Lying Flat & Agency

The Chinese government anti-spy agency has recently been warning the youth to avoid lying flat. In a time of more limited economic mobility than the past, and with the same Chinese intense work culture in full effect, young people have started doing what they call lying flat. This is where they find ways to avoid working full-time and live with their parents or other people to avoid the associated costs of taking on full adult responsibility. The Chinese spy agency, convinced that this could not have risen from the young people‘s own free will and poor economic conditions, are worried that foreign influencers and unseen forces have infiltrated the minds of their young people. Young people are presumed to only be unwilling to work long hours with little hope of progression because a threat to national security is convincing them to. Their logic holds up in one way, as up until this point the Chinese people were always willing and able to work hard for their own good and the good of the country. However, the foreign espionage solution fails to take into account the very real incentives to inaction that were not present in past generations. Young people in China, Europe, and many parts of America often have a bias towards inaction because the difficulty of navigating an ever-changing future with more limited entry-level job options and potential for progression has made young people feel as though they do not have agency and enable them to choose a nonproductive life. Only a prioritization of personal risk and reward along with greater economic freedom can incentivize young people to have the same enthusiasm for civic and economic involvement that they once had.

The economy is doing great, but the situation for young people seems to be worse every year in America. 200 job applications was normal for an applicant out of school three years ago, 400 was normal for one two years ago, and 1000 was normal for one this last year. Mega caps keep driving the market up, able to capitalize off of regulatory moats and favorable deals, and young people have no way to cash in on the success. The same baby boomer generation that benefited from an abundant job market in the 70s and 80s now has the capital in pension funds and investments that is benefiting from the success of today’s top companies. However, Gen Z for the most part does not have the capital to benefit from those gains or the career opportunities to have a chance of gaining that capital. With the advent of AI and ever-changing regulatory conditions, corporations are making an understandable choice to avoid hiring until some of these things settle. However, an entire generation with limited options, will inevitably lead to a lack of involvement. 

The whole political and economic structure of a country, whether China or the US, will be destabilized when their people no longer function upon the same drives that once led them to help their nation succeed. While economists are often critiqued for promoting regulations that will function with the lowest level survivalistic instincts of humans, the Chinese government now wishes that their youth had even that sort of instinct. If both altruism and self interest are gone, the world must be fundamentally restructured to create systems that still work. However, it is much more likely that altruism and self interest still exist, but the current conditions are not conducive to their manifestation. No young person staying at home does so because they think that it is best. They do so because they believe that the striving needed to make it on their own would put them in an outcome only slightly better than that with no striving. They are doing a cost benefit analysis in a depressed situation, and as surprising as the result might seem to someone from a different time, it may simply be the best choice for them given the situation.

To create a generation of young people who no longer lie flat, governments must return them agency by allowing them to succeed and fail with real consequences. Young people do not want careers and lives with low ceilings and high floors. While some certainly want a government safety net, the situation in China and America shows a much deeper yearning for your ability to do meaningful work. Most regulations either protect the status quo or limit bad outcomes, both of which make the difficult struggle of contending with the world seem less worthwhile than it really is.

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