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.
Related Stories
In recent years, research showed that many professionals consider their work to be socially useless. Various explanations have been proposed for the phenomenon. The much-discussed "bullshit jobs theory" by the American anthropologist David Graeber, for example, states that some jobs are objectively useless and that this occurs more frequently in certain occupations than others.
Other researchers suggested that the reason people felt their jobs were useless was solely because they were routine and lacked autonomy or good management rather than anything intrinsic to their work. However, this is only one part of the story, as a recent study by sociologist Simon Walo of the University of Zurich shows. It is the first to give quantitative support to the relevance of the occupations.
[...] "The original evidence presented by Graeber was mainly qualitative, which made it difficult to assess the magnitude of the problem," says Walo. "This study extends previous analyses by drawing on a rich, under-utilised dataset and provides new evidence. This paper is therefore the first to find quantitative evidence supporting the argument that the occupation can be decisive for the perceived pointlessness." Walo also found that the share of workers who consider their jobs socially useless is higher in the private sector than in the non-profit or the public sector.
However, Walo's study also confirms other factors that influence employees' perceptions of their own work, including, e.g., alienation, unfavorable working conditions and social interaction. "Employees' assessment of whether their work is perceived as socially useless is a very complex issue that needs to be approached from different angles," the author therefore concludes. "It depends on various factors that do not necessarily have anything to do with the actual usefulness of work as claimed by Graeber. For example, people may also view their work as socially useless because unfavorable working conditions make it seem pointless."
Journal Reference:
Simon Walo: 'Bullshit' After All? Why People Consider Their Jobs Socially Useless. Work, Employment and Society. 21 July 2023. DOI:10.1177/09500170231175771
Related:
Bullshit Jobs and the Yoke of Managerial Feudalism
Why Capitalism Creates Pointless Jobs
(Score: 4, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 03 2016, @11:36AM
Anyone taking anything Keynes said as serious economic discussion needs their head examined. The man put his ideals ahead of rational thought every single time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @11:46AM
This is an idea that predates Keynes by a century or more.
Can you debate the point of the article or just hand wave about a name you dont like?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @12:28PM
Of course he can't. He's just virtue-signaling, he doesn't actually understand what he's talking about.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 03 2016, @03:06PM
Yup, that's me. SJW who spends all his time trying to convince other SJWs how much he feels the pain of the oppressed. Look at my shiny virtue and be awed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @03:39PM
Lol, you think only SJWs have virtue. That's funny.
Here's a clue for fools like you — all those terms like SJW, virtue-signaling, tree-hugger, feminazi, etc dreamt up by reactionaries to dismiss the arguments of people they consider enemies aren't really about their enemies, they are about themselves. In trying to describe something they can't figure out they look for behaviors in themself and try to make it fit. That's why the terms have such traction with other reactionaries, they "feel" true because they recognize their own impulses in the words.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday October 03 2016, @04:34PM
Ok, way off topic.
Is TERF one of those terms as well? I realize it gets all wibbly-wobbly real quick and in a hurry. I'm having trouble distinguishing feminazi from TERF from radfem and where that all fits into recent herstory at the moment.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Monday October 03 2016, @08:44PM
Dust in the wind, let it blow past instead of adding the tiniest bit of traction to it. If the terms make you confused then that is way better than the annoyance / anger those types want to get out of you!
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 03 2016, @08:58PM
Yes, coin a term to describe a style of behavior and you're a horrible person. What a fucking moron.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 03 2016, @03:08PM
At the time I posted, the latter. I had to go do actual work very shortly afterwards.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday October 03 2016, @01:38PM
Except that by those standards, Milton Friedman, in the running for most important economist of the 20th century, was a complete nutter:
Keynes was absolutely serious. His ideas matched the available evidence at the time. That they turned out to not be completely right doesn't make him not serious. And there are still lots of economists who have modified versions of his theories that have not been falsified yet - they could be wrong, but they could be right too. Meanwhile, the opponents of Keynes' theories (e.g. the Austrians) have mistakes of their own to answer for as well, because like all fields of study economics hasn't really figured out what the heck is going on, and any honest economist knows it.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday October 03 2016, @09:49PM
And there are still lots of economists who have modified versions of his theories that have not been falsified yet - they could be wrong, but they could be right too. Meanwhile, the opponents of Keynes' theories (e.g. the Austrians) have mistakes of their own to answer for as well
It's important to note in the context of your sentences that the Austrian School actually doesn't believe in empiricism or falsifiability [mises.org]. They, like 18th century philosophers and Plato, believe that there are absolute truths which are simply true by definition, and a theory of economics should be derived from using logical deduction. According to a strict understanding of Austrian praxeology, Austrian theories are basically unfalsifiable, because they are true by definition. If a particular economic system doesn't appear to behave according to these principles, it doesn't provide evidence that the theory may be false, but rather is just a manifestation of complex human behavior that frequently needs further explanation.
So, while various people have argued that economics in general is often not very scientific, Austrian economics is really more like a religion with absolute tenets of truth that can never be wrong.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 04 2016, @03:03AM
That right there is one of the many mistakes Austrian economics has to answer for: As soon as you refuse to let your ideas go up against reality, you stop being a real field of study.
And incidentally, they're worse about that than Plato was - his writings not-infrequently have the Socrates character go back on an idea after he or one of his debating partners pointed out that real life didn't work that way.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by migz on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:42AM
Er. You still get to check the theories against reality. The Austrian epistemological constraints are on what is acceptable as a theory, not on whether or not it should be compared to reality.
In physics you can use maths to make a model using classical mechanics and prove a certain outcome. Then you can test it against reality. The physics part is empirical, the maths part is like Austrian economics.
Empiricism in economics says you can take any crap model, test it, and if it passes, then it's good enough to use (The Chicago School). The Austrians say that your model must be valid from first principles.
It is a question of rigor.
Empiricists have no problem taking Austrian theories and testing them. It is the Austrians that believe testing is not sufficient.
The empiricists have been taking Keyne's theories for ages and saying, good enough. But those theories are falling apart at the moment, since they are being tested on the global economy. The Austrians predicted these outcomes (as did some Neo-Classicists), and they both have ugly predictions for what is going to happen. Mainstream economics has lead us into an economic crisis and has no way out. Perhaps you should consider the theories that predicted this crisis, and have a clear rational way forward.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 04 2016, @02:03PM
How exactly has Keynesianism failed in the most recent test? Keynes' central idea was that government austerity measures during a recession would make things worse, and the best fiscal policy for government was to take on debt in bad times and engage in austerity in good times. And he had both empirical and theoretical reasons for believing that was the case. In 2008, the counter-argument was put to the test when the UK, Spain, Greece, and several other countries were pushed (largely by German banks, their biggest creditors) to engage in austerity measures in a recession. And lo and behold, unemployment went up and the budget problems got worse. Which isn't surprising, because Herbert Hoover had (on the advice of all the economists at the time) tried the exact same policy idea in 1929 with exactly the same results.
The real failure of Keynesianism wasn't during the 2008 crisis, but in the late 1970's when there was a wage-price spiral that Keynesian policy proved unable to stop. However, when the Fed applied Milton Friedman's ideas, that solved that problem, and the Keynesians also duly revised their theories to account for how the 1970's "stagflation" had happened and what could be done about it.
The reason the Austrian theories haven't been disproven is that they haven't been put to the test.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by migz on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:05PM
The ABCT explains why there are booms and busts. Further they explain why austerity is the only way to rectify the distortions created by the mis-allocation of capital produced by profligate government largess in favored sectors of the economy.
The bust must come, and it will come, and the further the Keynesians kick the can down the road the worse the correction will inevitably be. That is what the Austrian theory says. The bust is unavoidable, the only questions are when and how rapid it will be.
Austrian theories are true by derivation, they do not require implementation to be proved. They do not require implementation to make predictions, they can make predictions based on past and current policy. And they have reliably predicted the crises of Keynsianism and the Friedmanites.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:43PM
Yes, they do. Because even if the logic and the math are perfect, they can still be flawed if the axioms they started with were incorrect. That's why deductive reasoning is insufficient when trying to describe real-world phenomena. And conveniently, you describe what implementation of Austrian School policies would look like in your first paragraph:
Which means that I was mistaken when I said Austrian School theory wasn't put to the test, because their preferred austerity policies were in fact implemented by several nations in Europe.
Let's take, for example, Spain: In 2007, they were running a slight budget surplus, with pretty typical tax rates for a Western nation (low 40% range) and unemployment at about 7%. Pretty good, not great, and nothing that suggests some sort of major problem. In 2009, in response to financial crisis and the resulting budget crisis, they implemented austerity, and over the next 4 years unemployment skyrocketed upwards to a completely overwhelming 27% while GDP per capita fell 18%, and while both those numbers are starting to recover it's still far below pre-crisis level.
Meanwhile, take the US, where they were in 2007 running a large budget deficit with somewhat unusually low tax rates for a Western nation but unemployment at about 5%. Again, not great, but not terrible either. In 2009, in response to the financial crisis and the resulting budget crisis, they doled out a large government stimulus package, and over the next 4 years unemployment shot up to 10% at first but slowly worked back down to around 8% while GDP per capita recovered and rose to about 1% over pre-crisis levels. Now, unemployment is down to around pre-crisis levels, GDP per capita is up to 4% above pre-crisis level.
And other numbers you look at, like labor force participation and poverty levels tell the same basic story: Austerity made things much worse, not better, and neither Spain as a nation nor your average Spaniard are better off for having tried Austrian-inspired policies. Meanwhile, the basically Keynesian-inspired policies in the US managed to start turning things around right away in 2009.
Which means Austrian School economics had its test, and failed badly. I'll pass.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @02:48PM
Careful, much of what is presented as Keynesian economics didn't originate with Keynes.
The guy you want to blame for that is Samuelson. He bastardized much of Keynes work after the latters death, in an effort to make it fit the very economic thinking that Keynes attacked.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday October 03 2016, @10:14PM
I'm certainly not. Even if I had a 15 hour work week with a Living Wage, I would NOT be washing my own dog. Mainly, because that is a misnomer and the service includes hair cutting, nail cutting, and pressing anal juices out of their asses (not making that up). If I have a good job, why would I object to paying another person to help me take care of my dog? Are dog "doctors" a bullshit made up job?
All-night pizza deliverymen. Completely lost me on that one since it seems to be making a moral declaration about how we should leave our houses and walk 5 miles at 1am for that pizza while already baked off our asses on the couch. Pizza delivery only exists because we're too lazy and overworked to walk?
If I spend my time working hard, I don't need somebody telling me how I should and shouldn't be spending my money.
It's an interesting idea of bullshit jobs, but he didn't list any examples ;)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 03 2016, @11:55PM
Exactly. There are no bullshit jobs except the ones created simply to keep people employed; Keynesian jobs. If you're working in today's America and not working for the government it's because someone finds very real value in paying you to do so.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Murdoc on Monday October 03 2016, @11:38AM
This was predicted before that, by the Technical Alliance during the 1920s. And yes, the basic idea is that automation destroys purchasing power, which reduces demand while automation also increases supply. Both have the result of decreasing price, and since the rate of installation of new production during the 1920s was unprecedented, so was the drop in prices. Hence, collapse in 1929. The choice was clear, either get rid of the abundance that caused the low prices and inject money into the system to get it going again, or get rid of the thing that was keeping us from this high-production, low-labor world, our scarcity-based economy. Obviously, we went with the former, and have been having to work at inventing "bullshit jobs" ever since, since technology keeps advancing, and companies still want to use it where they can to cut costs, so they use it. It's an irreversible trend, and it's not going to get any better. The only solution is to get rid of the scarcity economics. And yes, we can do it now; we could have done it in the 1930s. We don't need nanotech replicators, or hard AI. If we let them, machines could just produce more as time goes on, while letting us have to do work less, letting us do whatever else we want.
In more detail. [technocracy.ca]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday October 03 2016, @07:49PM
Actually, this was a subject of study earlier than the 1920's. Karl Marx spends Chapter 15 [marxists.org] of Capital on how increasing automation through the use of machinery decreases the power of the working classes and puts them out of work. Marx had developed his thoughts on capitalism inspired by the British Industrial Revolution massively dropping the price of everything, especially clothing (coats in the 1860's were in the same price range as cars today in relative terms), while at the same time wrecking the lives of the working classes in very visible ways.
Of course, because it's Karl Marx, everyone in the West automatically assumes that he was wrong, preferably without reading what he had to say first.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Monday October 03 2016, @08:19PM
(coats in the 1860's were in the same price range as cars today in relative terms
Yes, but have you seen those coats? They were the equivalent of 1970's muscle cars in posing power!
And Karl Marx believed you had to own something to control it - I think you will find stolen cars
respond perfectly to the thief's hands and feet! Most of the other things he said are also provably
wrong.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @08:37PM
The problem is that the benefits of automation and cheap overseas labor are not trickling down to the middle class and consumers. It's log-jammed at the top. It's why our economy is stagnant.
I believe it will take experiments to fix, but experiments are not a popular political stance. The opponent will say, "Politician X is making YOU voters a guinea pig!" (Everything is an experiment in practice, but labeling it such changes the political game.)
I believe Helicopter Money theory should be tried, for one. The potential capacity of the economy has increased due to automation etc., but the money supply is not keeping up with this potential capacity. The result is sub-par inflation, sub-par GDP growth, and sub-par wages. It's like a hydraulic system where you add more functions and parts to the system, but not more water. The water pressure is low.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 03 2016, @11:50PM
The choice was clear, either get rid of the abundance that caused the low prices and inject money into the system to get it going again, or get rid of the thing that was keeping us from this high-production, low-labor world, our scarcity-based economy.
I notice that neither "choice" has been a serious concern. When automation or advance has resulted in an abundance someone has figured out to use that abundance and life moves on.
And yes, the basic idea is that automation destroys purchasing power, which reduces demand while automation also increases supply.
The basic idea doesn't happen in real life, purchasing power isn't destroyed, and you ignore that increasing supply increases purchasing power. I notice that a lot of bad economic arguments go this way. There's some drawback so we obsess on that. There's some benefits, sometimes an enormous number of them such as in this case (increase in supply is far from the only benefit of automation) and we'll completely ignore all the benefits. If you only pay attention to costs or to benefits and not the other side, then you aren't getting a complete picture and as a result, make a poor decision.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Monday October 03 2016, @11:55AM
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.
Article's entire premise is nothing short of insane ranting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @12:32PM
I'd like those TPS reports to be on my desk by the end of today. Mmmmkay?
(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.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(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.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(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?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Popeidol on Monday October 03 2016, @12:40PM
Yeah, the article is disappointing. I was hoping for a discussion about some of the inefficiencies inherent in capitalism, but instead they took a look at the state of the world and made some weird assumptions. Some of the problems he lists (corporate lawyers? stock market gaming?) are less problems with capitalism and more about capitalism-government interaction. Capitalism wants to maximize benefit in whatever situation it's in, and the structures and rules surrounding it currently benefit those behaviors. If killing puppies gave a measurable benefit to a company you can bet there'd be more corporate puppy murder, but legislating a penalty for puppy killings would sort it out fast.
Capitalism does create a lot of pointless jobs. Jobs in marketing and advertising don't contribute core value, they're the exoskeleton and mandibles of the corporate organism - you could survive without them but another corporation would probably come along and devour you.
The fact they're kind of pointless doesn't mean they're useless. Capitalism can still be more efficient than other options while containing inherently inefficient elements.
(Disclaimer: I'm not talking about pure capitalism, but neither is the author)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by number11 on Monday October 03 2016, @02:00PM
"Capitalism wants to maximize profit in whatever situation it's in, and the structures and rules surrounding it currently benefit those behaviors. "
Let's not confuse "profit" with "benefit".
(Score: 2) by migz on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:24AM
Don't confuse "profit" with "money". Classical economics is based on maximizing utility, and this is not inherently monetary in nature. Economics does not require money, and capitalism does not require it either.
This how economics can explain philanthropy.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by dingus on Monday October 03 2016, @05:01PM
It's a mistake to think that Capitalism and the State can ever remain distinct.
Anyway, I think what the author was trying to say was something like the tree scenario. Suppose you start with a flat bed of moss. Each little patch of moss gets the same amount of sunlight, and pretty much gets it for free. However, one patch of moss starts to grow higher than all the others in an attempt to get more light. This costs significantly more energy, to the point where it might even be inefficient to begin with. But it doesn't matter, just one moss has to do it, and they might have made the wrong choice. In response, all the other moss has to grow higher to make sure they don't get outcompeted. Repeat. Eventually you have a mighty forest, each tree growing ever higher to get just a little more sunlight. By now most of their energy is going towards maintaining their huge trunks and complicated leaf systems. It's a monumental waste of energy. If the moss had all just decided to stay flat(or perhaps had agreed upon an optimal pattern of growth), things would have been better for everyone.
I think that's why corporations tend to move in ways that generate the bullshit jobs that the author is talking about. Your competitors have a division for Armadillo research? Well, better get one, and make it bigger and better so you can poach their researchers. Your competitors are selling financial constructs so complex you have to hire expensive consultants to understand what they are? Better get on the bandwagon. And then those little pointless outgrowths solidify due to internal politics and then the process repeats itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @03:32PM
...this list of 50 work-making strategies, many negative: http://pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html [pdfernhout.net]
"Here is a list of possible ways to deal with joblessness. Some "cures" emerge mostly on their own; some require political action to start or to prevent. This list is intended to be complete in order to help in understanding the interaction between social changes and job creation; not all possibilities are desirable by most societies. The ones in the first half of the list (like wage subsidies, a shorter work week, or a basic income) in general would usually be considered more positive and adaptive responses than the ones in the second half of the list (like war, escapism, and luddism), although actual preferences or ordering of desirability and acceptability may vary depending on political beliefs and feelings about things like government intervention and taxation. Many of the items in the second half of the list have profit-making aspects for some individuals within the current economic system, although usually directly at the cost of others in society (like crime). Not all items on this list are compatible with each other. Not all might be considered moral or would be legal under international law or existing trade agreements. Some of these "cures" create new jobs (like public works), others make it easier to survive without a job (like frugality), others eliminate the unemployed individuals from the official statistics in various ways (like prisons), others in some way destroy abundance which has a side effect of creating jobs to build it back up (war), and some allow someone unemployed to take a job that someone else was doing but who no longer can do the job anymore for various reasons (like mandatory retirement). Some of the "cures" that help individuals survive without a job may actually increase the unemployment rate as they reduce demand for items in the market place produced by paid employment, contributing to overall increased joblessness even as the individual may be helped locally. Because these items may interact in unexpected ways, and people have many different feelings about them as different groups may benefit or be harmed in different ways, and many vested interests are involved, it is challenging for any economist, political scientist, politician or private citizen to make sense of all these issues or to pick a best way forward, even though people are trying in various ways to do that. New approaches in social science involving computer simulation and agent-based modelling may also help in understanding the way these issues interact to gain insight into them. ..."
I'm suprised no one has mentioned Bob Black's essay from 1985: "The Abolition of Work"
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html [whywork.org]
"I don't suggest that most work is salvageable in this way. But then most work isn't worth trying to save. Only a small and diminishing fraction of work serves any useful purpose independent of the defense and reproduction of the work-system and its political and legal appendages. Twenty years ago, Paul and Percival Goodman estimated that just five percent of the work then being done -- presumably the figure, if accurate, is lower now -- would satisfy our minimal needs for food, clothing and shelter. Theirs was only an educated guess but the main point is quite clear: directly or indirectly, most work serves the unproductive purposes of commerce or social control. Right off the bat we can liberate tens of millions of salesmen, soldiers, managers, cops, stockbrokers, clergymen, bankers, lawyers, teachers, landlords, security guards, ad-men and everyone who works for them. There is a snowball effect since every time you idle some bigshot you liberate his flunkies and underlings also. Thus the economy implodes. ..."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by quintessence on Monday October 03 2016, @01:08PM
One of the problems with the conventions of the market is that there is NO distinguishment between paid and unpaid labor. Most people work fairly hard at things that are necessary for them. Problem is most of it is unpaid.
Should I decide that wiping my own ass is too much of a bother, BLAM! I've created a job for someone else supposing I have enough reserves. I've just moved what was previously unpaid work into the market and now someone can get paid.
And it's completely ludicrous, but supposing my current position of kissing someone else's ass pays well enough, I can keep this situation ongoing.
The problem is that with the lack of time, I've moved a great deal of my unpaid labor to the market, if not for someone to cook my meals, then someone to mow my lawn, mend my clothes, etc.
That is the insidiousness of not having a 20 hour work week. I'm now paying for things I would do myself if I had the time.
Much of that "unproductive activity" is just work that still needs to be done, but no one has figured out a way to make it pay, and it becomes a sunk cost Even for the quote unquote bullshit jobs, much of it is actually managing information. None of those cabinet makers would even have the time to fry fish if they are answering the phone all the time and dealing with customers for their cabinets.
That's not to say we couldn't send most middle managers to Mars with little more than a hiccup to productivity.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Spook brat on Monday October 03 2016, @02:37PM
That's not to say we couldn't send most middle managers to Mars with little more than a hiccup to productivity.
You know, it's lots of fun to dump on middle managers, but in large organizations they serve a useful purpose.
Have you ever tried to coordinate a large project with more than, say, 9 people involved? Metcalfe's law [wikipedia.org] starts to kick in, and keeping everyone informed about everyone else's progress becomes the dominant thing people spend time doing. Productivity goes down, and there's a lot of redundant, wasted effort. This only gets worse the more the organization grows.
In the military a workaround for this is baked into the command structure: each commander directly communicates their intent to 4-8 subordinates, who then do the same all the way down the line until instructions reach the individual soldier. Status and progress reports are filtered back up through the same channels. This allows the general of an army or the president of a nation to effectively lead 100,000 troops or more. Go ahead and plug 4 and 100,000 into the equation n*(n-1)/2; there is no way that an organization that size could operate w/o effective tiered leadership in its structure.
If you want to argue instead that perhaps we'd be simply better off w/o armies, wars, factory farms, and mega-corporations, I could entertain that. It would be a much more entertaining discussion of economies of scale vs craftsmanship, conformity & consistency of product vs anarchy & available variety.
Living in a world where the efficiency gained by creation of large organizations is valued, however, the contributions of a middle manager shouldn't be lightly denigrated.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Monday October 03 2016, @05:25PM
you have put your finger on the nub of the problem: large korporations...
they are only necessary for destroying competition, NOT for the actual making and distributing of widgets ( the supposed goal)...
i know in just about ALL the firms i worked for that got above mom and pop size, there was always mgmt that was/is fucking useless, EXCEPT for the penultimate challenge of keeping the peasants from revolting...
otherwise, they could drop off the face of the earth and productivity would increase...
their function is to keep the patriarchal, authoritarian hierarchy intact so the people ACTUALLY AND REALLY responsible for the productivity dont get any uppity ideas...
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Monday October 03 2016, @06:51PM
you have put your finger on the nub of the problem: large korporations...
they are only necessary for destroying competition, NOT for the actual making and distributing of widgets ( the supposed goal)...
I disagree, there's another function of large corporations: making and distributing of widgets at lower cost, which is why they are able to out-compete smaller rivals. As much as we love the idea of buying local, the price difference compared to buying from WalMart/China is significant. Economy of scale is a real thing, and having the capital to buy/build a machine/factory to mass-produce your widget delivers a real, permanent advantage over small batches and handcrafting. Destruction of competition is at that point a side-effect. The artisan market is thereafter higher cost and likely to become accessible only to the affluent.
Companies become large because that's what allows them to deliver the lowest-price goods at the highest profit margin. As participants in the economy we demand it. It's not good or evil, it simply is.
i know in just about ALL the firms i worked for that got above mom and pop size, there was always mgmt that was/is fucking useless, EXCEPT for the penultimate challenge of keeping the peasants from revolting...
otherwise, they could drop off the face of the earth and productivity would increase...
Bad managers are bad, news at 11. Stay tuned for our follow-up story: bad hiring decisions are hard to undo.
From another perspective, when working in a large group if there is a subset acting at odds to the rest of the group then active sabotage is functionally equivalent to both insubordination and poor coordination. In that context, it can be really hard (especially for many creative types of personalities) to distinguish the message "can we please all just walk in the same direction?" from "BOW, SLAVES! SUBMIT TO YOUR MASTERS!!!" YMMV
their function is to keep the patriarchal, authoritarian hierarchy intact so the people ACTUALLY AND REALLY responsible for the productivity dont get any uppity ideas...
It is not a prerequisite that the authoritarian hierarchy be patriarchal. The authoritarian part is also dependent on the local culture; Scandinavian vs. American vs. Japanese companies will all differ in how they respond to input from the employees working the assembly lines.*
Hierarchy, however, is indispensable in a large organization. It doesn't matter how charismatic the leader is, no one can answer the daily email questions from every employee of even a smallish (1k or so employees) company. Some delegation is going to happen there. Hiring someone just to manage communication and organizational behavior seems wasteful, but if doing so allows for the economies of scale I mentioned earlier (and hence increases profits even after the "wasted" salary) then that middle manager is going to be hired.
*In defense of authoritarianism, it does make things easier; when it's time to change direction, it's simpler and faster to just say "here's the plan, do it... NOW" than taking a poll/listening to/weighing every suggestion from every participant. Metcalf's Law strikes again! Of course, when the order ends up steering you into disaster, [wikipedia.org] it seems like much less of a virtue...
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Tuesday October 04 2016, @01:35AM
Middle manager I see?
You are under the mistaken impression organization scales infinitely. It does not, and even the law you quote states: "Furthermore, Metcalfe’s law assumes that the value of each node n is of equal benefit. If this is not the case, for example because the one fax machines serves 50 workers, the second half of that, the third one third, and so on, then the relative value of an additional connection decreases". You have diminishing returns with too many chiefs and not enough indians, not to mention you curiously exclude management as a portion of the complexity that reduces productivity, increases redundancy and wasted effort. It would seem the larger something scales the less management you'd want, otherwise you are increasing the entropy of the organization with every new manager.
You are also completely ignoring self-organization in your evaluation, which is more prevalent and more efficient than any hierarchical structure (as an aside, you have Viet Nam vets describing having to contact a commander before returning fire. It got so bad waiting for the okay from Washington that they would actively subvert the entire command structure hence the saying "it is easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission").
I already made mention that some information management is inherent to most large undertakings. Whether that comes in the form dilute authority, technology, common practice, or middle managers is arbitrary.
Yes Gladys, your job too can be automated, which is why most managers can be shitcanned without affecting productivity at all.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday October 03 2016, @04:07PM
While technically true, because government is the only organization that has access to tax dollars, the idea that the private sector doesn't waste huge amounts of money on unproductive activity can only be really believed by somebody who hasn't worked in the private sector.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @04:38PM
Also, private firms get public contracts. I'm sure they're all the perfect picture of capitalist efficiency. No wasted money while on a gov contract, noooo sir.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:14AM
The gov't is inefficient or wasteful because it has no competition and grows sluggish. The private sector is inefficient or wasteful because it spends a large portion of its resources on trying to trick customers into paying for shit they don't really want or need.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday October 03 2016, @08:05PM
Not really, it's more cost effective to create pointless Bullshit jobs than it is to pay people to work few hours.
If we started paying people on the basis of not needing their services it would destroy the argument that the ultra wealthy deserve to have massive amounts of money on the basis of earning it.
That's effectively what paying full-time wages for part time work would likely do.
(Score: 2) by SecurityGuy on Monday October 03 2016, @09:07PM
That might be true if there were someone in the world who was a pure profit seeker.
Modern organizations have layers, like an ogre. Er, onion. So yeah, if you were running a one-man shop, you wouldn't hire someone unless they netted you a profit. If there are 11 people between you and the CEO, you are very likely evaluated on things which are not profit. You might well be incentivized to hire someone who isn't profitable because that hire makes some other number look good. You might hire someone because you're building up your own little empire and having n+1 people under you is more important to you than the business making an extra $x.
There are all sorts of inefficiencies in large organizations that allow them to act against their best interests.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Monday October 03 2016, @11:57AM
The utopia won't ever happen. Here is the thought experiment to prove it: Imagine a guy (A) has 100 dollars. Now imagine another guy (B) has 0 dollars. Now imagine (B) asks (A) for half of his money. 100% of the time (A) will ask some work to be done in return. In fact, this idea is imprinted in our minds due to thousands of years of institutionalized selective breeding that there is close to 100% chance of (B) asking (A) for money in exchange of work by himself. Not doing so can become a criminal case, actually. Hence, as the world tries to move towards more economic equality, we will be forced to do more work, not less. The creation of pointless jobs is in itself a process of reducing genie index - as per Keynes himself - and that is why social unrest is positively correlated to unemployment, it being the side-effect of inequality.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @01:23PM
You are just begging the question. Your model is predicated on the have-nots literally having nothing of value. That's not true at all and without that premise your thesis completely falls apart.
Furthermore, the amount of severe poverty has been dramatically reduced world-wide over just the last 20 years. Especially in east asia where it has gone from 60% of the population to 3%. [vox-cdn.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @04:18PM
I modded you +1 coz you cited a perfect example of "begging the question"
cheers,
(Score: 3, Touché) by cubancigar11 on Monday October 03 2016, @04:40PM
You can't use the simplification of a simple model to say the model is wrong. The world also doesn't have only two people. If you go that way anything less that universe is imperfect model.
The basic premise was to show inequality of wealth and work being an essential commodity.
Umm... which basically proves my point? Isn't that the direct conclusion of what I said? Work is bartered for money hence more equality = more useless work??
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @07:53PM
> You can't use the simplification of a simple model to say the model is wrong.
You can't use a simplified model to prove something not captured in the model.
> Umm... which basically proves my point? Isn't that the direct conclusion of what I said?
Nope. Here's the details - redistribution is enormously effective as part of the process. [vox.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday October 03 2016, @02:10PM
And your hypothesis collapses right there, because I can think of numerous times where people have just given stuff away without any expectation of anything in return. For example, right now, almost everywhere, parents are giving away half their food to kids under age 6 or so without any expectation of labor in return. Every single charitable organization, religious group, and panhandler operates on the principle that people are willing to give up valuable stuff without getting anything of equal or greater value in return.
You seem to be operating under a couple of axioms that are known to be false:
1. People are rational: All available psychological research has demonstrated, repeatedly, that people are not rational most of the time. To the degree that people use logic, they use it mostly to convince other people of ideas they've arrived at using other means. That's one of the many reasons scientists have to constantly check each others' work in order to get good results.
2. People are basically selfish: There is all sorts of research out there that makes it clear that behaving altruistically triggers the reward chemicals in most people's brains, and lots and lots of instances of people acting in the interests of others with no immediate expectation of economic reward. This trend is so dominant that those who are unable to behave altruistically are usually diagnosed with mental illnesses such as sociopathy or autism.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday October 03 2016, @04:35PM
No I understand that people give away stuff all the time. I have done it myself. I am saying that
a) NOT ALL people give away stuff
b) ONE person who doesn't give stuff is enough to show utopia doesn't exist.
For as long as (a) is true, (b) cannot be held together.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @06:39PM
because I can think of numerous times where people have just given stuff away without any expectation of anything in return
You assume what they are getting is monetary in value back. Sometimes they are buying themselves something. Sometimes they want to get rid of something but do not want to just 'trash it'. Sometimes it is for glory. Sometimes it is for the felling of power it gives them.
There are other exchanges of value other than money. Money is a holder of value. But it is not the only one out there.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 03 2016, @02:29PM
Marx labor theory of value at its finest.
People spend money on all kinds of things not just raw labor.
Money grubbing dude could have rented or sold property or product, organized some financial time value of money scheme (presumably there exists a labor market for A to hire B in just as much as B to hire A in if there was a scheme to raise capital first). The whole arena of Public Social signalling aka charity and religion. Purchase of political power/votes. Buy/Sell imaginary property (aka intellectual property)
A lot of Marx labor theory of value works pretty well when making widgets and gets confusing when talking about haircuts and other service industries. Labor theory of value makes sense when a farmer harvests 50 bushels of WTF annually. Its very fuzzy math indeed when an actuary sets up and runs a marginally profitable car insurance company. "Sign me the Happy Birthday song and please pay ASCAP so you do it legally"
Marxian thinking made a lot of sense when 99% of the economy was dudes sitting on an assembly line tightening the same bolt for 40 years, but most money isn't there anymore in the economy. Its elsewhere. And needs a model that fits elsewhere, not 1850s urban very early industrial era assembly lines in Germany.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dingus on Monday October 03 2016, @04:48PM
Most Communists/socialists don't believe in utopia either. We do, however, think that it is possible to have a society where the power of assholes to fuck with other people is diminished significantly.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday October 04 2016, @03:57AM
And that is why I am not a communist. Not only the definition of asshole is defined by those in power, someone's asshole is someone else's natural instinct.
(Score: 2) by dingus on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:26AM
>Not only the definition of asshole is defined by those in power
It is? I've always seen it the opposite way: those in power are almost always assholes.
>someone's asshole is someone else's natural instinct.
Even if you think assholery is natural instinct(I disagree), that doesn't justify tolerating and even helping it, as we do now.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:55AM
That's the difference between you and the powerful - they can send you to jail and deny you rights being an asshole, you can call everyone an asshole and nobody will bother.
"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread." - Anatole France
And let me guess, you are not an asshole in your eyes... right? The true issue here is the lack of support for the powerless, not an abundance of support for assholery.
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Monday October 03 2016, @08:27PM
First off, how did A get the $100? Why does b not have any dollars? The simple story has not context right from the start. We could have C, with $200 decide to give B $50, just because. The players have no starting point. Hell, B could just kill A for the $100 which I would agree, is not utopia, but then were it utopia, who ever gave A $100 would have also given B the same.
You also create a simplistic creation in that A is a greed ass so you again start off no in Utopia.
My reasoning of why we create pointless jobs is two fold based in greed and fossilized work ethics. Your own story proves it out.
Greed held by a few may be nice for them, but they need people to do things for them so the create jobs, mainly to support the flow of liquidity into their pockets and to not work for it. Pointless jobs are also created because people in power cannot accept the rational that not everyone wants or needs to work to create liquidity and capital. Artists work first for passion, maybe acknowledgement but certainly not profit.
Were we to institute a Government paycheck for all, I bet we'd see a rise in small business start ups, expansion of the arts, and a less violent society like the one you proposed.
Where did A get is $100?
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 1) by Z-A,z-a,01234 on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:57AM
There were societies where if one guy had 100 something (let's call them dollars) and some other guy had 0 and asked the first for half he would also get it. If the roles were reversed he would have to do the same. That is called survival in small societies and the dollars would be some large animal that the first guy couldn't eat it by himself anyway. Other examples in modern times include survival in Russia after the economic collapse in the 90s and the help refugees get in Greece of all places (there are a LOT of volunteers).
As we progress towards full automation, at some point something will have to give: it's either society (due to large number of really poor, unemployed people) or the economic system (welcome utopia). I chose number 2 - it looks way better than #1.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Tuesday October 04 2016, @02:10PM
Uhm, yes, you'll generally get money in exchange for something, which is kind of the point of money, to facilitate exchange. But the question where you're working on assumption rather than reason is how much do you get in exchange for some amount of money.
Expanding on your example (and I'll adopt the inequal starting distribution, although the question how that arose is still warranted): A has $100, B and C have $0, each.
Scenario 1: A gives $50 to B to clean half his house, and $50 to C to clean the other half. Now A has nothing, B and C have $50 dollars, each, and clearly, next time it's A's turn to go to work. -> This is pretty much the Utopia.
Scenario 2: A gives $40 to B to clean his entire house, and $20 to C, if C can convince B to pay A $30 for some totally worthless insurance(*). Now A has $70, B has $10 and C has $20. -> This is what the article says is happening.
Among the differences between Scenario 1 and Scenario 2:
- B does all the "real" work. Presumably because sharing the work with C would not have left enough for B to live on. Not when B "must have" that useless insurance for $30, at least.
- The societal value of C's job is negative (adding pure annoyance). It does pay off for A, though.
- A gets to keep most money, while doing none of the work.
And this is where we return to the actual point of the article, as I understand it: If "real" work was valued more, everybody would have to work less, and bullshit jobs would disappear. However, as we have a) too many people who need money but don't have any, and b) they are in too bad of a negotation position to ask for a pay that will allow to make a living on 3 to 4 hours a working day, the useful work is never shared equally, and bullshit jobs can flourish.
(*) In reality, C's pay would be better, but we'd have at least one further person whose job it is to sell crap to B and C for the benefit of A.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday October 05 2016, @05:28AM
You are arguing on idealism. In Scenario 1, what will happen is that C will think that B is going to give his money to A anyway so why should I. After that transaction, A will have $50, B will have $0 and C will have $50. But now C will say that A should give money, and so on... C is a hoarder who is waiting for an opportunity of financial imbalance to profit from. In no time you will find that C is having $99 and A and B are bartering with the $1 left among themselves. Believe me, that's reality. The solution is to have a fourth entity of power, D, to enforce economical laws - that's socialism and it doesn't work for myriad of problems discussed in much detail in all the books of economics.
The whole thing becomes way simpler without involving government in Scenario 2. And that is why it is happening.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @12:29PM
Point 1:
Given the choice between less hours and more toys and pleasures, we've collectively chosen the latter.
Not a choice. For many jobs it is: go to your boss and ask to work only 20h a week... The only option he will give you is to search for another job.
Point 2:
24h economy... Why has that never happened? Do most bosses even realise that offices and other business infrastructure and such aren't used 16 hours a day (excluding weekends)? Talking about inefficiencies.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Monday October 03 2016, @12:33PM
go to your boss and ask to work only 20h a week... The only option he will give you is to search for another job.
Because government requires many expenses per person rather than per hour. One example of many: Obamacare.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @12:37PM
Your healthcare needs don't go down just because you work less hours. You could argue that healthcare shouldn't be tired to employment at all, but that's a choice that benefits employers way more than citizens because it keeps people indentured.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @01:10PM
One could argue that healthcare is the reason (it's too expensive to provide insurance for twice as many employees if they're all working only 20 hours each) but that doesn't explain why 40-hour weeks are still normal even in countries with socialized health care that isn't tied to the employer.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday October 03 2016, @04:21PM
One could argue that healthcare is the reason (it's too expensive to provide insurance for twice as many employees if they're all working only 20 hours each) but that doesn't explain why 40-hour weeks are still normal even in countries with socialized health care that isn't tied to the employer.
You hint at the answer in your own question: insurance vs health care. The two are not the same. Don't mix them up.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @06:57PM
Yup. (You got there before I did.)
Taiwan is a particularly good example of a place that has a handle on this.
They have a single-payer system and their costs are 6 percent of GDP (2010 numbers; they may have improved since then).
USA's costs (a mostly privatized system) are 17 percent of GDP (2015 number).
Obamacare (a baby step in the right direction IMO) cut the amount of overhead that a health insurance company could skim off to 20 percent.
(Some companies had been grabbing 35 percent.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 03 2016, @01:24PM
So, "we" didn't choose - management did.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday October 03 2016, @03:54PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @05:16PM
These days, people are still asking to work a 20h week because they can't get anywhere near that many hours.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Monday October 03 2016, @12:34PM
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").
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 03 2016, @02:34PM
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?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @12:40PM
Yes all of you idiots saying "But capitalism is the reverse of making bullshit jobs. You want less employees!!"
From the article:
The article is about administrative creep more than anything.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 03 2016, @01:26PM
The pointless jobs aren't pointless to the people who are profiting from them; not so much the employees, but follow the money trail, you'll find decision makers getting richer because they created these pointless jobs. And, no, this isn't capitalism at work, it's various incentive structures, especially including regulatory compliance.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @06:26PM
it is capitalism at work, those regulations are rent-seeking capitalism at it's height
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Monday October 03 2016, @01:31PM
The article is about administrative creep more than anything.
And that, my friend, is caused by excessive government regulation, where we have unelected bureaucrats who spend 40 hours per week writing rules for everyone else. They have to keep creating those rules, even if they are causing a worse problem than anything they are purported to solve.
Now, you can argue that some of those regulations are needed, but this is not the 1930's where canning factories are including rat parts in the food. Without considering the source, at least consider this analysis of the size and burden of all those regulations [cei.org]. You need a lot of paper pushers to deal with that.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 4, Insightful) by theluggage on Monday October 03 2016, @03:26PM
And that, my friend, is caused by excessive government regulation, where we have unelected bureaucrats who spend 40 hours per week writing rules for everyone else.
Yet, surprisingly, big, powerful industry lobby groups - who are generally very good at brib^H^H^H^H dissuading governments from giving us nice things that might erode their bottom line - don't use their power and influence to put a stop to this.
Could it be because all of those regulations put, proportionately, a far higher burden on small businesses than on large corporations who can afford a whole building full of box-tickers, and help prevent competition from small, agile upstarts? Not to mention all the job-creation advantages in the adminisphere.
Don't fall for the simplistic "government bad, business good" dogma: government and business are joined at the hip. If big government didn't exist, big business would have to invent it.
(Score: 1) by Moof123 on Monday October 03 2016, @02:40PM
Old saying: "I know I am wasting half of my marketing money, I just don't know which half."
A lot of work is reactionary to previous calamity. You add audits and procedures every time a problem comes up, no matter if the "fix" was a fluke or if the "fix" costs more than the problem ever did. Soon corporate bureaucracy bloats and becomes and entity upon itself. Most corporations are internally structured closer to that of a communist government than anything else. Replace "comrad" with "share holder" and most mission statements become indistinguishable from soviet era literature.
I know I spend tons of time writing documentation that will never be read again after it is put into the system. But I still am required to do it, and to make it flow, look pretty, etc. Bullshit job for sure.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Monday October 03 2016, @12:46PM
The problem, perhaps, is that economics is a "made up" job - and by the terms of this articles, pointless.
Why do I say this? The mathematics used to describe the movement of particles in our simulations are the *bare minimum* to understand the properties of the system. Generally, the predictive power of the model is predicated on the resolution of the input parameters.
So in essence, economics is the "soft" job created when the "hard" job is the mathematics we use to solve *real* problems - handwaving is too good for it.
And in this whole article the author did not have the brains to cite Douglas Adams.
Do you prefer a world without telephone sanitisers or the risk of dying of a virulent disease caught from a telephone?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @01:12PM
> And in this whole article the author did not have the brains to cite Douglas Adams.
Lolwut? You complain about the fact the economics is a branch of psychology and not a so-called "hard science" and one of your major criticisms is that this author did not cite Dilbert. Maybe we need a better understanding of the psychology that explains you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @01:29PM
There has even be an economy professor [wikipedia.org] who said that economy has more to do with astrology than astronomy,
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @02:16PM
Wrong Adams...
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rivenaleem on Monday October 03 2016, @01:36PM
I was going to mod you up, but nobody was paying me to do this pointless task, so I did not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @06:34PM
Economics has the idea of 'happiness' and 'utility'. These are real variables in the economic systems.
These are items that fill into the 'math' of these guys. If you could actually measure emotion then yeah their systems *might* work. You can not measure that sort of thing. Hell, today I woke up and feel ok. Last week I was depressed. Yet my average is something else. Something could happen and suddenly I am angry and not happy. You can not measure this accurately at any time. Why? Because the only way to filter it out is through my brain. My brain is not reliable and neither is yours. Your brain tells you that you are reliable. But in practice you and I do funny things that make no sense and have no real use. Yet economics tries to measure it and graph it as a simple 2d point system when it is probably a 20 dimensional fluctuating wave.
There are a few things that economics tends to get right. But they are more guidelines than actual truths. For example the broken window fallacy. The idea that destroying something always destroys value. But you can demonstrate that to be not true. I knock down an old shack and build a million dollar mansion in its place I probably have created value. I destroyed the value of a worthless thing and put in its place something of value. However it is not always true when you say destroying things creates value to others (the actual broken window parable). But only because it took value from somewhere else. There is no real way to measure that. I could build that million dollar mansion but it is in the middle of a swamp and no one wants it. I then destroyed value. But it is in the middle of a city I created value.
Also for example people say monopolies are bad. Yet it is provable that one set of roads (a government monopoly) is a good thing. Yet on the other hand one company making shoes in the world can be proven to be a bad thing. That is the dichotomy of economics.
Economics is a poor 'science'. Anyone who comes at you saying economics proves capitalism or socialism is selling you a belief system. Economics is a good way to judge what a system might do but not to prove one will work. Even then it will probably get it wrong as economics does not know what to measure to get it right in the first place.
Economics is the intersection of pop psychology, philosophy, 1st year algebra, and money.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Monday October 03 2016, @01:37PM
In capitalism, this is exactly what is not supposed to happen.
Yes it is. Capitalism needs consumers and consumers need money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @07:12PM
If the corporations were going for maximum *efficiency*, they would only keep their operations open for ~15 hours per week.
(Worker productivity has tripled since 1968.)
If the Capitalists wanted the maximum number of customers, they would also have maintained the weekly buying power of their own employees at a constant level (adding workers as needed to meet any increase in demand for their products|services).
Henry Ford figured this out over a century ago.
With what passes for Capitalism these days, however, compensation of the C-level (as well as that of the board of directors) does not reflect productivity of the Rank and File, so the incentives are all whacko.
...and, of course, a speculation market whose value increases--even while corporate productivity doesn't--gives a perverse incentive to the Capitalist class to continue what they are doing.
In this (meta)thread, VLM hit the -shareholders- thing. #409444 [soylentnews.org]
...and an AC may have said it better than I did. #409459 [soylentnews.org]
Lots of Soylentils who got here before I did already said most of what I am thinking.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Touché) by driven on Monday October 03 2016, @02:02PM
Professor of Anthropology opines on "bullshit jobs". How ironic.
If you want to stay in the dark ages then almost all jobs could be considered bullshit jobs. Just farm your food, trap your meat, raise children. Nothing else is really "needed".
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday October 03 2016, @02:30PM
This isn't a great article. It relies on personal anecdotes and vague analysis. But its underlying premise is undeniably true: we as a society do more work than we need to do to keep society running, and the people actually engaged in the important work are the least respected.
What I find shocking is that so many people (here at least) find this premise so jarring to their personal perspective as to be obviously wrong.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Monday October 03 2016, @02:40PM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Monday October 03 2016, @02:48PM
And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide ... security support
They're not talking about typing firewall rules into a cisco router here.
My experience is all organizations eventually turn inward to fight themselves. I've been in quite a few battles like that where the only purpose of automation and reporting or other technical means is to fight other departments, not to benefit the customer or even the stock holders.
Eventually all middle managers turn "Genghis Khan" on each other. Its like a law of nature. And bad pushing out good means all you need is one bad apple to eventually destroy a company.
Numbers are selected to be gamed by the right people, and huge efforts are made to game those numbers by everyone, right, wrong, and indifferent. You can identify dying companies two ways.. one is growth of meeting frequency to speed the dilution of responsibility such that nobody is in charge of anything its all meetings and teams, the other is the production of truly awesome numbers that unfortunately have nothing to do with the customer or shareholders while no numbers having anything to do with shareholders or customers are produced.
In the end all that's produced is a battlefield of wasted lives and wasted effort. At least in corporate world there's usually no bloodshed, at least assuming the internal battles don't F up something safety critical in the real world which does sometimes happen.
As a practical matter in the financial services you'll have one department who's job it is to, well, cheat, more or less, and another department whos job it is to stop them. That way someone can testify honestly that the oversight committee met 104 times last year and generated 52 content free reports and couldn't possibly have worked any harder, etc etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @02:50PM
Or were we hoodwinked into thinking we did by the likes of Bernays and other advertisement (He called it Public Relations) people?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @03:19PM
...in my mythical someday-to-be-created tech company.
Here's how it goes:
1. Good managers know what needs to be done to meet corporate goals.
2. You show up on Monday and your manager has a list things that need to be done. The list contains not only the tasks but verifiable, measurable things that you can mark as "done" or "not done."
3. You can go home for the week when those tasks are completed.
I'll bet everyone is done by noon Wednesday.
Same or better work output, everyone gets 3-5+ day weekends.
Why don't we do this? Because of presenteeism.
/Posting this from work
//Because I can
///at least I'm here, boss!
(Score: 2) by dingus on Monday October 03 2016, @05:04PM
Problem is, if it goes like any other startup, the top managers will all be petty assholes and the middle managers will be their lackeys.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by MorePower on Monday October 03 2016, @05:44PM
Real companies don't follow this pattern because if management sees people finishing by Wednesday that just proves the company should either sell twice as much stuff (have twice as many clients, manufacture twice as many widgets, whatever), or that they only need half as many employees.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @06:49PM
Real companies don't follow this pattern because if management sees people finishing by Wednesday that just proves the company should either sell twice as much stuff (have twice as many clients, manufacture twice as many widgets, whatever), or that they only need half as many employees.
I know. That's the problem. If managers realized that people usually work at about 15%* efficiency yet their employees are still dutifully in their cubes 8-5 their heads would assplode.
--------
* - a made-up number but possibly justifiable.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by donkeyhotay on Monday October 03 2016, @03:40PM
I think this feeling of "my job is bullshit" might be what is behind the maker movement (or whatever you want to call it). People have a desire to actually DO something; to actually MAKE something; to actually ACCOMPLISH something. A couple of years ago, I started doing some woodworking in the garage and discovered that I really, really liked the process. I've also developed an interest in fermented foods; making bread, beer, yogurt, cultured butter, etc. This summer, a friend asked me to make a bench for her front porch, and I said, "I won't make you one, but I will show YOU how to make a bench." She was thrilled to learn. She had never operated a power tool in her life, but using my tools, she had a great time building a porch bench. Now she has the confidence to remodel her kitchen.
I think there is a hunger out there for people to make things, to be creative, to feel like what they are doing has some purpose.
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Monday October 03 2016, @04:10PM
and working less makes us even more lonely.
take this: 8 hour job + 1-1.5 hour travel to said job + 0.5-1 hour lunch + overtime.
10 then...
8+ hours sleep = 18+ then.
with our beloved families we spend the least time. we are probably not even "made" to be with them: we would just feel oppressed and watched over.
sexrobots will change this though.
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @04:37PM
That's because "stuff" is forced on us with ads galore. We've been collectively brainwashed.
Who said that? Capitalism thrives on the Keep-up-with-Joneses mentality, and those with money spend on mass ads and political bribes to keep it going.
The 1% want you to work & consume your ass off, and this means competing with robots and commie slaves so that their profits continue to grow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @07:33PM
Speak for yourself.
You sound very weak-willed.
...with ads galore
Online, I use an AdBlocker; I don't even see that junk.
I turned off TeeVee for good in 2009.
On the radio, I mostly listen to college stations;
when listening to for-profit radio and ads|promotions come on, I switch the station.
In meatspace, I simply ignore the ads.
Again, you sound very weak-willed.
Capitalism thrives on the Keep-up-with-Joneses mentality
That NOT Capitalism. That's Consumerism.
Capitalism is a method of production where the means of production is owned by a separate ownership class who do no labor.
...as opposed to Socialism, where the owners and the workers are the same people.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @08:27PM
I'm talking people in general, not specific individuals.
One naturally leads to the other because owners don't make profits if people don't work hard enough or buy hard enough, and thus they spend some of their profits to make that happen more in order to make more profits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @09:50PM
people in general
You need to expand your circle of acquaintances.
One naturally leads to the other
You're still using the wrong word.
You assume that a company with a Socialist work environment won't promote their goods.
The word you seek is entrepreneurism.
...and you clearly underestimate how diligent people are when working solely for themselves and not to make The Man rich.
Investigate the Mondragon cooperative (successfully competing with Capitalist operations since 1956).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by sce7mjm on Monday October 03 2016, @05:31PM
I'm just a by stander in all this but I have done some thought experiments. When talking to actual Free-market Capatilist Economists or people in the finace industry they are often surprised by the logical conclusions because it conflicts with the trickle down effect that in recent years has failed to materialize.
The idea that capitalism can benefit all equally by making things so cheap they can be bought by all, is flawed because of Supply and Demand.
It's the same reason that even if Fusion becomes a realistic possibility energy prices will not fall to nothing. The cheaper something gets the more people can buy. The more people can buy the more expensive something gets.
In the extreme case for a short period something could become technically "free". Those who move fast enough can own it all. By restricting the market the price will subsequently rise. It's actually the same process of arbitrage that currencies react to.
Anyway I believe Economics is an art and not a science.
I've got more reading to do...
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Monday October 03 2016, @06:33PM
Read the whole thing [economist.com], mighty interesting and humorous.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday October 03 2016, @06:55PM
What "massive increase in consumerism" is this nut job talking about? My "toys and pleasures" are taxes, fees, mandatory health insurance (or penalties), transportation costs (including insurance, taxes, and fees), housing (including taxes, fees, utilities, and so on), and food (including tax). I don't have any money left over for "toys and pleasures" and sure wouldn't work for them even if I did. This moron needs to get his head out of his ass and see what life is like for real people.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @08:04PM
> What "massive increase in consumerism" is this nut job talking about?
Do you have air-conditioning? In 1973 only 52% of homes had A/C, in 2009 it was 89%. [freeby50.com]
Do you have a flat-screen tv? A smart phone? A computer with internet access? A microwave oven? Do you ever dine out? Buy imported foods at the grocery? Consumerism is so ingrained that you don't even recognize it, like a fish who can't even conceive that water is not a given.
The only one with his head up his ass is you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @09:56PM
Over a 40-year-plus span, a significant portion of USAian workers have migrated from The Rust Belt to The Sun Belt.
In The Sun Belt, it gets hot; in much of The Sun Belt it also gets humid.
Where I grew up, many a Summer day had a heat index of 110 or higher. [wikipedia.org]
a flat-screen tv?
Nope. Gave up on TeeVee years ago.
A smart phone?
Not yet. I may pick up a used one[1] for pennies to use as a mobile MP3 player.
An old radio still keeps me amused when I'm on the go; radio programming here doesn't completely suck yet.
My communications needs are met without a smartphone.
A computer
For years now, you could pick up one of those gratis, where someone's Windoze install has become so borked that he simply puts his box out on the curb.[1]
A $0 Linux install brings it right back to usefulness.
[1] Hmmm. Those parts might support your point.
internet access?
There are people in 2016 who can get along without the 'Net??
Some countries in northern Europe have as a policy that not just 'Net access but FAST 'Net access is a fundamental human right.
A microwave oven?
Yeah. That's a convenience.
dine out?
"Dine"? Not these days.
imported foods?
We all get lots of stuff--especially out-of-season stuff--from Latin America.
Exotic stuff? From Europe? No.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by srobert on Monday October 03 2016, @08:04PM
"Yet virtually no one talks about it."
Hello, my name is Virtually No One. I've been talking about this since the 1980's.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday October 03 2016, @10:11PM
With the telephone, it became a matter of calling. But a lot of time was wasting calling people who weren't home.
Now, automation helps in all sorts of ways. For example, the system can automatically call say ten numbers from a list of people known to buy into telemarketing schemes and direct people who answer immediately to telemarketers. Of the rest, the system can automatically leave messages on any answering machines it comes across. The telemarketer is always talking to a potential customer/mark and that makes them very productive from the point of view of the employer which is the viewpoint that matters here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:18AM
Matters for what? Most of us still call them "bullshit jobs" regardless.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 04 2016, @11:10AM
Matters for what?
The one paying for the job gets to decide whether the job is bullshit or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @02:23PM
My job is to paint the bridge. I start at one end this summer. I paint until I reach the other end next summer. The new paints that we use last for several years. For the past few years the bridge didn't really need painting. But my boss either doesn't know that, or he pretends not to know. So I just keep painting and pick up my paycheck on Fridays. Will the world be a better place if I don't get paid? My survival depends on doing what doesn't need to be done. My job is to paint the bridge.