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So he mischaracterized one misunderstood job. Does that invalidate the whole theory? Has every administrator role this critic encountered been useful and wort

So he mischaracterized one misunderstood job. Does that invalidate the whole theory? Has every administrator role this critic encountered been useful and worthwhile? Also, this criticism only really addresses the first, taxonomic part of the book, which was by far the least interesting.

chris_wot 8y ago
He mischaracterized at least three seperate jobs in the posted article. He mischaracterized the worth of compliance personnel, corporate lawyers, and PR team members.
rayiner 8y ago
> Does that invalidate the whole theory? David Graeber is, as far as I can tell, a professor of anthropology. Which means he doesn't have domain expertise in any of the areas he's criticizing. Indeed, I could (flippantly, but honestly) say that I think "professor of anthropology" is a bullshit job, but then again I'm a severely left-brain guy and I'm going to assume there is a social value there that's just going over my head. To put things another way: my wife once asked me what my interest was programming-wise. I told her it was compilers and programming languages. And she asked: well, don't they have those already? I strongly suspect if people get a 3% exposure to programming (e.g. writing yet another JS framework), like Graeber is doing with the various jobs he talks about, they'd think that programming is also full of "bullshit jobs." But that would be a conclusion arising out of ignorance.
- majewsky 8y ago
  I think the difference between an anthropologist like Graeber and an economist like Cowen is that they observe the system at different levels. Cowen judges the value of jobs from "inside the system" (with the system = contemporary capitalism), whereas Graeber takes a perspective outside the system and argues that the "zero/negative-sum game" (as Cowen said) is the problem. To illustrate with a drastic example: Suppose you have two workers, one who digs holes and one who shovels the same dirt back into the hole to close it. Outside the system, it's obvious that they're not doing any meaningful work. Inside the system, there's probably some argument why these jobs are useful. (Maybe government regulations require that their company dig at least X holes per month. Or you could argue that it's good because it increases GDP or reduces unemployment.)
- throw_away2 8y ago
  Programming is full of bullshit jobs. I worked at a tech megacorp where one senior developer ended up with a single commit after 12 months on the job. I'm sure you've seen instances where individual roles or even whole teams have been replaced by a couple thousand lines of automation. And I don't know how widespread this is, but I've seen cases where senior managers will just hire people whether they need them or not to inflate their headcount. I'm not going to defend every single professor of anthropology, but "studying human societies and cultures and their development" sounds like a useful thing in general and is exactly what this work is.

chris_wot 8y ago

He mischaracterized at least three seperate jobs in the posted article. He mischaracterized the worth of compliance personnel, corporate lawyers, and PR team members.

rayiner 8y ago

> Does that invalidate the whole theory? David Graeber is, as far as I can tell, a professor of anthropology. Which means he doesn't have domain expertise in any of the areas he's criticizing. Indeed, I could (flippantly, but honestly) say that I think "professor of anthropology" is a bullshit job, but then again I'm a severely left-brain guy and I'm going to assume there is a social value there that's just going over my head. To put things another way: my wife once asked me what my interest was programming-wise. I told her it was compilers and programming languages. And she asked: well, don't they have those already? I strongly suspect if people get a 3% exposure to programming (e.g. writing yet another JS framework), like Graeber is doing with the various jobs he talks about, they'd think that programming is also full of "bullshit jobs." But that would be a conclusion arising out of ignorance.

majewsky 8y ago
I think the difference between an anthropologist like Graeber and an economist like Cowen is that they observe the system at different levels. Cowen judges the value of jobs from "inside the system" (with the system = contemporary capitalism), whereas Graeber takes a perspective outside the system and argues that the "zero/negative-sum game" (as Cowen said) is the problem. To illustrate with a drastic example: Suppose you have two workers, one who digs holes and one who shovels the same dirt back into the hole to close it. Outside the system, it's obvious that they're not doing any meaningful work. Inside the system, there's probably some argument why these jobs are useful. (Maybe government regulations require that their company dig at least X holes per month. Or you could argue that it's good because it increases GDP or reduces unemployment.)
throw_away2 8y ago
Programming is full of bullshit jobs. I worked at a tech megacorp where one senior developer ended up with a single commit after 12 months on the job. I'm sure you've seen instances where individual roles or even whole teams have been replaced by a couple thousand lines of automation. And I don't know how widespread this is, but I've seen cases where senior managers will just hire people whether they need them or not to inflate their headcount. I'm not going to defend every single professor of anthropology, but "studying human societies and cultures and their development" sounds like a useful thing in general and is exactly what this work is.