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posted by cmn32480 on Monday October 03 2016, @11:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the describing-a-lot-of-jobs dept.

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.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Monday October 03 2016, @12:34PM

    by theluggage (1797) on Monday October 03 2016, @12:34PM (#409374)

    In capitalism, this is exactly what is not supposed to happen.

    What is capitalism, and where in the world is it being practiced? 'Cause I don't think what collapsed in 2008 was capitalism, even before it was artificially resurrected by governments.

    Meanwhile, people aren't struggling in meaningless low-paid jobs in order to afford food and consumer goods: those things are dirt cheap. No, they're struggling in meaningless low-paid jobs in order to pay mortgages and loans.... even if they're renting, they're probably paying their landlord's mortgage, plus a bit of profit margin, because some dickhead gave tax breaks to "buy-to-let" mortgages. Inability to afford food/consumer goods is mainly a side effect of barely being able to afford a home. Instead of being determined by what buyers are prepared to pay, property prices have become determined by how much buyers can afford to borrow (and for a highly optimistic value of "can afford").

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 03 2016, @02:34PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 03 2016, @02:34PM (#409438)

    and for a highly optimistic value of "can afford"

    Specifically the most optimistic value, because they offered up the most indentured servitude in exchange for the property.

    There is a side dish of the old "greater fool theory" where its unsustainable to flip between greater and greater fools infinitely... eventually in some kind of bogo-sort scenario the market will run dry of greatest fools. Every greater fool who wins a bubble auction needs to have an exit strategy of finding an even greater fool to later sell to... How long can that game go on?