on the premise of the book, June 2018 Graeber states that the
productivity benefits of
automation have not led to a 15-hour
workweek, as predicted by economist
John Maynard Keynes in 1930, but instead to what he calls "bullshit jobs": "a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case". However, a journalist who reviewed his book stated that Graeber's claim is inconsistent with the fact the average British worker in 2018 works only 31 hours, much less than the average for 1900 of 56 hours per week. Graeber states that today's arbitrary 9am to 5pm working hours do not likely coincide with productive needs of most occupations, and points out that occupations such as farmers, fishers, soldiers, and novelists vary the intensity of their work based on the urgency to produce and the natural cycles of productivity that consists of sprints followed by low periods of unproductive work. He believes that many people who are working these "bullshit" or pointless jobs know that they are working jobs that do not contribute to society in a meaningful way. He posits that instead of producing more jobs that are fulfilling for our environment, technology and machines create meaningless jobs to provide everyone with an opportunity to work. While these jobs can offer good compensation and ample free time, according to Graeber, the pointlessness of the work grates at people's humanity and creates a "profound psychological violence", and "a scar across our collective soul". Graeber's test for whether a job is a bullshit job or not is whether society would be any worse off (or even notice) if such jobs disappeared entirely overnight. Graeber states that more than half of societal work is pointless, both large parts of some jobs and five types of entirely pointless jobs: • Flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g.,
receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants, store greeters; • Goons, who act to harm or deceive others on behalf of their employer, or to prevent other goons from doing so, e.g.,
lobbyists,
corporate lawyers,
telemarketers,
public relations specialists; • Duct tapers, who temporarily fix problems that could be fixed permanently, e.g., programmers repairing shoddy code, airline desk staff who calm passengers with
lost luggage; • Box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not, e.g., survey administrators,
in-house magazine journalists, corporate
compliance officers,
academic administration; • Taskmasters, who create extra work for those who do not need it, e.g.,
middle management, leadership professionals. According to Graeber, these jobs are largely in the
private sector despite the idea that
market competition would root out such inefficiencies. He claims that the rise of service sector jobs owes less to economic need than to "managerial feudalism", in which employers need underlings in order to feel important and maintain competitive status and power. He states that the
Puritan-capitalist work ethic is to be credited for making the labor of capitalism into religious duty: advances in productivity did not lead to a reduced workday because, as a societal norm, people believe that work determines their self-worth, even if they find that work pointless. Work as a source of virtue is a recent idea. In fact, work was disdained by the aristocracy in classical times but inverted as virtuous through then-radical philosophers like
John Locke. The Puritan idea of virtue through suffering justified the toil of the working classes as noble. Graeber argues that bullshit jobs justify contemporary patterns of living: that the pains of dull work are suitable justification for the ability to fulfill consumer desires, and that fulfilling those desires could be considered as the reward for suffering through pointless work in contemporary society. He claims that over time, the prosperity extracted from technological advances has been reinvested into industry and consumer growth for its own sake rather than the purchase of additional leisure time from work. He also claims that bullshit jobs serve political ends, because political parties are more concerned about having jobs than whether the jobs are fulfilling, and citizenry occupied with
busy work have less motivation to revolt. The solution Graeber offers is a
universal basic income, which would allow people to not need to work a "bullshit job." He also states that it doesn't need to be a basic income, but just some way that society can enable individuals to decide for themselves how they will contribute to humanity. He feels that society needs a significant cultural
paradigm shift to change what we value in our jobs and our lives. == Reception ==