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On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber.
In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that technology would have advanced sufficiently by century's end that countries like Great Britain or the United States would achieve a 15-hour work week. There's every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn't happen. Instead, technology has been marshalled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.
Why did Keynes' promised utopia – still being eagerly awaited in the '60s – never materialise? The standard line today is that he didn't figure in the massive increase in consumerism. Given the choice between less hours and more toys and pleasures, we've collectively chosen the latter. This presents a nice morality tale, but even a moment's reflection shows it can't really be true. Yes, we have witnessed the creation of an endless variety of new jobs and industries since the '20s, but very few have anything to do with the production and distribution of sushi, iPhones, or fancy sneakers.
[...] And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza deliverymen) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones. These are what I propose to call "bullshit jobs."
It's as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is exactly what is not supposed to happen.
http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
David Graeber is a Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics.
Ed Note: Link to John Maynard Keynes was NOT in the original article.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @12:34PM
Capitalists would rather not create any jobs at all. The only reason a profit seeker hires somebody is in hopes of making more profit! It is government that wastes tax dollars on unproductive activity.
I find it sad, funny sad, whenever someone who is long past their teenage years still thinks economics is nothing more than a handful of basic principles unfettered by real-world frictions like natural monopolies, short-term thinking, power-seeking and imperfect knowledge.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Monday October 03 2016, @12:55PM
So can you give me an example of a "pointless" job that was created for the purpose of obtaining profit, in a natural monopoly, with short-term thinking, power-seeking and imperfect knowledge, but without crazy government incentives to make the pointless job exist? And then explain why the pointless job continues to be funded after its failure to generate profits became apparent?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @01:46PM
> without crazy government incentives to make the pointless job exist?
Can you point to a society without a government? Then you can't point to a job that exists without government influence. Ergo my point about absolute dumbasses who think economics is ever some pure, idealized and coldly rational science. Seriously dude, recognize your cognitive limitations and grow the fuck up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @06:08PM
crazy government incentives != government
Excellent comprehension.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @07:47PM
"crazy government incentives" : a term so completely undefined as to mean whatever justincase needs in order to rationalize his ignorance.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Monday October 03 2016, @01:50PM
um, you mean just about the whole 'financial' economy and all the masters of the universe parasites who inhabit that alternate universe ? ? ?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 03 2016, @02:17PM
Real Estate Developer?
Although they tend to get their tendrils into local government to "speed along" approval of projects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @03:45PM
> Real Estate Developer?
>
> Although they tend to get their tendrils into local government to "speed along" approval of projects.
Ya think? Seriously, its not even close. The hidden story of Trump's tax return isn't the billion dollar loss, its the $16M dollar "loss" in the “Rental real estate, royalties, partnerships, S corporations, trusts, etc.” line item due to the incredibly 'generous' tax breaks that only officially designated real-estate developers have access to.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @02:17PM
It's usually the capitalists behind why the crazy government incentives exist. I give you the RIAA. Please take them from us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @05:45PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by Moof123 on Monday October 03 2016, @02:24PM
Tehnical writer. Anything associated with ISO 9000.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 03 2016, @02:37PM
Close, although it depends on your field some .gov contracts require ISO9000 certification. Or if not require, its "strongly prefer". So back to the .gov to blame.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Thexalon on Monday October 03 2016, @03:25PM
Well, that's just it. Even in for-profit businesses, most decisions are made not with the goal of increasing profit but with the goal of increasing the salary and power of the person making the decision. And that includes hiring decisions.
For example, let's say we have an ambitious but not overly competent executive named Smith. Smith wants a promotion, but can't get that promotion based on merit because he isn't that good at his job. Thankfully, he has the authority to authorize an increase in staffing in his division, so he hires on Brown and Jones, two of his mates going all the way back to first grade, and gives them vaguely defined titles like "Director of Creative Initiatives" and "Organizational Synergy Facilitator", with no clear official job duties. What Brown and Jones were really brought on to do was badmouth Smith's rivals, deflect blame for any of Smith's failures to somebody else, increase the size and thus the prominence of Smith's division, and sit in business meetings giving (largely BS) reasons why the organization should do what Smith wants it to do - which for some reason always includes increasing further the size of Smith's division.
Or in a smaller business, it could be because the president's brother really really wanted to get his daughter a summer job, and the president being a loyal brother can't say no to him, even though he doesn't really have any work for his niece to do.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @08:43PM
Shit, you're on to me!
- Chief OSF
(Score: 2) by migz on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:07AM
The difference is, a company that allowed Smiths to reign for too long would go out of business. But if Smith worked for government ...
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 04 2016, @12:31PM
Not necessarily. If the revenue of the company is high enough, and their market position dominant enough, they can have all sorts of middle managers playing these kinds of games and get away with it. For example, if there were a company that just happened to sell the dominant operating system installed on nearly every desktop or laptop (to use a completely theoretical example that surely couldn't have happened a couple of decades ago), they could waste millions and still be raking in enough to keep investors happy.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @04:41PM
I love it! Ask and ye shall receive.
But does Justin have the ability to acknowledge a mistaken point?