Is Your Job Bullshit? David Graeber on Capitalism’s Endless Busywork

commune-or-nothing:

David Graeber had a hypothesis. The anthropologist grew up working-class in New York, and while his scholarship garnered accolades, he’s never felt at home in the world of academia. From his time as a professor at Yale (ended prematurely, he believes, due to his anarchist activism) to his current gig at the London School of Economics, he kept running into professional managers who didn’t seem to do much. Over drinks, some confessed they actually didn’t do much; they spent a few hours a week working and the rest browsing cat memes.

Graeber developed a suspicion that this was rather common and, in 2013, wrote an essay for Strike! magazine, “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” It was just a hypothesis—halfway a joke—but the piece was translated into at least a dozen languages and reprinted all over the internet, where it elicited floods of comments from people saying: “I have a bullshit job.”

A subsequent YouGov survey found that 37 percent of British workers believe their job makes no “meaningful contribution to the world”—more than Graeber expected. So, he dug deeper, soliciting testimonials and researching the political, cultural and economic structures that encourage millions of people to effectively waste 40 hours a week. The result is Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, a playful and provocative take on what he calls “a scar across our collective soul.” In These Times spoke to Graeber about the jobs problem, its causes and the future of capitalism.

How did you determine what counts as a “bullshit job”?

DG: I’m not going to tell anyone who thinks their job is meaningful and important that it isn’t. People weren’t saying, “I market selfie sticks, selfie sticks are stupid, that’s a bullshit job.” They assumed that, if someone actually wants something, then it’s not bullshit. They weren’t judgmental about consumer taste.

A bullshit job is a job that the person doing it believes is pointless, and if the job didn’t exist it would either make no difference whatsoever or it would make the world a better place.

Is Your Job Bullshit? David Graeber on Capitalism’s Endless Busywork

skiptomy:

systlin:

lewd-plants:

systlin:

jedifish81:

systlin:

lewd-plants:

systlin:

lewd-plants:

New goddess idea: She’s an earth goddess of the new age who’s domain is spinning and weaving, but specifically spinning and weaving gigantic structural steel cables for construction and other industrial purposes. Her skin is steel grey and hard to the touch and her hair is like long dredlocks of woven steel. She laughs at shitty architecture deigns that will fall apart if actually built and protects well-made bridges and buildings she likes. She might warn you of unforseen danger if you always wear your proper PPE.

Okay now what do I name her

O’sha. 

Obviously 

THAT’S PERFECT

I AM ALWAYS HERE FOR QUALITY WORKPLACE SAFETY REGULATION PUNS

That’s my goddess. 👍🏻

May O’sha bless you with earplugs that are comfortable and respirators that fit perfectly. 

And good steel. Always good steel.

May your steel deliveries be always on time and your rebar strong

I’m just gonna…. put this here…..

hope you don’t mind

lisuje:

thedaniverse:

I am a little high but what if people proposed with beautiful, intricate knives. Ladies would gather around the table and be like “guess what finally happened!!” And pull this beautiful, intricate dagger out of her purse and all the other ladies would gasp and congratulate her

That would be infinitely more useful and desirable than a ring

tariqah:

tariqah:

Man: writes about how he wants to fuck his students or writes about how he wants to sleep with a 17 year old

Men reading that: Wow this is so deep like legit this is a real question about the human condition because I too have a dilemma about whether or not I want to commit statutory rape

People later when the film gets adapted: u don’t understand this about another time!!!! People weren’t so rigid about age gaps and underage sex in 2009 sweetie 🙂

really, the only thing i’ve seen that’s a negative for the minimum wage increase in my area is that (some) jobs that previously paid reasonably well, comparatively speaking, are now minimum wage

i mean, obviously most of that can be blamed on employers for not bothering to raise wages accordingly, but still

officialprydonchapter:

Where did suggestion blogs, like… come from?

I don’t remember any slow trickle into the mainstream like most memes have. I don’t even remember anyone being like “okay this is a thing now.” I just remember that one morning I woke up and there were all these blogs following the template of “(insert emotion)suggestion” and then other people had suggestion blogs based around different character types/tropes, like robotsuggestion or aliensuggestion or herosuggestion, which I guess can be used as general roleplay/creative expression outlets or a way to express brainweird feels, I get that much. And then there were suggestion blogs catered to different demographics, like, autisticsuggestion or transboysuggestion or whatever. And don’t even get me started on the parodies… so, so many parodies…

I mean, to a certain extent I understand why they’re a thing, and I’ve tried to run a few of my own, but I fail to grok the phenomenon even now that the trend has mostly died down. Can someone help me understand? It’s been eating at me since like early 2016.

I can’t help you with the appeal since I honestly don’t get it either, but I think it’s interesting how they suddenly exploded into being for you since, on my dash at least, it was a very gradual climb from one suggestion blog -> another, similarly themed suggestion blog -> a couple of less similarly themed blogs, and so on 

I guess the people I follow got into it earlier (and more slowly) than yours did?

idek where I was gonna go with this

animalcollectivism:

animalcollectivism:

gender nonconforming trans women are fucking awesome and brave tbh, there’s a lot of pressure to perform femininity, especially for trans women (institutionally, trans healthcare all but fucking REQUIRES IT in order to transition) and you are no less female for going against that pressure. this goes double for TWOC, especially black and latina trans women. honestly just shout out to gender nonconforming women everywhere, cis and trans alike.

yall can reblog if u want btw, im sure there’s plenty gnc trans women on here who could use some encouragement today, I know I could