On Bullsh*t Jobs | David Graeber | RSA Replay

In 2013 David Graeber, professor of anthropology at LSE, wrote an excoriating essay on modern work for Strike! magazine. “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs” was read over a million times and the essay translated in seventeen different languages within weeks. Graeber visits the RSA to expand on this phenomenon, and will explore how the proliferation of meaningless jobs - more associated with the 20th-century Soviet Union than latter-day capitalism - has impacted modern society. In doing so, he looks at how we value work, and how, rather than being productive, work has become an end in itself; the way such work maintains the current broken system of finance capital; and, finally, how we can get out of it.
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[@dapperdan7997]

My definition of hell: HATING your job and being TERRIFIED of losing it...

[@drmontague6475]

My definition of hell: being surrounded by thick gullible working class bastards who will fight tooth n nail to protect their capitalists exploiters/capitalist system, and who will hate and curse you if you try to educate them into showing them that you can have work which doesn't exploit their human labour for profit.

[@helenleary1327]

Story of my 90hr a week life!!! First in to the office .. last out ... means one is exposed to maximum C-R-A-P!

[@peteradaniel]

I work in accounting and finance without having a qualification in such profession. My work embodies the concept of “bullshit job”. Menial, detailed, mentally exhausting, repetitive, unsatisfactory and easily automated. It’s absolutely miserable. I earn just enough to put food in my stomach and clothes on my back but not enough to buy a house. I was lucky enough to be able to work from home during the pandemic, but live in constant fear that my temporary six month contract won’t be renewed. I think I can identify as the living embodiment of millennial aggrievement.

[@helenleary1327]

@@peteradaniel I was just like you... but I put in the extra effort to get qualified, while holding down the quivalent of two full time jobs .. a wife, 2 kids, and no money. No Car, no mobiles, and second hand clothes. But I did a Masters degree in statistics (part time) .. then quit my job, and went into Banking. I got paid well, saved, alot, and retired a fat cat at 53 years old.. You just need qualifications, and the harder to try, the higher you'll climb. Dont get miserable .. get qualified.

[@MartinParnham]

One of the many things about this topic that I hate is that there seems to be this belief that if you don't over-work and do like a 60hr week then you are somehow not working hard enough and don't deserve to get paid more etc. Personally, I think that if you're working 60-odd hours a week and you're not a doctor or nurse or someone for whom the result of that work makes a real difference to people then you have your priorities seriously wrong! The other thing I have noticed, especially in my job, is that people love to tell you how busy they are and sometimes wear it as a badge of honour. Most of the time, they're not actually that busy. Usually, I don't care how busy someone is and if they really are that busy then they probably need to take a step back and re-evaluate.

[@sofoclispetrosjulyan1397]

LinkedIn is the biggest circlejerk in the world. Some HR post are nauseating.

[@SteveJobzz]

Oh god. I want to vomit everytime I open LI. What a farce!

[@sofoclispetrosjulyan1397]

@@SteveJobzz I feel you

[@Johnconno]

@@sofoclispetrosjulyan1397 Where are you feeling him?

[@nicadi2005]

@Essential_Training GI "Some HR post are nauseating." - Ah! So it isn't just me after all, who can't take that kind of FERMENTING CRAP anymore! That's good news! 😁 *There is no trade in the human pantheon of trades or caste in human society I could think less of (and hence despise more) than the so-called "recruitment specialists"!*

[@sofoclispetrosjulyan1397]

@@nicadi2005 spot on

[@cybermollusk]

I love that he points out that our society defines you by your job and expects you to be happy just for getting paid.

[@Dan40049]

Yes, even if it's not enough to live on.

[@effexon]

@@Dan40049so was Graeber low key saying there are way too many people around (Thanos problem) ? productivity has gone so much up past 100 years would suggest this. then there is more money to waste in BS jobs(public office) to keep this cycle going, but that adds taxation and lower life quality too.

[@realhumanbean7915]

@@effexon no, this is not Malthusianism.

[@wrathofgrothendieck]

Getting paid makes all of it worth it

[@bradfordmccormick8639]

We should all know all about all of this. But I recently came across a person who took it really, i mean really seriously: Ernst Junger. And it's not about "capitalism" because under socialism you could have the same thing, just different bosses. And Junger's book has the appropriate title: "The worker". I never heard of him in school, and for very good reason. We are all workers 24/7/365.25. Some persons do escape. It's called "leisure". But my guess is that there are some people with more money than they could ever spend who are still workers. As Friedrich Nietzsche said perhaps but not nescessarily in a differnt context (Nietasche was Junger's go-to favorite philosopher): "What care I for happihness? I have my work!"

[@sonjak8265]

I am at a job doing things nobody needs while I am listening to this talk.

[@daithiocinnsealach3173]

I don't know anyone who doesn't think they're something special. If they don't then they're either some saint or on the verge of suicide.

[@januarysson5633]

David Kinsella But did you kiss up your way to a “management” position like the way the commenter said? 💋

[@daithiocinnsealach3173]

@@januarysson5633 Who said they're in a management job? And no I didn't. I'm in a menial service job. I deliver fast food to people. Delivering the flesh of animals who live horrendous lives solely for the purpose of feeding greedy humans cheap flesh who go on KZbin and fool themselves into believing they're nice, good people...

[@robovolk2350]

@@daithiocinnsealach3173 furthermore, the meat industry is kinda not even necessary, going back to the bullshit jobs thing: with our current farming infrastructure the world produces abt 4 times enough plants to feed the world. People still starve. They feed a lot of this food to the animals which they have factory farmed. Like half of those farming jobs shouldn't exist and neither should the animal abuse ones.

[@considerthis768]

Same!

[@slytouge764]

I’m an electrician and every single day flies by, I’m constantly busy and my work both matters and adds value to the world

[@knarf_on_a_bike]

You are in a minority.

[@loln00bsify]

I'm hoping to become an electrician myself. Couldn't make it in a union apprenticeship with no experience so now taking classes at a community college with my AmeriCorps Award. Fingers crossed.

[@ayeyeb4083]

He wasn't describing your job, he actually says that jobs like yours matter and can be fullfilling. By the way, as an elctrician, have you ever been in offices? Because that was his main aim.

[@slytouge764]

@@ayeyeb4083 I’m very aware he isn’t referring to my job - my comment is to highlight the difference between bullshit jobs and non bullshit jobs

[@l3gacyb3ta21]

aww jealous! I work in IT and it is hellllll. I'm trying to scrape together funds to start a tech co-op with some friends though.

[@hrishikesh-s]

I miss David Graeber and I didn’t even discover him till after he was passed away. Rip David!

[@JWIA67]

That's called leaving an impact on the world!

[@simgeyonter7042]

Me too so sas

[@The.world.has.gone.crazy...]

Same here

[@PaulThronson]

The Dawn of Everything. It's awesome

[@eminentbishop1325]

Only thing to do now my friends is pick his goddamn torch up and push forward 😊🤘

[@seamuswarren]

It drove me nuts when colleagues would rather put out fires all day instead of analysing and resolving root issues.

[@ironmantis25]

Putting out fires all the time makes them continuously employed, solving the root issue puts people out of their jobs after they solve the problem. Conflicts of interest.

[@sierraguru6942]

We had people who would cause problems just so they could fix them. Some people just want to look busy since a perception of value is what they settle for.

[@AnthonyChinaski]

That’s why we keep adding more cops and prisons in Merika

[@beetdiggingcougar]

We must work at the same place!

[@Wilson84KS]

This is the absurdity of the monetary/market system, every solved problem, every little economic behavior, every little progress, every little health, peace, freedom and everything else good, cost jobs, it is the nature of the work, that it is done sooner or later, I mean it is even the nature of society to share work, to rise the own chance to survive, to rise quality of life, just enjoy freedom, but in this system in means to die between empty rotting houses and stores overfilled with food that is disposed every day in bigger amounts than there are people who could eat it thanks to the artificial scarcity of the market system, this is where power results from, from corruption/blackmailing with the dependency from money.

[@CraftyOldGit]

I worked as a software engineer for 25 years before retiring. I spent less than 25% of that time working on products that were ever delivered. One very large project was obviously going to fail, but kept going beyond the 2 years I worked on it; there's even a name for that kind of project -- a "death march" (project that's obviously going to fail, but no one is willing to stop it). Software engineer isn't necessarily a bullshit job, but there are lots of bullshit projects.

[@harveylin3548]

Ha, I am one working for the govt as a contractor, it's even worse here, basically just high paying middle class welfare type jobs.

[@ccole1255]

This is management just ensuring that owners extract your labor whether it's profitable or not

[@bronzedisease]

it rings true across the world. My friend worked for a bank in China that needed to get some software developed by its vendor. The CEO really didnt know anything at all about technology. So he specifically asked to send a 10 people team to finish the job. Realistically it would have taken 3 people 2 months. but they stretched it to 10 people half a year simply because it seems reassuring to the managment. So the vendor just hired a bunch of interns and they just played world of warcraft on their laptops in conference room

[@TeaParty1776]

The mind is fallible. Man makes mistakes. Welcome to reality. Curiously enough, tho ,man also discovers and successfully applies knowledge of reality. Youre using a computer over the Internet! Or is that unreal in your cynical view?

[@TeaParty1776]

@@ccole1255 And without profit, how do they pay expenses, including wages? You Marxists are dumber than doorknobs.

[@nicholastidemann9384]

As they used to say in the last stages of the Soviet Union: they pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.

[@Kobe29261]

True, also super-honest audience! I think the problem is 'envy of the derelicts' most 'hard-working' people think its atrocious that the 'unemployed' "won't work" - they never pause to ask what really IS the function of this job I'm so proud of?

[@DarkSkay]

The ideas explained by David Graeber are so simple, but let tons of more or less sophisticated old conceptions appear obsolete. I hope a lot of people will pick up and develop his research and thinking.

[@ten_tego_teges]

@@Kobe29261 It's the prestige, isn't it? Money is just the means to show it. People in communist countries still made careers although the pay curve was far flatter. That's cause they did it for the prestige.

[@evolutionascension7084]

@@ten_tego_teges indeed. And then the capitalist regime came and turned the meritocracy upside down. People are still to this day disoriented and the young lost all their abilities and the will to work. With each generation they become dumber and dumber and only care care about money and to get their satisfaction here and now. And all those BS jobs together with the consumerism contributed to that, because allowed and rewarded this behaviour so that virtually noone cares anymore about building up a carrier and investing time and effort into it. Today everyone is a manager, and still there a huge management crisis for it seems like you can't find a proper one when you need it. I believe that over 90 percent of the managers in my country, never even read a book or a manual about management. And that, in turn, is contributing to the creation of those jobs that nobody actually needs but are created by the managers in order not to work or not to be seen as useless.

[@ten_tego_teges]

@@evolutionascension7084 >And then the capitalist regime came and turned the meritocracy upside down. Which communist regime do you have in mind, cause the one my parents lived in was definitely not ruled by meritocracy. I'd argue capitalist systems ARE more meritocratic. Its just the hyper-centralisation of the modern economies that cause wages to grow exponentially with position, far beyond what is needed to keep workers (well, managers) motivated. As much as I am critical of capitalism, I am certain that many organisational problems would persists under socialism. It's just human nature unfortunately.

[@bronzedisease]

i worked as a consultant for 3 years. Man it was such a bs job. I'd say at least 70% of the stuff flowing in the corporate world is just garbage.

[@user-yk3ky1ut1y]

I quit my job because I had the exact same thought a few months back. Now working for the government.

[@bla7091]

@@user-yk3ky1ut1y and it’s better there?

[@GrandmaCathy]

100%

[@yamiyamigorogoro5739]

@@abhishek-94 there's no social impact

[@kevinslater4126]

"We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living." -Buckminster Fuller He said this in the 1970s

[@trevorb2650]

Probably proving how out of touch with reality academia has become. people didn't "subject themselves to drudgery" for the last 5000 years because they were trying to justify their right to exist.....they worked so they wouldn't starve or freeze to death..... so while you are sippin' on your starbucks….. maybe try an original idea- try thinking. how many people had to subject themselves to drudgery so that you could be enjoying your macchiato?

[@BernieHollandMusic]

@mary the sun Producing what ? And producing for what purpose ?

[@iliyananedkova2713]

@@BernieHollandMusic Indeed, try to get rid of notions of production and consumption and replace them with care and freedom/play as David Graeber suggests

[@thaliahelweg4813]

@@trevorb2650 there's been unprecedented technological developments that allow humanity as a species (!) to look forward to a future of largely doing less work, I think that's a good thing, don't you?

[@kparker2430]

i was with you right up until the bit where you said 'the youth were right'. .. respect to bucky fuller but i think you take him out of context - the youth should work, the aged should study. knowledge is wasted on youth :)

[@AndyTannerSmith]

RIP David Graeber. An intellectual giant.

[@user-ic4ce8xb5v]

I was devastated to see the news. The good always die 50 years too early.

[@Orpheuslament]

Truly a serious loss. He was one of the good guys.

[@youtubeisawebsite7484]

holy fuck he really did just up and die 9 days ago wtf

[@dawidwtorek]

What?! So sad

[@GreaterGood2024]

How did he die? Murdered by the CIA?

[@BuhodePiedra]

I manage rainwater catchment tanks in the CA central coast where water is very scarce. I can barely afford a studio apartment. Meanwhile, all of the bankers, golfers, investors and folks that simply move money around have very large estates and don't seem to lift a finger. It's not only that the BS jobs are ubiquitous but that there is an direct relationship between the BS'ness of your job in relation to your wage earned. e.g. Higher level of BS = Higher Wage. Low level of BS = Low wage. we need to remove invisible layers of 'policy violence' to flip this equation upside down, so that bankers are scraping by for selling us all out and, for example, people like hotel maids can live comfortably, because they actually provide a real service.

[@davidgraeber5046]

this is one of the main points of my book

[@koosvandermerwe8298]

Medical doctors, programmers and some farmers are earning a lot and they do not have bullshit jobs. Just to mention a few.

[@legalfictionnaturalfact3969]

Physicians absolutely are bullshit, generally. Mostly glorified dig dealers who especially love torturing women.

[@legalfictionnaturalfact3969]

Our problems are not because of capitalism. We haven't seen capitalism in a long time. No One Alive now has lived in it. Well we live in, especially in the United States, is monopolism.

[@danielwebb8402]

Because many many others could do your job.

[@joeshmoe2858]

I was thinking about this last week. I literally work/produce 25 hrs of real work in a 40 hr week. I'd rather just be honest with my employer and work 8-12 daily and go home but I'm salary. It's depressing and a waste.

[@user-sv3dm7ws6q]

I feel you. I was working 30 minutes out of an 8 hour day at my previous job (thankfully laid off now because of the virus lol)

[@farntf1647]

1-2 hours a day at my former job. But my colleagues were imbeciles and needed much more

[@stevem815]

I had a job like that and quit. Now I work 40 solid hrs a week and wonder if I didn't do something stupid.

[@0113Naruto]

farn tf what job??

[@stevem815]

@@Randomuser2329 haha, maybe. Just add it to the list of all the other things.

[@rogersyversen3633]

I dropped out the third year of police university college because of all the bullshit during my practice year at a police station. It spiraled me into a depression from a sense of meaninglessness by watching all the beurocracy and the hopeless fates of the people we were supposed to serve. Now I am studying sociology and I see more and more of this collective lie in this field aswell - papers being written with no sense of discovering anything at all, just the need to publish. The dilemma for me is that I feel need my masters degree in order to even have a voice. None of my twitter posts or facebook updates ever gets listened to. There is no platform for legitimate critical thought - it gets swallowed by algorithmically tuned social media that cater only to the individual ecco chambers. If I talk to my fellow students about actual discovery of truth, they just look at me in bewilderment for a bit, then go back to their phones and silently filter me out of their feeds.

[@cyberneticbutterfly8506]

Seem to me that there is a lack of courage. For instance a person who knows that he isn't discvering something meaningful doesn't have the courage not to publish the meaningless paper.

[@mavenfeliciano1710]

Harshad Subhash I think the point was, though not effectively coming across, was the courage to not take a b.s. job, or not to do the b.s. duties of a job and stand firm on it. Unfortunately that usually means for termination of one’s employment at such firm. The courage would be squashed and silenced.

[@aaronwebb1548]

"Cynical Theories", anyone who can share that book around academia needs to do so.

[@EnriqueCubillo]

Roger. I am seeking sociology researchers to examine some biomechanical innovations. The research will be worth it. I assure you.

[@samaraisnt]

Most policing is paperwork, ask any cop they'll tell ya that.

[@dannyboy9848]

a large portion of IT is b.s. We say new software and hardware are upgrades but they usually are not...its just a way for people to keep their jobs. I did this for 15 years and had the identity crisis Graeber talks about, got tired of building new programs when there was nothing wrong with the existing program.

[@DrazenCika]

There is a huge pile of software around than needs to be maintained, and this is far from creative and challenging job of actually building new stuff, necessary or not. Is this maintenance actually a BS job? I am afraid for the most part it is, as most functions are never used, or problems are simply not understood by people who did not take a part in building the system originally. And jet, it is major part of software job market today.

[@ammanite]

I know an IT administrator who works 2-4 hours a week at his full time job and makes about 75k lol

[@daithiocinnsealach3173]

It's about survival at base level.

[@ammanite]

@@another2133 I think these issues are a problem of capitalism, truthfully. This happens in every industry because people want to ensure that they remain indispensable and thus keep their jobs, and more importantly, their livelihoods. If they weren't worried of going hungry by making themselves obsolete, so some capitalists can maximize their profits by getting rid of them, they wouldn't engage in these stupid, inefficient behaviors that contribute nothing to their own happiness or human progress. There are a lot of inherent inefficiencies in capitalism due to the impulse to maximize revenues and profits, e.g. a hundred types of identical tooth pastes at the grocery store, a thousand copycat junk apps that do nothing (but perhaps steal your data), and much of the whole financial services pyramid scheme industry. Imagine how much better the world would be if there weren't millions of our smartest people wasting their time just trying to "maximize profits" in anyway possible, including by scamming other human beings and destroying the planet.

[@DrazenCika]

@ZoSo221 I would know because I would check out the source code and see for myself. Or even if I could not understood it, there were comments with 'TODO' statements from previous developers. But most developers in so called 'maintenance' would not touch the code if there was no problem reported with it, and no one else would do it either if it was closed source. It is poor excuse to just call this stuff 'legacy' that should not be touched, we all pay for this through declining performance and increased HW requirements to get the same job done.

[@BenjaminEAlexander]

I first heard of this idea while I was killing time in an office, with maybe six hours/day of time to read newsletters, compile datasets for personal interests, and generally look busy without doing any work. Of course I made the most money I ever have doing that kind of work. I work as a bicycle mechanic now, and I was amazed when I started how much more of my day is actually taken up with work, but how much happier I am. I do sometimes miss being up to the minute on essays and publications and Twitter, but I am very obviously more mentally healthy, and I'm not making the world a worse place with the two hours/day I would actually do any work.

[@newagain9964]

yeah. most of these office jobs are bs. I (and many others) had to go into serious debt to be able to enjoy the easy money that comes with it. the real work is dealing with crappy coworkers/customers and toxic work culture.

[@rukhsanakhan5010]

Sad to be here in Sept 2020, just heard he passed at only 59.

[@MrSvenovitch]

He didn't just pass, he bled internally to death. Think about that parents-to-be. He was once someone's baby.

[@Tecolote41]

Sven Stupid people can’t reason, unfortunately. This is why I don’t bother saying what you have said to people :/

[@daithiocinnsealach3173]

I'm waiting for some troll or some ignoramus to claim he was murdered by "them" because he was telling the "truth".

[@amronemhb2448]

Didn’t know that, so to hear, when we needed him !

[@RogerBarraud]

:'(

[@cjhatesu]

I work in a company of 20K+ people. I used to have the idea that working harder will help me climb but then I realized I am 1/20,000 nothing I do is visible to anyone who matters. In fact all they care about are people who are willing to take care of human managment roles rather than skill specific roles. Working hard in a big company gets you no where. Being the person who makes others work harder is everything.

[@GrandmaCathy]

100%. Same. 1/300,000.

[@pedroroque8681]

That’s life. Hard skills are replaceable. leadership is much harder to find and to replace. Communication, leadership and management skills will always top technical know how.

[@gabrielajonczyk5663]

​@@pedroroque8681psychopaths are most likely to get leadership work - manipulation, mind games and exploitation are management skills, Graeber said in different lecture that the most empty is in low paid workers...

[@landlord5552]

I worked in fish factory where we did really job for 4 hours and rest 4 hour hiding from bosses and doing really nothing. Honestly this hiding time was doubble energy demanding than working time.

[@samaraisnt]

Brian Reagen has a joke about this.

[@ovrava]

Just be glad you are not a fish.

[@averyintelligence]

when i worked in construction it used to take more effort and energy to hide somewhere on the site than the actual work. people always act like construction is difficult. the average iq of a construction worker is like 95

[@herahagstoz6934]

I think we all just learned about the true value of bs jobs vs “essential workers” and what is actually possible in terms of working from home or not. It’s just a giant mind-f we’ve all been socialized into. The Puritanical work ethic still is the basic tool for self worth and your value to society. Now it’s clear how broken and toxic that concept is.

[@daithiocinnsealach3173]

And something broken and toxic will replace it surely.

[@ethanstump]

so how do we accelerate it's demise? educate people about how Arbeit macht frei is still a part of our modern workplace?

[@ten_tego_teges]

Puritanical work ethic is a great concept which doesn't apply to modern society. You can have that kind of ethic as a hands-on specialist that understands the problem he is solving and works semi-independent on it. Then your works makes sense to you and putting your heart into it is very rewarding. Anyone that has worked towards any concrete goal knows how liberating it is. Or you're a cog and you're trying to put your heart into sth you nor anyone really understands and it just gets lost somewhere in the big machine. Then it becomes toxic.

[@hannah60000]

Some of the “essential jobs” are equally questionable. For example, takeaway drivers I didn’t need to have pizza, etc during the lockdown. Supermarket delivery drivers, I can see the essential role they play in a lockdown. Ps I’m aware how the takeaway services still operating helped to save many local business. Yet, it’s wasn’t essential that I had access to those places.

[@prestonblevins149]

What if the delivery was automated - like it will be soon enough.

[@deplorabled1695]

When my grandfather worked in the shipyard in Belfast in the 50s, there was one foreman for nearly a hundred men. The foreman reported directly to the top man. Nowadays you have 1 supervisor per dozen blokes, who in turn report to a shift leader, who then reports to the Operations Supervisor, who then reports to the Manager, who then reports to the superintendent, who then reports to ...... and so on. We are definitely over-managed these days.

[@richelledeguzman7453]

I definitely agree to this.

[@nickmiller76]

Indeed. All written-up as long ago as 1958 by C Northcote Parkinson in 'Parkinson's Law'. A highly entertaining book, containing many profound insights, not much read these days I suspect.

[@Shrouded_reaper]

And add in all the positions they have had to cook up for women in blue collar fields to try and "close the gender gap".

[@FidelCastro128]

Media industry is rife with redundancy.

[@pedroroque8681]

Thats because organisations expanded. Some of them too much.

[@PLOttawa]

Brilliant man. RIP David. Such a likable person too. Deeply missed.

[@willg.6168]

@Robert Jones apparently internal bleeding caused by necrotic pancreatitis? "they" silenced him too trying to really help humanity is dangerous,dangerous,a hazard to your health.

[@mistersir3020]

@@willg.6168 racist

[@SuperCollyDolly]

Total dude.

[@inout7949]

The worst thing ever is to live an entire life doing things you hate doing!

[@trumpeytoes7450]

yeah but if you mean work, then a entire life full of work would mean you would end up with a big savings, you will retire with money, so you will have a home, a family, a life, you have long distance holidays, tight young asian prostitutes in thailand holidays, etc.

[@need-to-know-]

In Out Except doing things you hate doing to accumulate things you don't need to impress people you don't like for reasons you don't know.

[@inout7949]

That's true............. and it all begins with doing things you hate doing..!

[@cooltigermusic]

litterally 99% of people in the western world

[@sassy0010]

@@need-to-know- Or doing things you hate doing just to survive, which many people do today.

[@rock3tcatU233]

At my first corporate job I had over 8 managers looking over my shoulder...

[@edisonyi1188]

Not to mention the fact that hedge fund managers literally produce negative value, especially to their clients. On average, hedge funds perform worse than passive index funds. Some hedge fund managers literally pretend to actively manage their fund and secretly just track a passive index fund. Yet, hedge fund managers get payed astronomical amounts of money. Teachers however get poverty level income.

[@newagain9964]

most jobs in finance/financial services are not only bs but grifting.

[@gilligan80]

I left the army in 04 after getting back from iraq.... the gi bill would not cover the schooling i wanted... for audio production and engineering.... see. I KNOW if motivated enough anyone can learn that stuff but the schooling part is more important for networking... you are put in positions where you will meet people where you can pursue a career in that field... so i worked "corporate security" in Minneapolis chasing skateboarders and homeless people.. while i sat on my ass in a building full of people sitting on their asses doing absolutely nothing.... now im back in north dakota working at a custom cabinet shop... i build all the doors and also go on installations..... i have never been happier in my life... do i make a lot... no..... but that doesnt matter to me.... i make enough to live the life i want.....

[@BarbaraMerryGeng]

I’m happy to hear you found work that is satisfying

[@JN003]

you may want to consider launching a youtube channel for the store... a niche group of people would enjoy watching the custom cabinet creation process.

[@MrDeicide1]

@@JN003 Shut up perv

[@GrandmaCathy]

Isn't that all most people want? To be proud of their accomplishments, doing things they enjoy, and having enough to live securely/get by?

[@gilligan80]

@@GrandmaCathy you'd think so... but most people dont... most people stay stuck doing that thing they hate.... stress makes them unhealthy and miserable.....

[@BaLuuish]

„The whole idea of anthropology is that strangers have a certain insight that natives don't.“ Gotta remember that.

[@gordo6908]

that's really cynical and unecessarily inserts the assumption that all attempts at understanding human groups and their development are from outsiders

[@afeather123]

​@@gordo6908 Nah. The quote does not in any way imply people can't gain insight about their own cultures and communities. Of course they can. But foreigners do have a unique insight natives don't, which is a sort of child like ignorance of many aspects of the culture. That makes it much harder for the foreigner to understand, and you do see a decent amount of BS anthropology that doesn't offer much (but that's true of many intellectual disciplines not just anthropology). At their best anthropologists can see the fish and the water they swim in. The fish will just ask, "What's water?" Another downside of anthropology is that it is European/North American-centric, it often does not go both ways. But I think anthropology done by, say, Chinese or Indian scholars observing American or German culture, just to name arbitrary examples, would be quite valuable.

[@gordo6908]

@@afeather123 it does otherwise hed have worded it differently

[@afeather123]

​@@gordo6908 Even if it were true (I still don't think that's what he intended), does it really bother you so much? People hardly know themselves. Do you know how your subconscious mind works? Is it really so bad that other people might have unique insights about you that you are not capable of on your own?

[@gordo6908]

@@afeather123 my comment was regarding his quote, not your yours

[@gbrinch]

I started playing the piano ay age 20 because I wanted to be a composer after seeing the film Amadeus....I have never looked back! Am enjoying my 30+ year of teaching, performing and composing! Not a lot of money but no end of job-satisfaction!

[@ryanthepianoman27]

Uk

[@newagain9964]

imagine if you had just listened to a lot ppl, or done as them, and played it "safe". You wouldnt have all those experiences and musical skill. And you would be in some bs job...counting the days until mythical retirement may/may not occur.

[@mtparkourartist]

@@newagain9964 that thought gives me shivers. I have definitely swayed back and fourth in various decisions between my own and others desires for me.

[@newagain9964]

@@mtparkourartist life is short. And there’s seemingly never enough money. Living passionately and with intention matters. Both to u and the ppl in ur life/are acquainted with. Ppl that are living their life authentically usually stand out and leave an impression.

[@KGDRAWROF]

Me and my partner would leave work early like 3 times a week on average and we would still claim 8 hours every day, but he really became so depressed and the relatively small amount of hours that we actually did put in became grueling for him. He ended up quitting and sending me an essay about how great he felt in the form of a text message, and it's just like David says here, working a bullshit job is actually mimicking what depression really is. It's crazy that these ideas are actually taboo. The structure must be preserved.

[@tranzorz6293]

I don't mind leaving early and getting paid for it... that'll be great. I got lots id rather be doing. But most places I've worked in want you to hang about in that time doing nothing. Thats the really depressing thing about it. I love to draw but I cant take out my pencils and paper in any free time that comes up. You have to sit on a computer reading crap online or pretend to look like you're doing something. There's only one more thing more soul destroying than working a boring job and that's pretending to work a boring job.

[@saschamayer4050]

@@tranzorz6293 I think it's harder if you work a real job that's not bs and constantly struggle with it because of the poor pay and the poor way people treat you like. Just imagine how hard it is if you actually do something and contribute to improve our society but no one acknowledges you or your work. And then you realize that most people have bs jobs doing nothing productive and they get treated much, much better than you.

[@tranzorz6293]

@@saschamayer4050 my job consists of both those things depending on what they want me to do that day. In all honesty the job I have right now is kinda OK but most of the ones I've done have been the ones you describe. The worst job I ever had was scrubbing burger King extractor fans in the middle of the night with industrial chemicals for a fixed rate.

[@chrisdoeller7332]

I think Graeber is correct in his observations. The rise of education gospel and the faux idea that one cannot attain salvation (the 21st century's version of being born again) unless they have gone to college, has also generated a bumper crop of new cushy BS jobs. The two most infuriating aspects of this new phenomenon are... 1. They pay well and are viewed by the public as being the "right jobs" for the "right people" who did the "right thing" and went to college, where as sh--t jobs are needed for the economy and most of our way of life to continue yet are less well paid, and less well treated on the job or in the eyes of society. 2. These BS jobs are out there but can only be secured by certain people, as the new era of hiring practices have created so many barriers to employment that only those who are "just like" the people doing the hiring.

[@mistersir3020]

underrated comment

[@markm5927]

Great talk. I had a bullshit job for about two years and it made me change career paths completely. Not only did the job not fulfill me, I questioned the sanity of a system that continually made me pretend to work and wouldn't allow me to shift into another position I had shown I was capable of because I didn't get the right university marks - which were only part of the application process as a filter to begin with. Finding David's book helped me put into words what I'd been trying to define for a very long time - how jobs were being created to keep people busy and justify giving them an income, rather than because they were necessary.

[@silvertortoise3776]

This man is amazing, what a great presentation. And I love how the audience is mostly who he is talking about. They are so so so put off its great to watch. Someone is finally pointing out how they had their parents pay for their school which set them "apart" and allowed them to do jobs that are essentially nothing for the most value.

[@drop_messages6226]

This is an interesting talk. I never thought of it as "we choose more stuff over leisure time"....... then as some jobs were automated, admin jobs were created to fill the void left by automating manufacturing. So, not only can I not have a decent manufacturing job, but when I do apply for my next job, I have to navigate through an entire HR department so that some person with no clue how to do my job, can make a judgement if I am good enough for a job

[@photonjones5908]

It's all part of the degradation of the labor class. Keep 'em desperate and disposable, make 'em feel guilty for needing money to live.

[@thebeautifulones5436]

I studied electrical engineering and scraped through it. It was hard to get a job and when I did it was only in small unknown companies that actually did real work as contractors for large corporations. It was hard, stressful, and useful, work while the best students got picked up by these large corporations and within a year or two were in useless middle management positions. After about 10 years and a bunch of jobs, which became easier to get, I got fired went backpacking in Asia, came home to Australia and became an unemployed bum. Which itself is not much chop and cannot think the UBI is much good for the vast majority of people who are largely unmotivated sheep. Now I raise cattle. Its lovely and I have to go and feed them some hay.

[@Kobe29261]

I think the solution is to find say 150 people (size of a village) who can certify that a person is delivering value and just pay such people UBI. There's a woman who picks up trash at the park where I live EVERY DAY, she does NOT work for the City, just does it! I would like to pay that woman to ensure the service she renders is not lost, she's old and frail and it breaks my heart every time I see her. I know the entire section of my street would say she deserves more than UBI!

[@ananyats5063]

the ending i really beautiful , good for you

[@jlrob85]

❤️❤️🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺❤️❤️🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺❤️❤️❤️

[@AANation360]

Wow what a journey man. Food for thought

[@samaraisnt]

@@Kobe29261 Drop $5 in that park every day. Encourage others to do so, too. If she doesn't know she'll just think God's paying her and it means her job is worthwhile/meaningful-- which it is. :)

[@HolyWarrior1]

Literally the entire plot of Office Space.

[@success4global841]

This guy is brilliant. It makes total sense. Most of these jobs are utter rubbish.Keeping people busy not productive. The only example of a Job that is bullshit but maybe has 'A' function are jobs that make others LOOK good or look as if they are achieving something, like social media for companies.

[@alexkrasnic3850]

success4global if they are useless jobs then how are companies able to pay those employees? the only way they can pay them is if they are producing more than what they are getting paid. If they are producuing something then someone has to be buying it or the company would not have money to pay employees. vvery simple stuff

[@MrHarumakiSensei]

Alex krasnic, that's easy to answer: the company makes more money than it needs. It wastes a lot of its profit paying employees with bullshit jobs.

[@MikeRLloyd73]

His book on Debt is worth the read

[@gabbar51ngh]

@Classic Max surplus value is based of time which is a poor metric to gauge value of someone's labour & isn't taken seriously since marginal revolution in economics. The value of labour is based upon the demand from the employer & availability of labour rather than how much you need. The individual is free to not work for him but elsewhere he would be valued more. If you really wanna know the culprit who's skimming off your money it's the government through inflation & taxes.

[@gabbar51ngh]

@Classic Max first of all you have poor comprehension or deliberately obfuscating. I didn't say surplus value is metric but rather it's based upon LBV which uses time as metric & inaccurate way to value someone's labour. Thus surplus value itself is based upon a false assumption. Value is subjective & is based upon supply and demand. If you can't even understand that then you shouldn't really be talking about economics but rather read on the subject first. To point out how absurd your Marxian perspective is just go to an auction house & try to determine a product's price by your LBV & surplus value. You simply can't & your Marx fails to explain any of the transaction. There's simply no such thing as "Surplus value" getting stolen as you are claiming. It's based upon an outdated theory which was debunked in field of economics longtime ago. Try to catch up. "Workers obviously contribute more than they are given" not really. Not at all. Your view of economy is based on zero sum game. If that was the case then economic growth was literally not possible. As for product's value. It's not created by labour alone but multitude of factors including resources & tools too which companies & owners provide. If labour was really that valuable then it would have much more negotiating power to Begin With. Precisely why when people get skilled & trained their labour is higher valued due to more demand & less in supply. Capitalism is private ownership and freedom to trade. Profit isn't just desired by companies but even workers demand profit by selling their labour. Commonly known as wages. "Is not freedom to choose" no one is obligated to pay you as much as you believe you ought to get paid. You are supposed to show your labour is valuable to them in order to get it.

[@guillll]

A quick testimony about the "cult of work" : I once met a guy who worked a rather high paying job in some bank, but still managed to have quite a lot of free time in the afternoons, which he spent doing actually useful non-payed work for his community. When I told this guy that he had a pretty cool job, having all this free time, he got quite angry, like I had insulted him. He then started explaining to me that his job was actually super hard, that he had to work a lot, etc. He seemed to believe that, by saying that his job was nice, I actually had diminished his value as a person in some way, and that working super hard somehow made him a better person.

[@gharialnumbat5711]

This is actually a pretty profound comment

[@jaik195701]

Puritan guilt

[@GrandmaCathy]

100%!!

[@victorm3054]

I remember working as a junior construction inspector. My eight hour day consisted of a) walking around for 15 minutes taking pictures b) Writing a 10-minute daily report. Ironically I felt miserable.

[@rachanaraizada]

But that's actually an important job! At least the 30 minutes you describe. There needs to be some oversight on construction sites. Maybe the other 7.5 hours wasn't that useful?

[@mavenfeliciano1710]

Rachana Raizada my thoughts exactly. I’m more worried about whether the construction jobs were necessary in the first place?

[@mavenfeliciano1710]

Perhaps he’s trolling us? 😆

[@rachanaraizada]

@@mavenfeliciano1710 Yes, maybe he was overseeing the construction of the European Central Bank building.

[@rmleighton1]

I worked with my hands and mind. Electrician retired. And as I drive around and see the buildings I worked on, still in use there are fond memories. Schools, Hockey rinks, automotive servicing. I liked dealing with apprentices and became a teacher with a curriculum to make these kids job ready. Then Academia took over and ruin everything. They burden us teachers forcing us to become retrain, crazy useless paperwork and the day came when these academics supervisory define their jobs on all the crap the sent down to us, they were fixing something that wasn’t broken. These bureaucrats began to out number actual teachers with better salaries. I quit. Went back to being an electrician. These bureaucrats also, when austerity became fashionable cut teacher not their bullshit jobs. The killed the community college as a post secondary alternative to universities.

[@ethanstump]

that's great that you had a great career, but i have a contention to make. you conflate bureaucracy with academia. these actually are two different phenomenon as david graeber point's out in the talk, the bureaucracy actually invaded academia. it couldn't do that if it wasn't a discrete entity separate from academia. academia is the teachers, the faculty if you will, and the bureaucracy is the admin. your mixing up the two occasionally. you actually were an academic yourself, but couldn't withstand the admin, or the bureaucracy( which honestly, fair point, i couldn't withstand it either).

[@cheshirecat1212]

@@ethanstumpBut what about HR? Isn’t that essentially making bureaucracy another academic subject? And like, it’s a lot bigger a subject now than it was 30 or 40 years ago, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

[@TheSamLowry]

R.I.P. You were a genius far ahead of your time.

[@damienlabenz]

R.I.P.

[@teaadvice4996]

When did he die?

[@thepeopleshistoryofus]

@@teaadvice4996 It was like a week ago, maybe two.😭😭

[@aaronnishere159]

@@teaadvice4996 September 2nd

[@Yano5151]

I listened to this subject on an NPR podcast years ago and it didn’t really hit me. Now, as I turned down a job offer with the potential to make a lot of money, I turned it down because I felt the burden I would be facing by not contributing anything meaningful to society, like my last few jobs. Now I am pursuing a new and meaningful career path and it’s as if I felt a weight lifted from me.

[@gilligan80]

Office buildings literally should not even exist anymore....

[@cocojumbo197]

Yes, they should be turned into government subsidized brothels💃👯‍♂️

[@bloedblarre]

@@cocojumbo197 most work is intellectual prostitution anyway

[@MaryJosephrobi]

They won't with covid19

[@stuckonearth4967]

@@cocojumbo197 I think there's a reason why we hate prostitutes and their clients. But I also agree that a sexual desire is a real deal.

[@rhionbutcher6728]

The sad thing is that the meaningful jobs tend to be the least paid - nurses, cleaners, bus driver etc. These people are literally turning the cogs of society

[@Shyftus]

Teachers as well.

[@gregkosinski2303]

Nurses average about $80k a year. Cleaners and bus drivers make much less, but they’re also much less skilled than nurses.

[@MrDaddynomates]

"We chose consumerism over more leisure time". Exactly what I've always said. We are a stupid species. I had a bullshit job for a short time. I was the "supervisor" of stuff that didn't need supervision.

[@davidgraeber5046]

yeah except I said we didn't do that

[@shinrarango]

what a kind, caring, funny and genuine man Mr Graeber was. a real loss

[@brianblades6177]

I once worked for a university and watched the secretary next to me play solitaire on a daily basis while i successfully watched multiple movies and a couple of seasons of hells kitchen before i got an actual task to do...which only lasted a week. So there's two more for your list!

[@TeaParty1776]

Education is govt-subsidized.

[@brianblades6177]

@@TeaParty1776 It was a private university. Good try though buddy!

[@TeaParty1776]

@@brianblades6177 W/govt-subsidized students and, perhaps, special taxes. etc. Tiny little out-of-context facts may intellectually paralyze Leftists but the inefficiency of socialism is a valid generalization

[@brianblades6177]

@@TeaParty1776 Im not a leftist. Good try though buddy!

[@rexedwardapale4086]

Brian Blades “Good Try Though Buddy” is a wonderful Porn movie title

[@michaelsoftinc]

Graeber kicks ass.

[@trumpeytoes7450]

thank god he exists, because otherwise it would feel like its just me that see's th bs jobs everywhere, and how females don't see it, they always think they are working, and at the most they will think "oh well im getting paid for it" and thats the end of their thought process.

[@dougdorite3581]

Michael Graber just a Pawn for the rich

[@truthseek3017]

Doug Dorite Yep, we're fucked.

[@temple1111]

Love his mad genius laugh when everyone raises hands

[@ebrufineart]

@@dougdorite3581 But David Graeber is not.

[@seahorsemafia]

Rest in Peace Mr. Graeber. We're forever grateful for your amazing mind and your success in getting your ideas out there.

[@livthedream91]

We need access to land that we can use to live freely upon and grow food. Without that we are indeed wage slaves.

[@thekaxmax]

you can't have everyone be a farmer

[@livthedream91]

thekaxmax Oh sure, good point of course. But my meaning is that when subsistence as a natural right of birth is taken from us, we are forced into unnatural dependency. Capitalism exploits the old landlord-tenant relations leftover from feudalism. Another way of saying this is that natural resources do not belong naturally in the hands of any particular class, and these are the source of primitive accumulation of the means of production. The people need direct access to the means of production in a capitalism.

[@billyoldman9209]

thekaxmax The thing called farmer is a very late effect of capitalism (the feudal peasantry was very different). You don't have to be in an machinized agricultural mega crop to be involved in growing plants and raising animals to feed humans. Farmers are out there to make more profit than the competition and not to provide healthy food for themselves and others (and market conditions leave them no choice ofc). It's all a matter of how society values and rewards different kind of practices that have to do with the cultivation of land.

[@impc2505]

Trade services instead of currency. At the end of the day everybody needs something and can give something in return.

[@alexkrasnic3850]

mao tried this in china. did not work

[@ilikesprayart]

This is probably the closest I've seen anybody get to practical philosophy in modern age, and it made my day, I know I'll sound like a boomer, but ty Graeber and ty yt algorithm and whoever posted this, it's insightful as FU-K.

[@oub4a]

I'm sorry that I just discovered him and his work before finding out that he had died.

[@attilabodi826]

On the emotional spectrum, boredom is just a lesser emotion of disgust.

[@e.d.3729]

Thank you David Graeber. And Godspeed.

[@achakhakan4189]

The reality is that people who work 'real' jobs are also miserable because they are usually overworked and underpaid. The useless manager who 'supervises' makes a good salary and goes home happy.

[@crizish]

So true about university jobs. I spend all my time carrying out class "evaluations" that no one reads; the students often just tick based on whether they like the teacher or just "rainman" it. So much of my time is spent doing meaningless tasks....

[@FidelCastro128]

Education in reverse!

[@asmrentrepeneurs1614]

I was just fired from Columbia Univerisry today for exactly this. If I had kept my mouth shut and not initiated ideas, I’d probably stuff have the cushy admin job. I hated it though.

[@supahacka]

The job of a bus driver might be relevant - still a lot of bus-driver headcounts are #bullshitjobs because they move around people that only need to move around because of the underlying system. The same holds true for nurses for example ... their job is relevant but most nurses treat systemic issues and illnesses. Something similar goes for a lot of relevant jobs like engineers working for say a mobile phone company: their job might be relevant but there are 30 other mobile phone companies selling a very similar product ... so you got a 90% redundancy in engineering jobs as well. #bullshitjobs are everywhere ... billions of them worldwirde.

[@jamesduff6937]

Well said supahacka.

[@supahacka]

@Pala 50% of all "Nurses" headcounts are #bullshitjobs. They are dealing with victims of the system ... strokes, obesity, depression, car accidents due to systemic traffic, pollution, this very pandemic, drug abuse due to extreme levels of systemic stress, etc., etc., ... very well observed!

[@albaniaalban]

Depending on where you work as a nurse you definitely have more or less to do; maternal care, for example, is very labour intensive (pun notwithstanding). However, a large part of the time for many nurses is occupied by documenting, cataloguing, and other administrative work that isn't all that necessary, actually. So much time goes to just noting down what you do, which while important has grown to occupy between 30-50% of a doctors/nurse working time.

[@mavenfeliciano1710]

It’s an international plandemic plaguing us.

[@eliastalks7411]

@Pala I would also say that environment certainly is a major factor, too. For example, areas with low access to nutritious food, or where the water quality is poor and at times dangerous (Flint) or where the air quality is ruined because of pollution. This disproportionately affects the lower income working classes; wealthier folks are shielded from these effects either by living in areas without these issues or they have resources to mitigate them (for example, having access to AC during a heat wave). The reality is that the socioeconomic disparity driven by the for-profit system is the trigger for a wide range of common chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes, cardiac disease, Lund cancer from smoking, liver failure from drinking, stroke, mental illness, chronic pain triggered by stress/surviving abuse. This is why poorer communities have lower life expectancy. Of course, there will always be genetic conditions and random illnesses, but if the society was fair and the environmental problems not so extensive, I would wager we would see a reduction of 50-70% of observed illness in our society. So while healthcare workers do have an important job that is useful, a large proportion of their work is patching up ppl damaged by the underlying system, a system that remains 'untreated'. The point about administrative bloat is also true. Paperwork is increasingly a big burden and professionals aren't given enough time to complete it. Hospitals are always worried about litigation, losing money, and looking bad, rather than actual patient care and this is true (admittedly to a lesser extent) even in publicly funded models because they still operate within the confines of a capital-centric system and consequently are often underfunded - hence money worries.

[@patrickholt2270]

Inasmuch as this is a global phenomenon, my theory is that the proliferation of phony and unproductive work, including unproductive work with excessively long hours such that it has become a routine thing in Japan of people dying from overwork, is a side effect of rentierism and and the dismantling of working class political and workplace bargaining power. It is the labour side expression of the fact that capital is able to extract absurdly high profits from the exploitation of workers and customers (through monopoly effects) without having to invest in productivity or product innovation. In countries which still have relatively low profits because of higher business taxation and average pay, investment is much higher and productivity advancing much faster than in rentierised economies like Britain and the USA. The consequence of lower profits is then more money spent on public services creating jobs of actual service and utility to the public, so higher real productivity than bureaucratic jobs in the private sector, and more manufacturing involving jobs (still declining in number because of technological labour saving) which are highly paid where people feel highly productive because they are. But with the advance of rentierism in and through the crippling of working class power, not only is that state and private industrial investment lacking, and with it useful jobs, but the rentiers have an immediate local surplus recycling problem within the national economies they dominate, which has to be solved by credit, and to maintain the credit system, people have to be able to make interest payments, which in turn requires that people have jobs, and so they are created to keep the flow of interest to the banks coming, since banks are the apex rentiers. So the bullshit jobs have expanded, and expanded in compulsory hours per week, with the expansion of private credit. The credit keeps businesses in business, because people who are chronically underpaid can continue to subsist as their customers, and they in turn can continue to employ people (for fiefdom purposes that justify managerial salaries) which enables the debt slaves to keep making interest payments, except that the extent of public and private indebtedness and the productivity and pay stagnation has reached a breaking point where the majority of people are now actually immiserated and unable to keep up the payments or their subsistence consumption, or both.

[@davidgraeber5046]

Sounds to me like you're on to something.

[@patrickholt2270]

I ask only for attribution, that my enemies might grind their teeth.

[@marciukspuks5353]

this begs the question: where did all this rentierism come from?

[@patrickholt2270]

I think Yannis Varoufakis gives the best explanation that I've seen so far, in _Global Minotaur_ . According to that explanation it arises from the GSRM in which savings from net exporting countries flow back into the USA via Wall Street because of the huge budget deficits and trade deficit the USA has been running since Nixon. To keep that going, the financial sector has had to be completely deregulated, to keep attracting money into speculation, and anti-monopoly controls abandoned, resulting in ever increasing consolidation into fewer and fewer vendors in every market. Market competition naturally produces monopolies unless heavily interfered with to prevent that. Neo-liberalism is the overt ideological counterpart of the Global Minotaur, especially since the big banks have taken over almost all of the world's academic economics departments through sponsorship, purging all other traditions and stopping teaching of the history of economic ideas, to hide the fact from the average graduate that there ever was any more economics. As Marx pointed out, economics never was a science to begin with precisely because of the commercial interests influencing economists to serve their interests by producing arguments to the effect that the only way to make the economy function is to facilitate the rich in their pursuit of further private riches rather than doing anything else, and as Steve Keen has re-iterated so devastatingly in _Debunking Economics_ . Another large issue is the fact that most if not all digital industries are actually based on levying rents on intellectual property, rather than adding value, and the digitisation of the economy, in the form of apps becoming universal and creating brand new giant corporations, like Uber, Google, Facebook and all the rest are all designed as monopolies from the outset, farming our own data and our own creativity to repackage them behind paywalls, as originally pioneered most egregiously by Microsoft. That's something that Mark Blythe and Paul Mason have both written and spoken about very cogently.

[@marciukspuks5353]

it sounds like he saying that usa is relying on foreign savings for local investment. but that is a policy choice, it can be reversed. usa can just increase investments locally by increasing deficit spending or having specialized programs like job guarantee.

[@BrandonBriers]

I only discovered David in the last few months; RIP a true genius and free thinker

[@ChrisPollitt]

Excellent session. He says some brutal truths so casually that their brutalness might be overlooked.

[@metralla]

I had the bullshiest job working ironically for the same university as David Graeber does. I left mainly because of the boredom. I worked 35 hours a week of which 20 were most of the time a waste.

[@maestroadam]

panzerfausto that is still quite productive!!

[@mavenfeliciano1710]

Adam Bernard perhaps not the most b.s. job, yet every hour spent in contemplation of being stagnant is like an eternity. You might as well question the meaning of life and become a philosopher. Do you know not what could be accomplished with all that wasted time? All those hours added up in just one year. Either have a clear reason for your reason of living or don’t bother questioning it as it may lead to depression. Imagine having 20 hours a week you felt you could be more productive, wouldn’t you at least strive for it. This person obviously was feeling denied/deprived of their sense of fulfillment by not be as productive as one could/should have been, and was doing a disservice to self. Good call leaving the job.

[@k.m.jordan4774]

Dude is phenomenal.

[@JoshuaMcTackett]

I studied HR and decided it was BS before starting any jobs. Dodged the whole industry. Now I work in an industry that really does help people, but also causes big societal problems that I am think are worse than the alternative. I do it to pay the mortgage while I work towards what I really want to do

[@RealRuralJapan]

AT LEAST 60% of a nurses time on shift is doing BS admin tasks. Most teachers would actually spend 30% teaching and the rest on admin and classroom management ie- making sure the kids are distracted enough so it doesn’t turn into anarchy. How can anybody think young kids can concentrate for 8 hours 5 days a week? Nurses can’t spend a decent amount of time caring for patients when they are bogged down in paperwork. As a teacher myself if you can get kids to learn well 20% of time you are a superstar. Adults can’t even concentrate for an hour nowadays on anything without fiddling with their phones!

[@rjamesstephens]

This got even more ridiculous over the past year. How the hell do schools expect kids to be attentive while attending online lessons for 8+ hours a day? The expectation is absurd and pretty much pointless. I myself as a grown adult find it depressing and difficult to stare at a screen that long and listen to someone talk. Why should we expect our children to waste their time similarly?

[@anomalousresult]

David Graeber was an anarchist so your pejorative use of the word gave me a giggle.

[@Yano5151]

Universal healthcare could help with the nurse scenario

[@amronemhb2448]

Well said, witness it in my career as well with of unnecessary paperwork. Well it can be tolerated and could be accepted within reason, i think it went out of control and have gone mad beyond control

[@GwackForever]

Catch me listening to this while I do pointless data validation tasks all day

[@cdzlink7115]

I am having a hard time getting a job. I'll take a BS job at this point if someone offered me one.

[@BR-gz3cv]

This book is a must read. It was one of the most eye opening and spot-on books I’ve ever read. It was an epiphany while also infuriating because it’s totally true. We have a society full of complete BS jobs that provide no real benefit or meaning. I include my own experience in corporate management for 20+ years- what a waste.

[@penfro]

Under his proposed system to replace the current broken one, what did he propose as a method to ensure that no one in society had a 'bullshit job'?

[@BR-gz3cv]

@@penfro Graeber states our current system evolved over centuries and its complex. Any alternative would be complex as well but he- and other experts- have suggested a form of UBI (universal basic income) and utilizing available technology would free people from much of the drudgery of BS jobs and improve overall quality of life. They wouldn’t go away completely but it could at least minimize their prominence. The US had the greatest economic boom in its history in the 50s and 60s when tax rates on the wealthiest was over 90% and funded the infrastructure, protected natural lands, and workers had union protections enforcing the 40 hour workweek. We could start there.

[@penfro]

@@BR-gz3cv ‘utilizing available technology’. Wow, now that’s thinking out of the box, who would have thought of that? I attended a Graeber lecture at the Hay festival and it was platitudinous at best. One thing he didn’t mention that was bullshit was the anthropology course he delivered perfunctorily at Goldsmiths. One sees why US universities rejected him. The vibrant US economy of the 50s / 60s was due to the springboard of the aftermath of coming out of WWII on top of the world by a long margin - and oil internationally priced in US$.

[@penfro]

@@BR-gz3cv in the private sector, the costs of keeping uneconomic ‘bulllshit’ jobs is a factor in minimizing their existence - as competitive leaner forces compel a company to respond likewise. Those forces don’t exist in the public sector. It is interesting to note that Greaber never worked outside academia, and never ran a company hiring people.

[@BR-gz3cv]

@@penfro valid point and agree that experience in the corporate world gives better perspective. I spend 30+ years in the corporate world as a C-level exec for a Fortune 100 company and also an entrepreneur running my own and did see a lot of the things he describes while also realizing there are limits to the Utopian ideal he suggests. However, I do think it’s an important topic to be considered with the growing wealth gap and technology changing the very definition of “work” for all of us.

[@JustExtreme]

Rest in power David Graeber

[@jessew7565]

@Andrew McLaughlin shitting on someone paying respect to someone they admire is pretty cringe bro

[@sucklingfatty]

thank you for validating what I realized at 16. Thank you, CRASS

[@BernieHollandMusic]

This made me feel grateful that I don't stand in uniform for hours on end in a Supermarket waiting to catch someone shoplifting

[@perlefisker]

This is nothing less than brilliant. Thank you for sharing.

[@alistairpage-mcgill2723]

I once worked for one of the big 'consultancy' firms, doing repetitive soul-crushing admin outsourced from another big company. My job was dumb but there was a lot of it, but our managers definitely had BS jobs. They were constantly trying to quantify the work we were doing in order to 'demonstrate value' to the client, and this ended up with them trying to get us workers to use an online tool to register every time we stopped or started doing any discrete task. The tool was absurdly slow, and would have at least halved the amount of work we could have done in a day if we'd actually used it how we were supposed to. I left not long after that. My point is: just because someone has a bullshit job, even if they know it's a bullshit job, it doesn't mean they're either competent or deserving of sympathy.

[@Alaktronification]

Is the point of pointless jobs to produce consumers? What do we do with surplus capital is another way to ask the same question.

[@chene-aurelgaudreau1072]

The ubi question kinda touches on this doesn’t it?

[@eadamic17]

I am watching this at work while pretending to do something else. I finished my work for the week on Tuesday morning. I will still be claiming 8 hours for the rest of the week.

[@Mad_S]

Im 24 years old and I found out a long time ago that I cannot work at a business that has a supervisor. I just figured everyone realized this.

[@ryanthepianoman27]

Your getting old

[@Mad_S]

@@ryanthepianoman27 I just wish you weren't the only one who notices, Ryan. Thanks though.

[@doyinawofodu]

The 5 BS jobs: 39:06 Flunkies 39:33 Duct Tapers 40:16 Box Tickers 41:06 Goons 41:45 Taskmasters

[@FidelCastro128]

Politicians

[@Titan-fk2fi]

@@FidelCastro128 Politicians are flunkies where they are hired or exist only because democratic government requires two or more politic bodies to be the government head of decision maker/agenda pushers. If it were to be full monarchy they would simply known as bureaucrat or court officials.

[@Rotwold]

Hahahaha

[@Rotwold]

I love that he included these wierd job titles. As a non-english speaking person I didn't know if they were real or not. I've actually worked as a duct taper and box ticker!

[@Knightonagreyhorse]

One category I know that many are employed not because they do something useful but because they are valuable for the employer in themselves. An example is that close relative like a son in law a nephew or something similar. Really high wages on some sort of in-between manager position, they come and go as they want and do practically nothing. It is an aspect of nepotism.

[@chrisreynolds6391]

Knightonagreyhorse if you are rich it's better to pay your loser kid to stay home. Or have them start a new separate company.

[@samaraisnt]

That's not called "being useful" that just is nepotism. You're literally describing uselessness.

[@StorytellingHeadshots]

That’s called “being a pet.” Lol

[@EyeLean5280]

For the most part, I've been able to avoid BS jobs (or leave quickly when I found myself in one), but I have a kind-hearted husband who's been willing to support me between jobs. Over time, I've gotten jobs with less and less BS involved until now, when I'm in a job with absolutely no BS at all - nothing but being happy genuinely helping others. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of work involved, but it's all worthwhile, effective work and nothing else. I wish everyone could have the same.

[@veronicachic]

What specifically is the job?

[@JJ-vp3bd]

whats the job>

[@Iamthepossum]

While I would to know your line of work as well; it is important to recognize that we each define what is 'worthwhile, effective work' for us, within the sphere of our lives and our days on this Earth. I suspect that others who ask about your chosen work do so in despair; their lives defined by hollow, fruitless and ineffective 'work'; now grasping at life meaning, that having been extorted from them by their corporate slave owners, and a society seemingly designed to extract and extort all, for the benefit of a handful of people.

[@newagain9964]

so ur actual job is pimping ur man. got it. not uncommon for females. divorce/alimony later in life (50s) is where its really at tho $$! i'm sure u have it planned out tho.

[@clark_cant]

Graeber is on point.

[@miltonwelch4177]

RIP David.

[@KilgoreTroutAsf]

One thing I have noticed having been at both sides of bureaucracy is how a coping mechanism for the lack and futility of labor is to create unnecessary work by asking way too many questions or arguing the finer print of the regulations back and forth with your comrades or the end user. An alternative and a personal favorite is to go waaaay out of your way to completely solve some relatively trivial question or problem. This is also related to the performativity of work, i.e. you have to LOOK like you are doing something. No matter how trivial or below your pay grade. Kind of related to Parkinson's law of triviality.

[@legalfictionnaturalfact3969]

A bunch of corporate lawyers, HR managers, and CEOs disliked this. Guess why. XD

[@owlnyc666]

I wonder if they had something to do with death?

[@legalfictionnaturalfact3969]

@@owlnyc666 yeah, i think the official story on that deserves investigation. i need to get on that and read through the news articles for discrepancies, one way comm, little "jokes", etc...

[@LuckysLair]

2023: I just retired after 20 years as a firefighter, worked my way up to a station/shift Lieutenant. Best career/job I ever had, helping people and working with my colleagues to serve the public in their time of need was worthwhile. I had plenty of jobs prior to that, doing various tasks, but it was the best.

[@5Gazto]

Absolutely brilliant.

[@daithiocinnsealach3173]

Life itself is a mockery and we're all too afraid to admit it.

[@Pepestock]

Edge lord R/iqm14andthisisdeep is calling for you 😂

[@zingclassy6457]

This was extremely insightful. I'm getting this book now.

[@leonorabrandscheit]

it's like a time travel coming back to this video. who knows this feeling? years ago i watched it, because someone send it to me, but i wasn't interested in it. now i am, because i found my way here on my own.

[@CaseyBusiness]

"I consider myself something of an anthropologist" - The Green Graeblin at 4:39 RIP David

[@UDLXXL]

I'm a graphic designer, which is useful... but the majority of stuff I work on is BS and does not need to exist in my opinion

[@aaronwebb1548]

Maybe we should take a page out of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. "The Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B was a way of removing the basically useless citizens from the planet of Golgafrincham. A variety of stories were formed about the doom of the planet, such as blowing up, crashing into the sun or being eaten by a mutant star goat. The ship was filled with all the middlemen of Golgafrincham, such as the telephone sanitisers, account executives, hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives, and management consultants. "Ark Fleet ships A and C were supposed to carry the people who ruled, thought, or actually did useful work."

[@traceycroxford8880]

Fabulous presentation and so humorous.A wonderful person who must be very much missed!

[@bunyipz2040]

I used to work as a drafty and the company would come to me with a job and say you have 10 billable hours to get this done. I'd have it done in 30mins and wonder what to do with the rest of my time. I was a trainee for half the time there and that was the biggest bit of the training I got. Learn how to look busy. It lead to a lot of guilt and me getting a different job.

[@phaeton01]

thats whats called an 'intellectual haircut'

[@jamesduff6937]

Hehe.. I was thinking the same!

[@mistersir3020]

pretty severe alopecia, probably due to a nutrient deficiency

[@aa.4639]

I was a shop manager for a long time. I love working with people! But more and more time was spent filing out forms and pushing some stupid agenda that the company had. What about actually taking time to talk and listen to the customer? What about building a bond and giving the customer a quality experience? Nope. We were nothing but robots and the customers were just numbers.

[@edgeeffect]

I remember years ago, I had a massively bullshit job and a bullshit manager who was never there (he was either out with his mistress or at the gym) - It was one of the best jobs I've ever had because I had a computer terminal and access to a laser printer (in the days where these weren't that common) and a lot of friends who were in underground publishing... "give your stuff to me", I used to say, "I'll typeset it really nice for you whilst I'm sitting round at my bullshit job." And I got paid quite a reasonable salary for helping create underground magazines that could never afford to pay me.

[@darrenschroeder7782]

Reallly enjoyed the talk. Your a breathe of fresh air and present a sort of truth that society uses all of its cruel capiltalist might to keep the door closed on...

[@Wetworks_Arclight]

Two of the biggest bullshit job titles today are 1) social media influencer and 2) brand ambassador.

[@esonon5210]

I can go an entire week without having work to do, with maybe updating a slide here and there. I stopped feeling bad and am planning to do a side hustle, especially since we can work from home now.

[@abcd123906]

Part of me thinks that it's not so much bullshit jobs that are the problem, it's that there are way more people on payroll at many companies than there really need to be to get all the work done. So the most conscientious people end up doing most or all of the work, and then everyone else slacks off because there's not much to do. A huge problem in itself, no doubt, but a somewhat different problem.

[@magiccarpetmusic2449]

Graeber was one of the most brilliant, insightful and humane social commentators of our time.