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>>Eliminating them to reduce overhead is a no-brainer. Having read David Graeber's original article and his follow up book, I believe he went to some lengths t
by rgblambda 6y ago
>>Eliminating them to reduce overhead is a no-brainer.
Having read David Graeber's original article and his follow up book, I believe he went to some lengths to explain why those jobs are so difficult to remove.
Jordon Peterson has also touched on this subject in one of his less controversial lectures. He uses Price's law to explain the proliferation of these jobs, the subsequent demise of the organisation when the handful of useful workers leave, and also that the remaining employees are unable to step up when this happens.
I prefer Peterson's interpretation, mainly because Graeber is quite fundamentalist in his view that a job is either bullshit or it isn't. Peterson's view is that large numbers of employees do productive work but that it is minimal in comparison to the few very productive workers.
- pwdisswordfish2 6y agoI think there are more than just those two interpetations. I also think more people than Graeber have been aware of the existence of BS jobs for a long time. What is nice about the Wikipedia page is that it acknowledges that BS jobs "is a thing". Perhaps it facilitates more open discussion of the phenomenon. SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 may be facilitating the discussion even more as it has forced people to consider what jobs are "essential" versus what logically can be referred to as "non-essential". I have seen one commenter on HN raise the issue of why pay does appear to correlate with whether a job is essential or not. Perhaps this is something more people will start to think about.