Since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, in China, “to get rich is not a crime”. Recently, though, young people who have not seen the horrors of the Great Leap Forward, the persecutions of the Cultural Revolution, and who came of age after the Tiananmen Square protests are reportedly realising that money can’t buy happiness, and even if you win the rat race, you’re still a rodent on a treadmill.
Since the late 1980s, China has seen over three decades of almost unprecedented growth and a burgeoning (upper) middle class. The broad contours of the work culture in companies were much the same as elsewhere — go for the money and promotions, put up with terrible work hours and often, toxic managers. An economic slowdown and the pandemic have meant that many young Chinese are re-evaluating their priorities. Trapped for months on end thanks to the “zero Covid” policy, they confess to feeling a loss of agency. Now, on social media, the stars are not dudes with big cars, but people who’ve given up success for the good life, shunning their white-collar jobs for blue-collar ones that allow a more sedate pace of work and more peace and happiness: A graphic designer becomes a dog groomer, a corporate honcho turns to waitressing.
The fact is that Chinese companies are hiring less as the economy slows down, at a time when there are more and more college graduates entering the workforce. Ironically, the “great resignation” could have been predicted by the Great Leaders of the People’s Republic if they returned to its theoretical roots. In classical Marxist theory, the worker is exploited — regardless of the colour of her collar — because that’s how profit and power are maintained. Of course, for now, it’s just the ones with the “good” jobs who are opting for a less hectic option. Resignations for happiness, as Marx would likely point out, speak of another kind of privilege.
