At the People’s Congress, Xi Jinping launched a concept that makes every bullshit writer’s mouth water: ‘new productive forces’

aanthropologist David Graeber (1961-2020) became famous with his concept of ‘bullshit jobs’, or jobs the world could do without. Quite a few people with bullshit jobs are tasked with writing bullshit lyrics. Trained bullshit copywriters often manage to combine pomposity with meaninglessness and unreadability. This skill reached a peak in the communist dictatorships of the 20th century. Regime journalists there had to draft pieces about concepts that Party leaders launched in the style of ‘awakened productive forces’. Even if authors could write clearly, they were careful to try: if a text was readable, you could easily be accused of not having understood the leader’s vision.

Such copywriters are still active in the People’s Republic of China. Under Xi Jinping they are even busy again. At the last People’s Congress, this wonderful leader launched a retro-Marxist concept that makes every bullshit writer salivate: ‘new productive forces’. Party members who had no idea what it entailed made excuses that they had ‘not studied it enough’. State media didn’t get it either, but they did understand that it was ‘groundbreaking’, ‘revolutionary’ and ‘advanced’.

I felt deeply sorry for Chinese regime journalists who have to work with ‘new productive forces’ – until I Volkskrantcorrespondent Leen Vervaeke read that such authors will be able to rely on Artificial Intelligence in 2024, especially ChatGPT-like programs. The digital revolution not only saves those authors tons of time, but also self-loathing. In the 20th century, analogue authors of communist state newspapers were often overcome with self-contempt while writing. In 2024, you type ‘new productive forces’ into an AI program and the rotten work is done for you. If you are criticized for not understanding Xi well enough, tell them that your AI program is still studying Xi. The chance of such criticism is nil: if there is something in which AI already far surpasses humans, it is in really good bullshit texts.