The Temperature Gap: Reflections on Balancing National Development Logic and Individual Perception

 

The tension between "efficient resource concentration for key tasks" and "the need to increase labor income's share in primary distribution", the reliance on exports driven by "sluggish domestic demand and declining marginal benefits of infrastructure investment", and the dual pressures of "involution" and "hegemonic competition" behind the "external output of production capacity and capital"—this interlocking set of development logics outlines the current temperature gap between national strength and individual perception. The hard power that the country demonstrates in global competition sometimes fails to be fully translated into a sense of gain in ordinary people's lives. Behind this mismatch lies the profound issue of balancing the development stage and distribution.

 

The efficiency advantage of concentrated resources is particularly evident in breakthroughs in major projects and key fields—from the rapid expansion of the high-speed rail network to the successive advances in aerospace engineering. The model of "concentrating forces to accomplish major tasks" always leverages its characteristics of "fewer mistakes and faster implementation" to help the country seize opportunities in core tracks. However, behind this efficiency lies the tricky problem of balancing primary distribution: when resources are more tilted toward the production and capital sides, if the share of labor income—an important participant in value creation—fails to increase in tandem, a gap emerges between "growing national production capacity" and "slower growth in individual incomes". This is one of the key obstacles to boosting domestic demand.

 

When domestic demand growth is sluggish and the marginal benefits of infrastructure investment gradually decline, exports and the external output of production capacity and capital naturally become important options to sustain growth. Yet this path also brings dual pressures: on one hand, to remain competitive in the global market, enterprises need to enhance efficiency through refined management and cost reduction, and this "involution" often trickles down to individuals, manifesting as increased work intensity and narrowed room for income growth; on the other hand, in the process of exporting capital and production capacity overseas, frictions are inevitable with forces in the existing international order. The country must continuously strengthen its comprehensive strength to compete for discourse power, and such investments in "hegemonic competition" cannot be directly converted into tangible benefits for individuals in the short term.

 

Thus arises the temperature gap between the "national ledger" and the "individual ledger": at the national level, the expansion of total GDP, foreign trade scale, and overseas investment footprint are clear evidence of growing strength; yet at the individual level, what is felt may be anxiety about income growth, increased work pressure, and rising living costs. This gap is not a paradox of development, but an inevitability of the transition stage—when the country shifts from "high-speed growth" to "high-quality development", it needs to find a new fulcrum between efficiency and equity, and between short-term growth and long-term balance.

 

Perhaps the key to bridging this gap in the future lies in more closely aligning the advantages of "concentrated resources" with the goal of "fair distribution": ensuring that concentrated resources not only serve breakthroughs in major projects but also tilt more toward people's livelihoods; allowing the fruits of external competition to feed back to domestic workers through more reasonable distribution mechanisms; and making every step of national development clearly reflected in the improvement of individuals' lives. After all, the true strength of a country lies not only in its ranking in global competition, but more in every ordinary person's ability to gain stable happiness from development.