sidestep financial risk altogether? What if a family member gets seriously ill—where does the money come from? Your name, your life, your dignity. No cash flow, no escape. Do you watch them die, or sell the hard-earned home to survive? Would the person making that call have the face to look their family in the eye afterward? I have a close relative who, after a cancer diagnosis, went through this exact ethical nightmare. Four or five siblings couldn’t even keep things civil over it. And let’s not forget, around 600 million people in China earn below a certain threshold, with nearly 200 million classified as “flexibly employed.”
Let’s take a look at the broader environment. (The data referenced in this post comes from a well-known blogger; I personally think it’s worth taking seriously.)
Problems our generation faces right from the start:
Salaries that never go up (though job-hopping is a viable workaround).
Property prices that only go up (and the neighborhoods you want to live in are no exception).
Consumer goods that only go up (just check your cart orders—apart from those rare bargain hunters, everything is getting more expensive, especially if you’ve recently shopped at a supermarket).
A constant track toward being “optimized” (who besides civil servants dares to claim they’ll get paid until a perfect retirement? And let’s not forget your retirement age keeps getting pushed back. Then at some point you’re lumped into the “flexibly employed” category. Involuntary layoffs are the norm, especially when disasters like pandemics make everything worse).
In other words:
Prices everywhere are rising faster than wages. Why wouldn’t we be pessimistic? Yesterday I could afford a square meter, today I can barely buy a floor tile. Can you blame me for feeling down?
Li Xuehan (dajiayouxuan.com) (the boss who attacked my blog—please show some mercy if you see this, thanks)
A quick addition:
Any field eventually centralizes and regresses to a 20/80 distribution. As long as there’s no effective regulatory solution, those who occupy the top tier earliest become obstacles to newcomers trying to climb up.
Look back through history. Why have dynasties cycled through power over the past two millennia? Why does everything keep spinning in the same loop?
On one hand, entrenched elites block upward mobility, forcing the oppressed to rise up in rebellion;
on the other, the ruling class learns from each downfall and passes down the playbook. Otherwise, how did the Five Surnames and Ten Clans, aristocratic lineages, and land monopolies persist? Those at the top always figure out the patterns, build layers of exclusion, and cement their status.
Here’s an inconvenient analogy (treat it as a fictional story if you like):
Take a university hometown association (or any similar group). Focusing on the big players, organizers form tight circles of three to five people. Each cohort rules for two years. Every September, new students are recruited into a group chat. Before long, they’re hosting dinners to build rapport, then pushing various training programs—computer courses, second degrees, grad school prep, civil service exams, driving schools, accounting certifications, winter and summer jobs. Referrals earn 1,200 RMB per signup. With eighty freshmen per cohort, half convert—that’s forty kids, each hitting four courses, generating nearly 200,000 RMB a year, or 400,000 over two years. When leadership changes hands, they sell the management group and交接的经验 for a few thousand yuan as a friendly deal. The pattern repeats across generations. (Who among ordinary people knows about this? How do you break through? Without lived experience, how can you compete against people like this?)
Here’s another awkward analogy:
Career planning (treat it as fiction as well).
Consider landing a position at a state-owned bank. First, plan ahead to transfer into the王牌 major. Next, strategize to win the National Scholarship for resume padding, then class scholarships, then party membership. Finally, maneuver for an internal referral. (Pay attention here: some top-tier companies recruit exclusively from low-ranked schools with deep historical ties! That’s because those schools have historically supplied most of that company’s workforce.) Who would guess the real key players are the class monitor and the party secretary? Counselors can subtly hint to parents what gifts to bring. Only the class monitor and party secretary get told about opening slots. If they don’t pass that information down, they hoard the opportunity for themselves to pad their own resumes. Meanwhile, how many kids mindlessly sign up for exams and interviews, only to return empty-handed, settle into jobs, and later face midlife layoffs—all without ever knowing these behind-the-scenes games? Meanwhile, resourceful parents are already plotting from high school, steering their kids toward certain enterprises or positions, even if it means letting a student with heavy-school-level scores attend a lower-tier college. (Many of these schemes fail. Most new elites have broken out of them. Pursuing higher education to enter the public sector is the new trend, though theoretically, the old playbook still circulates in shadow networks.)
Take all of this as conspiracy theory if you like. After all, mobility still happens—its probability has just visibly dropped. Class solidification is human nature. Once a class is entrenched, preserving existing advantages and eroding opportunities for others becomes the default instinct.
Why do people cluster into circles? Why do these circles charge fees? Why do they enforce entry barriers? Why swear oaths to Guan Yu? Why deal with traitors?
I truly have no idea.
Believe in common prosperity. Believe in our leaders. Believe in the future! Tomorrow will surely be better! The problems will surely be solved!
Are you the problem itself? Why did Europe and America choose natural immunity during the pandemic (survival of the fittest—who has the resources to become the fit ones)? Why did they reclassify the pandemic as flu-level disease?
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