On Chinese social media, neijuan or “involution” captures the grinding sense that everyone is racing harder but getting nowhere. State media now calls it “rat race-style irrational competition”. Parents buy tutoring hours for preschoolers, young professionals log “996” work weeks (9am to 9pm six days a week) and start-ups pour money into user-acquisition contests where winners are decided by who can lose the most. The result is pervasive exhaustion: more effort, smaller returns.Neijuan is the...