sammy_'s review against another edition
5.0
This book is, as the title suggests, a commentary on the proliferation of so-called “bullshit jobs” - jobs of which part or all of the associated activities are actually pointless. The author is an anthropology professor and as well as identifying the nature and types of “bullshit” jobs, it also looks at the very nature of work, and what we understand its purpose to be, in order to understand why a supposedly capitalist society that prioritises efficiency would have so many people pushing paper around, ticking boxes, documenting that they’ve done the things they do, and generally pretending to be busy.
I was interested to note that some other reviews accused the book of being a one-sided rant, unrooted in data or scientific opinion, and overly relying on “anecdotal evidence”, namely the contributions of hundreds of workers around the world who responded to the author’s viral article on the subject.
Well, beside the fact that the book seemed to quote many anthropological thinkers and had about 250 footnotes, I’m also not sure that there’s anything bad about a one-sided rant based on anecdotal evidence, if said rant perfectly sums up and explains everything you feel about modern work, to a potentially life-changing degree.
Sure, don’t quote it in your anthropology thesis, I guess? But if you’re somebody with a quiet nagging voice inside which constantly whispers: “what’s the point of all this??” then this book may give you the answers you’ve been looking for.
P.S. I highlighted 190 sections of this book. Prepare to highlight, a lot, whilst shouting “OMG EXACTLY”. Probably get the Kindle version for this reason.
I was interested to note that some other reviews accused the book of being a one-sided rant, unrooted in data or scientific opinion, and overly relying on “anecdotal evidence”, namely the contributions of hundreds of workers around the world who responded to the author’s viral article on the subject.
Well, beside the fact that the book seemed to quote many anthropological thinkers and had about 250 footnotes, I’m also not sure that there’s anything bad about a one-sided rant based on anecdotal evidence, if said rant perfectly sums up and explains everything you feel about modern work, to a potentially life-changing degree.
Sure, don’t quote it in your anthropology thesis, I guess? But if you’re somebody with a quiet nagging voice inside which constantly whispers: “what’s the point of all this??” then this book may give you the answers you’ve been looking for.
P.S. I highlighted 190 sections of this book. Prepare to highlight, a lot, whilst shouting “OMG EXACTLY”. Probably get the Kindle version for this reason.
raoul_g's review against another edition
4.0
According to the investigations of David Graeber, roughly two out of every five jobs are bullshit. He defines a bullshit job like this:
"[A] bullshit job is a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence."
More than this, polls show that a great majority of the people who think their job is meaningless also feel that their job is personally unfulfilling. The book contains the testimonies of many who report even feeling miserable and depressed by the pointlessness of their jobs.
How can all this be explained? Economist John Maynard Keynes asserted in 1930 that by the twenty-first century, technological advances would result in the adoption of a 15-hour workweek in developed countries. We sure did see immense technological advances, with machines, computers and algorithms, that increased the productivity of our economy manifold, but it seems that these advances are not at all reflected in how much we work. Many fear that technology will cause many people to lose their jobs, but the truth is that this already happened in the last decades. Except that instead of the overall employment declining, we have an enormous increase in bullshit jobs needed to fill the gap. This raises the question of why we would have to fill the gap at all? The reasons behind his might be a bit more complicated, but I think they can partly be traced back to our attitude regarding work. Even today we are under the heavy influence of the sixteenth-century puritan work ethic that teaches that work is punishment and redemption and should be pursued as an end in itself (regardless of its usefulness): "We have become a civilization based on work—not even 'productive work' but work as an end and meaning in itself." Most people's sense of self-worth is closely tied to their jobs. If you ask people "what they do", they will almost always tell you about their job. This might seem normal, as we are used to this, but it also shows a lot about our thinking as a society. Imagine a society where this question is answered not by a job description, but by what people really are passionate about, like playing the guitar, reading or gardening.
Another important question that is raised, is how it is possible for such large number of bullshit jobs to even exist under capitalism. Why would profit-seeking businesses employ people for doing useless things? While there are some motives more directly connected to the type of bullshit job and its benefit for the employer (e.g. "flunkies" employed to make the employer or the organization look more important, "boxtickers" employed to prove the organization is doing something although this might often not be the case), I think the bigger picture is more interesting here. Graeber suggests that politicians are actively colluding to maintain bullshit jobs. In order to support this, he gives the example of a comment Barack Obama made, suggesting that abandoning America’s privatized health-insurance system in favor of a single-payer model would save billions of dollars in insurance and administration, but that those savings would represent the loss of "one million, two million, three million jobs". "What are we doing with them? Where are we employing them?", asks Obama. Basically Obama admitted here that millions of jobs at medical insurance companies are bullshit and that a socialized health system would be more efficient than the current market-based system, since it would reduce unnecessary paperwork and reduplication of effort by dozens of competing private firms. But exactly the efficiency of such a socialized health system is what makes it undesirable from a political perspective. “It’s hard to imagine a surer sign that one is dealing with an irrational economic system than the fact that the prospect of eliminating drudgery is considered to be a problem.”
Graeber ends the book with a short discussion of universal basic income. Universal basic income could mean a rebalance of power between the employee and the employer. No employee would be forced to keep working a bullshit job that is making him miserable, if he could quit with no financial consequences. This in turn would enable people to choose work that is valuable and personally fulfilling.
I'll end the review with Graeber's own ending of the book:
“If we let everyone decide for themselves how they were best fit to benefit humanity, with no restrictions at all, how could they possibly end up with a distribution of labor more inefficient than the one we already have? This is a powerful argument for human freedom. Most of us like to talk about freedom in the abstract, even claim that it's the most important thing for anyone to fight or die for, but we don't think a lot about what being free or practicing freedom might actually mean. The main point of this book was not to propose concrete policy prescriptions, but to start us thinking about arguing about what a genuine free society might actually be like.”
"[A] bullshit job is a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence."
More than this, polls show that a great majority of the people who think their job is meaningless also feel that their job is personally unfulfilling. The book contains the testimonies of many who report even feeling miserable and depressed by the pointlessness of their jobs.
How can all this be explained? Economist John Maynard Keynes asserted in 1930 that by the twenty-first century, technological advances would result in the adoption of a 15-hour workweek in developed countries. We sure did see immense technological advances, with machines, computers and algorithms, that increased the productivity of our economy manifold, but it seems that these advances are not at all reflected in how much we work. Many fear that technology will cause many people to lose their jobs, but the truth is that this already happened in the last decades. Except that instead of the overall employment declining, we have an enormous increase in bullshit jobs needed to fill the gap. This raises the question of why we would have to fill the gap at all? The reasons behind his might be a bit more complicated, but I think they can partly be traced back to our attitude regarding work. Even today we are under the heavy influence of the sixteenth-century puritan work ethic that teaches that work is punishment and redemption and should be pursued as an end in itself (regardless of its usefulness): "We have become a civilization based on work—not even 'productive work' but work as an end and meaning in itself." Most people's sense of self-worth is closely tied to their jobs. If you ask people "what they do", they will almost always tell you about their job. This might seem normal, as we are used to this, but it also shows a lot about our thinking as a society. Imagine a society where this question is answered not by a job description, but by what people really are passionate about, like playing the guitar, reading or gardening.
Another important question that is raised, is how it is possible for such large number of bullshit jobs to even exist under capitalism. Why would profit-seeking businesses employ people for doing useless things? While there are some motives more directly connected to the type of bullshit job and its benefit for the employer (e.g. "flunkies" employed to make the employer or the organization look more important, "boxtickers" employed to prove the organization is doing something although this might often not be the case), I think the bigger picture is more interesting here. Graeber suggests that politicians are actively colluding to maintain bullshit jobs. In order to support this, he gives the example of a comment Barack Obama made, suggesting that abandoning America’s privatized health-insurance system in favor of a single-payer model would save billions of dollars in insurance and administration, but that those savings would represent the loss of "one million, two million, three million jobs". "What are we doing with them? Where are we employing them?", asks Obama. Basically Obama admitted here that millions of jobs at medical insurance companies are bullshit and that a socialized health system would be more efficient than the current market-based system, since it would reduce unnecessary paperwork and reduplication of effort by dozens of competing private firms. But exactly the efficiency of such a socialized health system is what makes it undesirable from a political perspective. “It’s hard to imagine a surer sign that one is dealing with an irrational economic system than the fact that the prospect of eliminating drudgery is considered to be a problem.”
Graeber ends the book with a short discussion of universal basic income. Universal basic income could mean a rebalance of power between the employee and the employer. No employee would be forced to keep working a bullshit job that is making him miserable, if he could quit with no financial consequences. This in turn would enable people to choose work that is valuable and personally fulfilling.
I'll end the review with Graeber's own ending of the book:
“If we let everyone decide for themselves how they were best fit to benefit humanity, with no restrictions at all, how could they possibly end up with a distribution of labor more inefficient than the one we already have? This is a powerful argument for human freedom. Most of us like to talk about freedom in the abstract, even claim that it's the most important thing for anyone to fight or die for, but we don't think a lot about what being free or practicing freedom might actually mean. The main point of this book was not to propose concrete policy prescriptions, but to start us thinking about arguing about what a genuine free society might actually be like.”
hushed's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
estav's review against another edition
5.0
I couldn’t recommend this book enough - what an eye opening and thought provoking read. I finally feel like I have come away from a book having learnt something, rather than having things I already know confirmed. While some parts did go over my head, Graebers account of bullshit jobs will certainly stick with me throughout my life. Read this book!