Why are Chinese so tired? This topic can be regarded as a soul torture. Everyone can feel that the Chinese are very industrious all over the world, and this kind of diligence has developed to the present, it is not a matter of 996, and 007 is also commonplace. High-intensity work has indeed brought visible improvement to the material living standards of Chinese, but the sense of happiness has not been significantly enhanced. 
Moreover, the so-called improvement of material living standards in recent years is actually relatively shallow - mainly only reflected in the basic survival needs, that is, food and clothing - at most, buy an ordinary car, and occasionally go around; But a little higher - for example, a house, a house, can consume the annual labor income of an ordinary person - and even emptied six wallets; And medical care, pension, children's education, etc., make ordinary people tremble and dare not slack off. The most important thing is that basic housing, old-age care, medical care, and children's education are not high-level needs, and they still stay at the level of basic living needs - but a few times are just these basic living needs, which still make most Chinese spend half their lives or even a lifetime, and at most can only get a barely made up of satisfaction - and even many people are not even satisfied with barely making do. Seeing this, many people will definitely subconsciously scold ** and denounce the unfair distribution. Of course, it is undeniable that distributive injustice is widespread. But this is not the main reason why Chinese are so tired. There are more countries in the world that are unfairly distributed--in this regard, although China's performance cannot be said to be particularly good, it is by no means a bad group -- not to mention Asia, Africa and Latin America, even in Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea, which are developed countries, unfair distribution is widespread, and even more exaggerated than ours. 
Therefore, unfair distribution is secondary, and the most important thing is that there is not enough wealth, which leads to insufficient distribution. There is enough wealth, like Saudi Arabia, even if the royal family monopolizes the profits from oil exploration, the little oil residue leaking from their hands is enough for ordinary Saudis to live a very nourishing life. If there is not enough wealth, then even if it is really absolutely fair in distribution (of course, this only exists in theory, and in the real human world, no country and society can achieve absolute fairness in distribution - it is extremely rare to achieve a high degree of relative fairness). In fact, distributing wealth evenly among everyone is still not enough to meet people's basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, birth, old age, sickness and death. 
Therefore, the total amount of wealth is not enough, which is the main reason why most of us find it difficult to make ends meet. And creating wealth, or making money in layman's terms, is the key to solving the problem. But it's also about making money, why are people in some countries relatively easy, and we are so tired? The most important question is why we are all so tired, but we end up getting so little, which is still not enough to meet our basic needs; And people in many countries are not so tired, but they can eat and drink spicy food? This question can be interpreted from many angles - you can say that it is the injustice of the international order, that it is bad scissors, that it is a historical factor, and so on. And here, I want to explain this from the perspective of economic development, from the perspective of finance. To put it simply, the reason why we are so tired is that the labor of our citizens is the main way to promote economic development, and it is also the mode of providing endorsement for the issuance of credit for the renminbi. What does this mean? Quite simply, every country has wealth. So, where does wealth come from? We Chinese are accustomed to saying that wealth is created by labor. But in fact, it is not so simple - in other words, wealth is indeed created by labor, but the difficulty and amount of work to create the same wealth are different in different situations; Even the group of people who create wealth and the group of people who enjoy wealth are in many cases different - if you create wealth, it does not mean that you can enjoy wealth; Many times you create a fortune of 100 yuan through labor, but you can only get 10 yuan; And some people, he only creates 10 or even 1 yuan through labor, but he can enjoy 200 or even 2,000 yuan. From a national point of view, different countries have different ways of creating wealth: like Saudi Arabia, a group of Gulf monarchs, they can produce oil with two shovels under the sand, and the oil is still high-quality, so for them, wealth creation is very simple, and if a few kowtow machines keep knocking there, the money will naturally roll in; Russia is also of the same nature. You see, Russia has been fighting with Ukraine for two years, during which the West has imposed various sanctions, but as a result, Russia has not only not been dragged down, but the economy has become more and more nourishing! Why is this happening? We usually say that the Russian economy is backed by China. We, an industrial power, can provide everything that Russia needs. Of course, that's true. But the problem is that China's support is not given in vain, and it is also for Russia to exchange things. Therefore, Russia can survive, in the final analysis, this goods have a large amount of oil, natural gas, minerals, timber and other commodities, these are also God's gifts, as long as Russia mines them, they can be turned into wealth and exchanged for various commodities. The above are resource countries. And there is also a part of it that is a high-tech strong industrial country. Europe, Japan, and South Korea, the technology manufacturing powerhouses, can sell industrial products containing various high-tech technologies to the world, so as to obtain a wealth premium far above their value itself. 
This point, in fact, our Chinese who are also engaged in industry have a deep understanding - we all say that what the Chinese do will become the price of cabbage. This is not because we have undervalued these industrial products, but because they are only worth so much money, but they were only sold at a high premium by these grandsons before. By gaining a premium through technological superiority, Europe, Japan and South Korea can also obtain wealth beyond the real value of their labor. Among them, Europe, Japan and South Korea can also be distinguished: in addition to the scientific and technological premium, Europe also has cultural premium, colonial premium, political premium, etc. - France can rely on the original French African economy for blood transfusion, Chinese women can save money in order to grab a bag with the LV logo, and men can spend a lot of money for a bottle of so-called 82-year-old Lafite, which has little real value; German cars only need to hang a BBA logo, and they can charge an additional 100,000 yuan on top of the quality of the car itself. Coupled with Europe's status as the main ally in the hegemonic system of US imperialism, it is also possible to eat and drink spicy food and drink with US imperialism. As a result, Europe can also reap some additional benefits. 
Finally, that is the United States. Wealth creation in the United States is the most special, simply put, it has everything – it has resources (after the shale oil revolution, the United States also became a major energy exporter), and it has sophisticated technology – and it is high-tech at the top of the pyramid; And most importantly, the United States also has hegemony – financial hegemony, military hegemony, and technological hegemony brought about by technology at the top of the pyramid. The existence of hegemony has enabled the United States to obtain the right to collect protection fees from the world - whether it is relying on scientific and technological hegemony to control the technological monopoly brought about by the middle and lower reaches of the industrial chain, relying on military hegemony to coerce the petrodollar made by the Middle East oil countries, or the tidal harvest of the dollar and the distortion of production relations (consumption determines production) after the formation of financial hegemony, in short, all these can bring huge excess wealth to the United States, and it can not only create wealth by itself relatively easily (with oil, gas and agricultural products), More importantly, it can rely on its hegemony to make the whole world create wealth for it. Well, back to China. What do we Chinese rely on to create wealth? First of all, China does not have enough resources. In fact, China itself can be regarded as a vast land, but this vast land and abundant resources are averaged by 1.4 billion people, so everything seems to be very scarce. China also doesn't have high-tech technology – of course, there are now, but not for a long time. Moreover, most of the high-tech technology we have now, to put it bluntly, is not an innovation in the history of human science and technology, but only a catch-up with the existing science and technology of the West. Since you have the West as well, then you naturally do not have a monopoly advantage. Since you don't have a monopoly advantage, you can't rely on it to get a premium; Coupled with the advantages of brands, rules, habits and other advantages built on the basis of the first mover by others, so if you want to obtain the market, you can only rely on the cost advantages brought by the scale of the industrial system to win the ** war (this is also one of the reasons why China does what becomes the price of cabbage) Then, what do Chinese rely on to create wealth? To put it bluntly, it's labor. China has a large labor force, and these labor forces are of high quality, strong discipline, and hard-working, and are good at work. This huge scale of labor force is the capital of China's wealth creation; As long as they can integrate into globalization and throw them into the torrent of industrialization, they can generate a lot of value – and this is the main way China creates wealth. 
But there is a problem here, different ways of wealth creation, the difficulty of creating wealth is not the same. And this difficulty is directly proportional to the scarcity of wealth creation methods. The way for Americans to create wealth is the easiest - not only does it have top-notch high-tech technology, it can sell at a high premium and control the middle and downstream industrial chains, but it also has hegemony to collect global protection fees, and the most speechless thing is that after the shale oil revolution, the resources of this commodity have become relatively abundant - as the world's largest consumer, it can actually export a large amount of oil, gas and grain. So for a long time, the United States was the existence of hexagonal warriors - not only in an easy way to create their own wealth, but also to allow the world to work for themselves - in short, the premium was so high that it was not possible to think about it. Europe (and the Europe of the past, of course) is not bad either. ASMAL, STMicroelectronics, BBA Automotive, Airbus, these high-tech products are also equipped with high barriers, which can bring enough premiums; Coupled with the dividends of the hegemonic allies of the United States and the legacy of the colonial era, etc., Europe is also alive and well. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are worse. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan also have scientific and technological advantages, but they are still inferior to Europe in terms of high-precision and cutting-edge - this determines that in the process of creating wealth, Japan and South Korea have a worse ability to obtain a premium by relying on science and technology than the United States and Europe; Moreover, Japan and South Korea are less independent, both economically and politically, and are highly restrained by the United States, and rank lower as allies of the United States - so the amount of protection paid to American hegemony is much higher than that of Europe, plus they have no colonial legacy. This series of factors determines that although Japan and South Korea are also developed countries and have created a lot of wealth, the process is relatively difficult, and it is relatively taken away by the upstream, so in the end, it is relatively not so much to fall into their own home - it belongs to the relatively hard class of developed countries. There is also a resource country. The situation in resource countries is more complex. Resources are the basis for the development of industrial civilization - so resource countries naturally take advantage. But unlike technology, resources are scarce, but they are not so scarce – that is, people can buy resources from you, and they can buy resources from others. In addition, the current resource countries are generally weak in industrialization and have no ability to protect their wealth on their own, but must rely on the protection of strong industrial countries, so that the ability of resource countries to use scarcity to engage in monopoly and grab premiums is greatly reduced. In the end, whether they can turn resources into wealth depends on how international relations are handled. Finally, there is China, and the late-developing industrial countries that China represents, which earn their wealth by selling their labor. This kind of country is not the worst in the world - after all, most countries on this planet actually can't even touch the threshold of modern civilization. But among the countries that can touch the threshold – or can effectively participate in globalization – countries like China that make money by selling their labor are actually the most miserable. Because there is labor, it is qualified to participate in global exchange, but because there is only labor, they can only stay at the bottom. Why? Not to mention the hegemonic premium, among the various factors of production needed to create wealth, labor is the least scarce relative to science and technology and resources. China has a labor force, but there is also a labor force in Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and even South Asia, and even in Africa, which is gradually stabilizing. All in all, as long as the order is relatively stable and the basic education is underpinned, they all have a labor force – what was not before, as long as these conditions are gradually met, their people will gradually be qualified to act as industrial labor force.
Of course, you can say that the quality of China's labor force is relatively higher, and there are other supporting facilities - such as system, culture, etc., which are more suitable for industrialization. But to put it bluntly, these are only comparative advantages, not monopoly advantages in science and technology, resources, etc. That is to say, without you China, I look for others, they can also make shirts, lighters, and assemble laptops and mobile phones, unlike technology - if people give you a neck, you can't do it. Even resources, although they are substitutable, but given that there are only a few countries with resources, it is relatively easy to form a relative monopoly with a blend. And labor, given that it is everywhere in the world, basically cannot form a monopoly. If the labor force is too abundant to form a monopoly, then your position in the factors of industrial production will naturally be very low. The global consumer market is so big, and industrialization requires so much labor, and if you want to integrate your labor force into globalization, then you can only improve efficiency and reduce costs - specifically, lower wages, longer working hours, higher work intensity, worse working conditions, and so on. Only by pressing your own factors of production low enough can you gain a comparative advantage in comparison with the labor force. This is the fundamental reason why Chinese are so tired of living! Because in the process of industrialization, in the process of participating in global exchanges, in the process of creating wealth, the factors of production at our disposal are the least valuable and least scarce labor force! Because there are too many laborers, they are too flooded and too worthless, so we can only play cost-effective and suppress our own labor force in exchange for the status of the world's factory and the qualification to participate in industrialization! Of course, in the process of economic development, we have also amplified our comparative advantages through other means, such as the scale effect brought by industrial clusters, such as high-quality infrastructure, such as high-quality administrative services, and high-quality culture. Because of the existence of these comprehensive advantages, we can improve the labor force while still maintaining our comparative advantages. But there is a limit to this effect. After all, you will improve your overall advantage, and other countries will also improve. And the role of comprehensive advantages itself has a limit - you can rely on this to make your own country still more cost-effective than Vietnam with a monthly income of 1,500 when the labor salary reaches 3,000 per month. But what if the Vietnamese catch up in terms of infrastructure, administrative efficiency, etc.? Or in other words, capital mining has cultivated a more cost-effective place - for example, in Bangladesh, although people do not have the advantage of industrial clusters, infrastructure and administrative efficiency, but people's labor force is given 500 a month! Labor is extremely flexible. As long as someone else's is cheap enough, it is enough to cancel out your overall advantage. In this case, if you want to retain these industries for a long time, then you can only maintain your labor income level and labor security at a low level. All in all, there is a limit to the upper limit of the wealth creation path that relies on labor to create wealth. The thing of hard work and getting rich may be applicable to an individual (in fact, it is not very applicable), but for a country, hard work can only get rid of poverty at most, not get rich! Because industriousness is bound to the basis of labor, and the labor required for industrialization is in excess of demand on a global scale! This supply and demand relationship determines the ceiling of labor value! So how can we get rich as a country as a whole? In addition to hegemony, only monopolies can get rich! Only by monopolizing the factors of production can we create scarcity, and only by scarcity can we raise the supply of goods, and only then can a large amount of premium be generated on the basis of value itself, so that the monopolist can obtain relative conceptual wealth! So what kind of monopoly law? Labor is certainly not monopolized - after all, as mentioned earlier, this factor of production is in excess of demand. And resource monopoly can, technology monopoly can! It's just that resources are congenitally limited, whether there is or not, unless you explore and discover or conquer and plunder externally, you can't get it. foreign conquest and plunder—the cost is too high to afford; Exploration and discovery of this character is a matter of luck - and even if it is discovered, it will still not be satisfied if it is distributed among 1.4 billion people.
Therefore, only by monopolizing technology, obtaining advanced technology that other competitors do not have, and developing better products that meet human needs on this basis, can we get rich! This is the meaning of industrial upgrading and scientific and technological innovation. At present, industrial upgrading and scientific and technological innovation are still in the first stage -- that is, to break the monopoly of the West on us and erase the premium they earn from us. However, this step can only make us less tired; And if you want to completely get rid of hard work, from not so tired, to live comfortably and moisturizing, it is necessary to go further and realize the pioneering leading style of advanced technology and advanced technology products. Only when our science and technology leads the world, especially the fourth scientific and technological revolution, can we rely on our technological advantages to make the world pay for our high-premium products, and we can obtain a higher standard of living than other countries through this high premium - and it is obtained with the relaxed attitude of Europe and the United States before! This is the logic why industrial upgrading and scientific and technological innovation are placed in such an important position. A generation has a generation's mission, and once a person has a generation's destiny. Our ancestors planted all their lives and still couldn't eat, our fathers made screws all their lives, and half of our generation went into the factory to make screws, and half worked as social animals in the lattice; And the efforts of our people are so that our children and grandchildren will no longer make screws in the future. If we lie flat now, then our descendants will have to repeat the fate of ourselves, our parents and even our ancestors.
However, if we successfully realize industrial upgrading, scientific and technological innovation, and complete the historical task of leading the fourth scientific and technological revolution, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will be realized. When our next generation rises up and welcomes them, there is a high probability that it will be a decent and happy life - this may be the best gift we can give to our descendants! And we ourselves will also reap a beautiful and happy old age because of our efforts in the young and middle-aged years!