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Bullshit Jobs cover

Bullshit Jobs

David Graeber•2018

  1. Chappy's Book Notes•332 books

Bullshit Jobs

David Graeber•2018

Length
12h 39m•~416 pages
Read
Jul 16th - 19th '23
Business OperationsMacroeconomics
•

Summary

A bullshit job is one so pointless that even the person doing it can't justify its existence – and they're everywhere. The proliferation of these jobs reflects a moral economy where work is valued as a virtue in itself, not for its output. Managerial feudalism creates layers of unnecessary hierarchy. The tragedy: people in bullshit jobs are genuinely miserable, while essential workers (teachers, nurses, cleaners) are poorly paid.

Key Takeaways

  • Flunkies exist to make someone look important; goons exist because others have them
  • Duct tapers fix problems that shouldn't exist; box tickers document that things are being done
  • Taskmasters supervise people who don't need supervision — or create bullshit work for others
  • Humans have a deep need for purposeful work — pointless work creates depression and anxiety
  • The misery is compounded by the expectation of gratitude for a well-paying job
  • People in bullshit jobs often know their work is meaningless but can't articulate why that hurts
  • Organizations accumulate layers of management not for efficiency but for political reasons
  • Each layer justifies its existence by creating work for the layers below
  • The result is a self-perpetuating bureaucracy that resists elimination
  • Teachers, nurses, cleaners, and caregivers do the most important work for the least pay
  • There's an implicit moral logic: if your work helps others, that should be its own reward
  • Bullshit jobs in finance and consulting pay well precisely because they don't produce obvious social good
  • The Protestant work ethic evolved into a secular religion where busyness = virtue
  • This moral framework makes it taboo to question whether a job actually needs to exist
  • Universal basic income threatens this ideology more than it threatens the economy

Notes

  • Technological progress → jobs we know don’t have to be performed
  • 1/3 people believe job has no contributions
  • Neoliberal free market: political project dressed up as an economic one

1: Bullshit jobs

  • Bullshit job: paid employment so pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious not even the employee themselves can justify it
    • Obliged to pretend it’s not the case
  • Shit jobs, crooks / finance are not ↑

2: Types of BS jobs

  • 5 types
  1. Flunkies: just to make others feel important
    • Concierges, receptionists, EAs
    • Flak catcher: fielding complaints
  2. Goons: only because others employ them
    • Armies, marketing, corporate lawyers
  3. Duct tapers: solve avoidable problems
    • Addressing manager laziness, IT, QA
  4. Box tickers: orgs pretending compliance
    • Form fillers, compliance, consultants
  5. Taskmasters: assigning bullshit to others
    • Mid-level manager
  • Bullshit companies
  • ~50% of jobs are bullshit (broadest sense)

3: Why BS job workers are unhappy

  • Falseness, purposelessness
  • Can use productively for networking
  • Economists’ mini-max proven wrong
  • Agency: need freedom to affect things
  • Pretend work, intentionally slowing down

4: What it’s like to have a BS job

  • Need human interaction
  • Often know what you’re getting into
  • Social taboo of asking manager for visibility
  • Looking busy
  • Sometimes managers will cover for you
  • Work is supposed to provide meaning
  • Mental, physical stress
  • Non-sexual sadist: Stalin
  • Non-sexual necrophiliac: Hitler
  • Sadomasochism: dominance is a lie, person on bottom can never win (make believe)
  • Rights scolding: entitled to purposefulness
  • BS jobs are cause for rise of social media
  • Hard to get fired for incompetence
    • Easy to for defiance

6: Why are BS jobs proliferating?

  • We refuse to believe it, have explanations
  • Three factors:
    • Why individuals end up in BS jobs
    • Larger social, economic forces
    • Cultural, political: why no interventions
  • Political pressure to create jobs
  • Market vs regulation: game of faith
  • FIRE industry: (finance) case and point
    • Contracts, secrecy, job security fears
    • JP Morgan: 2/3 profits: fees, penalties
    • GM: interest on auto loans
  • Manager feudalism: bloated staff → power
    • Game of self-marketing
  • ↑ aggressive application of mkt principles
  • More like medieval feudalism vs capitalism

6: Why doesn’t society object?

  • Hard to argue we’re working too hard
    • Only if → more jobs
  • Hard to measure utility, social value
  • Needs are just other people’s expectations
  • Labor theory of value:
  • Direct value vs appropriation of value
  • Productive vs reproductive value
  • Revolt of the caring classes: high social value jobs are not paid enough
  • Study of monetary social value:
    • Medical researchers: $9 value / $1 pay
    • Teachers: $1
    • Engineers: $0.20
    • Consultants, IT: $0
    • Lawyers: -$0.20
    • Ads, marketing: -$0.30
    • Managers: -$0.80
    • Financial sector: -$1.50 value / $1 pay
  • Diamonds water paradox: marginal utility
  • Egoists vs altruists: can’t differentiate
  • Businesses: employees shouldn’t be paid for gratification, work they enjoy
  • Eg: open source software vs full time work is duct taping free solutions together
  • Work: creation vs rearrangement, routing
  • Apprenticeship: strive to advance
  • Labor theory of value: paid work → virtue
  • Children → need uphold existing structures

7: Political effects and what we can do

  • Mechanization: ↑ caring jobs, ↓ physical
  • Capital owners vs others
  • Robots not good at non-quantifiable tasks
  • Automation is the reason for rise in BS jobs
  • ↑ either that or rising unemployment, changing of work as source of purpose
  • Rise in production, maintenance of humans
  • Should implement UBI