This article may not be easy to read, but if you insist on reading it, I believe you will feel something.
Inner volume is a word that is now a big hit, this word was first used in the field of philosophy, and later appeared in sociology, agricultural economics, and history. In 2020, a photo of a student, riding a bicycle while writing a thesis, caught fire, and netizens called out taijuan. The term "inner volume" has also entered people's daily lives from the academic field and has been widely used.
The author believes that the connotation of the inner volume can probably be described as: "In the same competitive environment, individuals participate in extremely fierce competition by increasing their own time, energy and other cost inputs to obtain a small advantage to compete for limited resources." ”
01Why is it rolled inside?
Capital logic is the root cause of the current involution, capital logic refers to the operating logic of capital sparing no effort to chase unlimited profits to achieve self-appreciation, in the book "Capital", Marx has fully revealed the internal contradictions that capital logic cannot overcome, "in the higher degree of development of productive forces ... An attempt to break through its own limitations was restarted, and it as capital suffered a greater than ever. ”
When the productive forces develop to a certain height, for capital, breaking through the existing productive forces requires capital to bear a very high risk of suffering huge losses, which is not in line with the needs of capital multiplication, so capitalism can only turn inward in order to seek greater economic benefits, that is, to strengthen the intensity of laborers' work under the premise that the interests distributed to workers remain unchanged. For example, through layoffs, overtime and other ways to further force workers to create surplus value.
At the same time, under the capital economy, the evaluation criteria of social morality will also become capitalist utilitarianism. What does that mean? That is to say, the capital that can achieve more of its own appreciation is good capital, and the person who can use the resources he already has and occupy more social resources is a good person. In today's environment of intensified class differentiation and an increasing gap between the rich and the poor, efforts to squeeze upwards and achieve a class jump is excellent and the right way.
A "second generation peasant" child, the family did everything to provide him with education, until the 985 graduate school graduation, but unexpectedly he chose to go to a poor area in the west to do grassroots work. With the income from Weibo, he has been working for several years, and during these years, he has planted many trees and picked a lot of fruit.
Once, he told me, he was often asked, "Is this a choice worth the money your parents spent on school?" After saying this, he choked up, hid his face and wept, and the helplessness and pain in his heart were all in silence!
02 "Roll Up" and "Lie Up"
We are in such an era of inner volume, what can we do about it?
Many are forced to adapt and actively roll up. Say I'm going to do my best to fight for a happier and better life! But in fact, through the above analysis, we understand. Rolled up, it will complete the "self-exploitation" under the internal pressure of capital.
Now the cases of sudden death of young people working overtime appear one by one, and it is precisely the one Marx depicts that kills them - the exploitation of capital covered in blood.
There are also many people who choose to lie up. Lying flat is enough, withdrawing from competition, unwilling to do more labor to prevent exploitation. As a result, they extremely compress their own life and survival needs. Relying only on a little income, surviving, and allowing yourself to survive is also a bit disgraceful.
Rolling up and lying up are the two extremes of dealing with the inner volume, and we often say that things must be reversed, which is also undesirable.
03Are there a third way?
Yes.
First, economically, we have the power of macroeconomic regulation and control and solidly promote common prosperity. For example, in the field of education, we will promote the "double reduction" of education, strictly crack down on the capitalization of the allocation of educational resources, strive to develop vocational high schools, strive to break the stigma of vocational high schools, and optimize the talent structure. Moreover, enterprises are required to break the discrimination of employment and academic qualifications, gender discrimination, age discrimination and so on.
Although these things cannot be achieved overnight, as long as there is a direction and efforts, it will definitely be realized, and it will definitely get out of the kangzhuang road to crack the dilemma of the inner volume.
Second, conceptually, we have Marxism. The great Marx told us that in addition to the utilitarian value of life, there is another way - that is, to serve the people. People always have to die, the blood of the family will one day be broken, only by integrating the small self into the people's "big self" can we break the sense of nothingness brought about by death. So, we've always had a non-utilitarian value of life, and that's what we believe.
At the age of 17, Marx established the ideal and belief of "working for mankind", in which he wrote: "If we choose the profession that can best work for the happiness of mankind, then the burden cannot overwhelm us, because it is dedicated to everyone." "When we jump out of the small space between me and the inner volume and put ourselves into a broader realm of life, all the constraints are just clouds.
Third, capital does not go to risky places to create value, but people can. When Su Shi was 10 years old, he once said to his mother, Madame Cheng: "I want to learn to be Fan Huan, can I?" (Fan Huan was a short-lived man, who lived only thirty-three years, and because he was accused of "hooking the party", he was arrested by the order, and voluntarily surrendered to death in order not to involve others.) Mrs. Cheng replied, "I am willing to be Fan Huan's mother." "With such a choice, how can you still be trapped by the inner volume?"
Mr. Lu Xun said:
"What young people have more is vitality, and when they meet deep forests, they can turn into flat land, meet wilderness, plant trees, meet deserts, and dig wells and springs."
"May the young people of China get rid of the cold air, just go upwards, and do not have to listen to the words of the self-destructive and self-abandoning people." Do things that can be done, make a sound that can be heard. If you have a little heat, you can make a fire, and you can also emit a little light in the dark, without waiting for the torch. After that, if there is no torch: I am the only light. ”
With such a life choice, such a mind and courage, the so-called "inner volume" is not worth mentioning at all.
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