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The root cause is complexity. People don't understand their jobs: sometimes they are told to do stupid things, other times they do useful things but they think
by zby 8y ago
The root cause is complexity. People don't understand their jobs: sometimes they are told to do stupid things, other times they do useful things but they think they are useless. Companies always relied on their employees to adjust their work to the overall goal - if they cannot understand the whole structure then this crucial organizational maintenance fails. If they see that their reports are not read - then they or their bosses should intervene - but now people don't understand what is the purpose of those reports, who should read them and why.
Another thing is that in a complex organization there are many internal zero-sum mini-games - bosses that employ people only to increase their own importance, etc - then the job of these employees must be kind of useless. But the root cause of that is the same - it is the job of the boss of the boss (or maybe the CEO, or the board or the owner) to reduce that, but they don't because the complexity hides it. And then those mini-games add to the complexity itself creating a positive feedback loop.
Jobs like lobbyists or corporate lawyers or much of PR departments are also about zero-sum games - but in a bigger organization - the nation as a whole. Military is a zero-sum game on yet bigger scale.
- mseebach 8y agoI was with you until the end, but none of those functions are inherently zero-sum. Perhaps it's mostly a nit-pick, but zero-sum has a very specific meaning, and it isn't "stuff we wish we didn't have to do", which seems to be the unifying factor in those functions.
- zby 8y agoWhich particular one you think is not zero-sum? Military is kind of obviously zero-sum - the others are a bit more mixed - but the waste is in their zero-sum function (and the examples are not mine - they are from the article).
- mseebach 8y agoMilitary in the sense that it deters attack can be massively positive-sum, depending on how you account for the value of not being attacked and maintaining national sovereignty. Military in the sense of, let's say, the Iraq invasion turned out to be massively negative-sum (but would have been massively positive-sum if the rosy optimistic nation-building intentions had worked). On the other hand, the Balkan interventions of the 90's were probably positive-sum, at least when you include the peace and relative prosperity enabled there, and not just limited to benefits in the home countries of the militaries involved. Graeber call these jobs "bullshit" or "useless", he doesn't to my knowledge call them zero-sum (and I didn't see that term used in the article?). My point was to agree with you that these jobs seem useless, but probably aren't, because exactly as you describe, of complexity (generally, of course, individual instances may well prove to be useless).
- zby 8y agoMy point was that military is a zero-sum (or technically negative sum) in the game between nations (that was the meaning 'on a bigger scale').
- tome 8y agoSure, if you think the "game between nations" is scored on how much territory one occupies, rather than how prosperous the nations are.
- zby 8y agoCan you explain how military makes a nation prosperous? Somehow I cannot comment deeper in this thread - so I'll comment here. Defending territory is not making it prosperous. If nations did not attack each other with their armies they would not need armies to defend them from that, and they all would be more prosperous.
- tome 8y agomseebach has already covered that.
- senorjazz 8y agoProtecting foreign "interests" you have control of? Bending foreign countries to do your will? Out right stealing of lands? Britain did very well off the back and resources of foreign countries due to their military from southern Asia. See Spain in Latan America. France in West Africa. US picking up the pieces of the remnants of the Spanish empire. These things were not accomplished due to the kindness and beneign-ness of the dominating force - regardless of what the home country was told (Britain: civilising the natives, US: bring democracy etc etc)
- tome 8y agoThat would be more towards the zero (or negative) sum end of things ...
- zentiggr 8y agoFormer submariner: The military is about as far from zero-sum as you can get. Gear is manufactured, used, worn out and discarded, at surprisingly high cost overall. Soldiers are recruited, trained, serve, and leave. Training funds, time, and gear are necessary but never recouped. Every military operation of any scale uses food/fuel/every other supply imaginable - all used and lost from other productive use. Every 'build a civilization' game ever assigns expenses to military units created, never any production value. (Ok, military R&D is sometimes practical and useful outside of the military... a small sop in an other wise large sinkhole.)
- luk32 8y agoWell you buy the effect of discouraging the potential enemy. It's like the nukes. You rarely buy power to really exert it, more often it's just for the possibility.
- IdiocyInAction 8y agoI think he means it in a sense that you have to have one as a nation and the more powerful yours is, the less other countries can project power. Though nukes change this IMHO.
- Abekkus 8y agonukes only threatened to change this, drones will change this.
- nucleardog 8y agoI read it more that in the grand scheme of things, the only reason that those things exist to balance themselves--they don't create any value on their own. If the other guy has no military, we need no military. If the other guy builds a bigger military, we build a bigger military. If the other guy doesn't spend on marketing, we don't need to spend on marketing. If the other guy invests heavily in marketing, we need a bigger marketing push. There's only ever a gain in the system if there's an imbalance. Looking at it simplistically, if everyone collectively decided to stop at once, there'd be no need for those things anymore.
- cyberpunk0 8y agoNo the root cause are most jobs are useless wastes of human life whose hollow purpose is simply to make executives rich and further their power while workers scrape by