With China aging very rapidly and a total fertility rate that will decline below 1 in the next 2-5 years, doesn’t make much sense to save for a future with limited returns (time value of life vs money and so forth).
https://archive.ph/2022.05.23-232226/https://www.bloomberg.c...
> Home prices in China have been falling since September, Chinese stocks and mutual funds aren’t great bets these days either, there’s little access to international markets and cryptocurrencies are officially illegal. Instead, people are increasingly shelving their money in savings accounts, despite benchmark deposit rates staying at record low levels.
> “No matter if you’re high net-worth or not that rich, the golden time of parking your money and letting your wealth grow, it’s gone,” said Wei He, an economist at Gavekal Research Ltd. in Beijing.
> “There’s no other investment options,” said Clawde Yin, a 45-year-old Shanghai resident. “I’ve got no choice but to wait and see.”
Also, dumping your money into savings accounts is definitely better than dumping it into 30% APR BNPL offers for designer clothing and electronics. Or gas guzzling, expensive SUVs and trucks. Ask yourself why Apple has a 50% market share in the US.
> doesn’t make much sense to save for a future with limited returns (time value of life vs money and so forth).
Saving doesn't mean saving until retirement, it just means not spending beyond your means.
The point is, though, that the population level class structure and socioeconomic mobility/opportunity would remain. As would the fact that the current generation cannot (as a whole) afford housing the way two generations ago could.
The narrative of “the individual” encourages non-elites to compete amongst themselves for a progressively shrinking portion of the pie. From the perspective of elites it has a twofold benefit: discourage worker solidarity and encourage productivity. From the perspective of workers, the latter benefit is good (we all should strive for competence and contribution), but the former is not good (even just in terms of life enjoyment). Also, at some point the pie needs a drastic and more balanced reallocation.