Bullshit Jobs: A Book Review
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- Опубликовано: 19 окт 2024
- I review Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, a thought-provoking book about jobs that add no value to the economy.
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Having worked in many major institutions (military, academia, government, and medicine), I know for a fact you could easily send home 75% of the people and America would be just fine. Society just can't quite swallow that UBI pill yet. But soon.
Why should those 25% slave away for the 75? It also seems like inflation would quickly cancel out UBI.
@@Vitlaus On average each person needs to work 10 hours per week to produce everything we need in society. We could simply hire everybody to work 10 hr/week, or we could hire every fourth person to work full time. We choose the latter because of a "you-need-to-work-to-eat" mental constraint. Thus we have too many damn people in the workplace doing nothing.
@@agrxdrowflow958 Adding-
There are numerous jobs where it is not economically viable for the private sector to take on (basic research, creation of public parks, checking in on the elderly, etc.).
I think you could justify work programs for things that should be done but have limited profit motive, but the sorting and oversight would be problematic.
@@agrxdrowflow958 You didn't answer the question. Why would the competent people work? Right now when we have people pretending to work at least the competent people don't feel too put upon. But tell all the incompetent people they can go home and those competent people are going to get mad, fast, and quit. It would be like Atlas Shrugged.
@@MoralGovernmentyou're missing the point. If the 25% quit just replace them with someone out of the 75%. The jobs are a piece of piss anyway.
Thank you for covering this book. It is very important to me as someone who basically lost their mind after being trapped in one myself.
The best job I could get for years was sending spam emails.
Waking up every day and knowing I was the reason spam filters exist was a little demoralizing to say the least.
I also wonder about "distributed BS jobs". If my job is 90% legit and 10% BS (as most jobs are a mix of work and BS), then, cumulatively, the BS drag on the economy/society is huge.
Yeah, I have one of those jobs, although it's probably more like 70/30. Currently considering only signing my next contract if they let me go part time.
"The distributed BS drag on the economy" is now my new favorite phrase, I'm sorry LOL. And yes, minor inefficiencies widely accumulated and compounded overtime can be huge deficits, absolutely.
That’s load-bearing BS. Without BS jobs, infinite government debt, and needless consumption, our world would look much different.
Great comment, yes, there's friction in every system. Ours is undergoing a lot right now, that's why there are so many relatively BS jobs.
Thank you for covering this book. It’s been on my list for ages mostly because I experienced so many people having these rent seeking roles in my own life.
I totally agree some of them should still exist and while AI will not replace all of them perfectly I think intelligent and efficient organizations will do well to reduce them.
An additional reason as to why they exist at all that I observed in my time working for a powerful corporation was nepotism/wealth continuation/maintenance.
By that I mean that wealthy members of society often will have connections to powerful centers of commerce and their children often fill roles that are easy/bullshit while still reaping benefits, a higher than average wage, and better working conditions than the average person.
I loved many of these folks but many by their own admission were there for the perks/to keep busy or supplement their income and not by necessity.
To me, that isn’t really economically ideal but is sort of predictable given our nature to look after our own and to connect people we love to resources and opportunities.
The huge downside to that is that because it’s frowned upon generally to be non-useful in a work setting it becomes burdensome when people with bullshit jobs have to vigorously defend that they are worthy as to not lose access.
Side note, your hair looks amazing
I would argue that the example you gave of rent seeking: having a toll for fishing in a river, actually does add something to the economy. That owner of the river is protecting their stock of fish and making sure that it's not over-fished. They have a financial incentive to protect the long-term value of their property. If there was no toll it's more likely to be over-fished and everyone would be worse off.
I admire your explanations of useful ideas that we can apply to systems thinking and what I'd call sociotechnical relationships. You're contributing a great deal
I like how you do not just take the types of bs jobs as given, but also point out how some job type is not necessarily a BS job.
The point near the end about a job that goes unrecognized being soul sucking is basically the premise of the book Deaths of Despair by Anne Case and Angus Deaton.
I don’t know if you’ve done a book review on that book, but it would be a great one to dig into!
Another thing I think is relevant to the discussion is when a job is a bullshit job for reasons of competition.
Imagine that artificial intelligence engineers are suddenly sought after. Company A needs 50 engineers. However, they hire 100 engineers to deny Company B getting enough qualified staff. Company A might be perfectly happy letting the engineers do nothing because they're not contributing to the competition, Company B.
Just discovered this channel and going down the rabbit hole. Loving your perspective!
I really liked "The Utopia of Rules"
So well explained. Thank you so much. I wish you were my Economics professor!
Thanks so much for making this video! It inspired me to make my own video covering the trauma of having a BS job :)
one of my favorite books too, was actually funny and entertaining as well as informative and got my brain ticking too how do we shift back to incentivizing people who create and contribute to society more... and disincentivize all the financiers, administrators and bureaucrats
Unfortunately, I think BS jobs are an inherent aspect of added complexity and, relatedly, graft.
As a corollary to the invisible hand, systems tend to take on a life of their own ("the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy"), almost like junk DNA where there was a purpose originally (and you may not have that expertise when you need it should that position be eliminated), but it stretches so far back that it is just ingrained.
Not to mention the Peter Principle where there are a TON of incompetent people in roles that require additional hires to support them. I often think it would be more economically advantageous to pay them _not_ to work.
I had a teacher at University that was reading EVERYTHING ON THE BOARD without answer to student question's. I heard that an other teacher was answering student with whatever was written on the PowerPoint, the same PowerPoint they used for years.
An other teacher simply has recorded her course. She was there at least to answer questions.
One of the points that Graeber makes in that book is that there are an awful lot of absolutely bullshit jobs, but then you also have a lot of people performing actually useful jobs in support of people doing bullshit jobs (cleaners, maintenance workers of various kinds, food service etc etc) whose jobs wouldn't exist if not for the need to support the people doing the bullshit jobs. I don't remember the total figure that he estimates, but basically he suggests that a significant majority of jobs performed in a modern, industrial economy fit into one or the other category, which rings true! I think Ashley is very generous in her effort to justify some of these bullshit jobs in this video. For instance, I am pretty sure that most people don't feel any validation at all when their efforts are recognized by a middle manager. What they do feel is some degree of resentment that some gormless shmuck is getting paid so much more than them to do such a bullshit job...
"The Managerial Revolution" has good insights on this.
This was a great video and simple to understand. I would add in regards to value that without wisdom and prudence in our actions then it’s a liability even for a corporation. There’s vicarious liability where the employer can be financially responsible for the wrongdoing of the employee. Without wisdom, there’s no mental capacity to make sound decisions in the first place.
i didn't read this book. but you kinda skipped over the whole planned obsolescence issue that probably would've been discussed under duct tapers. the problems the actual BS job duct tapers would be solving are ones that were specifically created so the duct taper jobs would exist. a huge percentage of maintenance jobs are of this type, especially obvious in the auto industry/car maintenance
ISeems to not look at utility. A flunky could create a hierarchy or even increase overall morale. A goon could be networking. Duct tapers, surely for efficiency. And what about the happiness of the bullshit worker?
Great video. I like how you tunnel into each one to see of there is a glimer of hope. That's important because the blanket statements may be too much. But you could really have ripped on corporate lawyers more.🤣
I think I might have to look into this book
Dilbert cartoon strips have been capturing and conveying these sentiments for years.
DG is just the stating the obvious that most employed workers already know and have known for decades.
In my opinion, the "duct taper" job is one that could be eliminated if a problem was fixed "up stream". For example, a job where someone has to group and sort data, that comes out of a relational database for a manager. It is a relatively simple matter have the data come out of the database sorted and grouped, given there is an objective sorting and grouping criteria. So, this job usually exists because the manager is ignorant about the capabilities of the tools at their disposal.
How would you say software as a product or service fits into the paradigm given startup costs, what point does it become rent seeking. Is it decided by consensus or socbiometric and ecological factors?
i love Graebers work, but he is a maniac sometimes, wherever he is now. I liked your re-imagining of the Task Master middle manager! Yes absolutely people need to be Seen. Its a particular ability that to be able to see and validate people. Nice.
I believe that "protection" is being consistently undervalued in this assessment.
Glad you made this review and put it in laymen terms. What a waste considering we're destroying our civilization as we speak with rampant unfettered capitalism.
I just call this "performative work" and I've had to do it even in consequential employment. Its things like cleaning when there's no mess just to look busy.
Good point. Even when things look clean, it's still valuable to clean them regularly.
Thanks for the review from a rent perspective … i love your thinking and David Graeber is brilliant and missed …
Food for thought: How many real jobs such as plumber, welder, and carpenter are being used to prop up a fake job? Sure, that janitor might feel like they are doing a hard but needed job in society. And yet the money manipulators (ie rich men's handyman for finding tax loopholes) on the top floor of that NYC high rise are sucking up all this labor that could be better served at a school or a hospital.
Very happy to find this channel. Interesting PoV
Great points!
Can a country make rent seeking illegal on a spectrum of fines to jail time depending on how much it disrupts productive economic activity?
It seems like rent seeking is easy to identify where it exists, and could be sought out in a low cost way with a whistleblower system where whistleblowers are rewarded with a small portion of the fine..
Probably not. At best, minimise the number of them through formalised aristocracy.
Check out the article "Explaining Bullshit Jobs with Monetary Theory" by Austin G Mackell
"It is the language of social science, and the research following from it, that makes a difference between the common-sense ideologies of everyday life and the objectivity of sociology that allows the scientific study of the water in which people, like goldfish, swim, and on which they live. It is social science that analyses the H²O in which they swim, which, of course, fish don't do."
Human Labour Page 13
Colin and Clive Burgess 2014 2024
Mainly state box tickers.
Who cares about the quality of the job? All that matters is you can buy food and you are not sleeping on a park bench.
If a manager hires a flunky instead of pocketing the money, there is a reason. Retinue elevates status. And status is important when you manage people. People learn faster, work better, and pay attention to orders, when addressed by a person with high status. It is not ego pleasing exercise. It is a technology.
David Graeber had charming intellect. Reading his books is pleasure. But you must not forget that he was skilful sophist. In other words, professional bullshitter.
The Japanese thought heavily about duct-tape jobs. The word Muda means futility or uselessness or wastefulness; doesn't add value. There's two types of muda: apparently necessary, and unnecessary. Duct-tape jobs fit into the first category, and as a constantly improving organization, your job is to find ways to make these unnecessary, so you can get rid of them. The key phrase here is "apparently necessary".
David Graeber RIP - he went too fucking soon - also there is another interesting book on the topic titled Bonjour paresse, Hello Laziness by Corinne Maier
Michael Scott is a Taskmaster!
In my experience Task Masters exist to give Duct Tapers and Flunkies the false hope of advancement.
And here I thought it was because the government has BS bureaucrats generating paperwork that businesses have to fill out which requires hiring BS employees to generate more paperwork that gets sent back to the government who uses that to generate more useless paperwork. It's a way to keep the jobless numbers down to a level that looks good but it wastes time and resources. It's not the only type of BS that employees have to deal with even if they have useful jobs but having to fill out forms or take government mandated training that is absolutely useless does not make for good employee morale. BS jobs make everybody less productive.
Provide subtitles
Landlords and investment bankers
Whoa… you’re talkin’ government work! I have seen in government when politicians are running for an office and they need assistance from other people they carrot people on a stick with the idea that they will get them a “job” (I never took a government job - I own my own company). However, many times these jobs are created for the sole purpose to satisfy an obligation. No doubt corporate middle and upper management are offering jobs to friends… and yes, these jobs are often higher pay than a lot of other jobs. In the end, we are paying for these useless jobs with higher taxes or higher costs of goods and services. It’s a type of fat we really can’t afford. Capitalism creates competition and efficiencies that would eliminate that type of nonsense. So we are clearly not practicing capitalism much anymore.
........the very first thing I thought of was this city worker whom drove around on hot days, to remind citizens to keep cool. .....with the windows fully up, and the air conditioning blasting.
.....yes, .....it's a democratic run city.
if someone has money to pay for another person to do bullshit jobs, that is their business.
This is the least well thought out of David’s books.
This book feels like it started off as a drunk text and got turned into a blog post. A series of these blog posts were turned into a book.
Poor David died before he could revise the book,
You mention that a lot of these bullshit jobs are corporate in nature.
Yes, they’re corporate because corporations are forced to comply with government bureaucratic regulations.
Many of these are military-industrial or healthcare or pharmaceutical, which pay very well, but are necessarily, mundane, perhaps repetitive, and even pernicious if they apply to obscure government regulations.
Professor is not a bullshit job.
I repeat, professor is NOT a bullshit job.
Ok.
Don't BS jobs serve the useful function of wealth redistribution and resource circulation? Sort of "welfare with a modicum of dignity"? Not the best use of resources for sure but not completely worthless?
Flunky = Bill Nye The Science Guy
It’s not BS if someone wants to pay you to do it- I am certain people “cry all the way to the bank” - like Elon says “too many fools have too much money for too long” -
Priests of any religion. This is major league BS, no other "job" comes close.