Geertz’s theory of involution holds that a greater input (an increase in labor) does not yield proportional output (more crops and innovation). Instead, a society involutes. The Chinese term for involution, neijuan, which is made up of the characters for “inside”and “rolling,”suggests a process that curls inward, ensnaring its participants within what the anthropologist Xiang Biao has described as an “ endless cycle of self-flagellation.”Involution is “the experience of being locked in competition that one ultimately knows is meaningless,”Biao told me.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/chinas-involuted-generation