5 ms·

If you ever worked in a corporate environment for at least a day, you will not need a scientific paper to understand that bullshit jobs is in fact a thing and i

If you ever worked in a corporate environment for at least a day, you will not need a scientific paper to understand that bullshit jobs is in fact a thing and it is quite real.

an_opabinia 5y ago
Yeah. > Furthermore, those who work in clerical and administrative jobs are far less likely to view their jobs as useless than those who are employed in roles that Mr Graeber regarded as essential, such as refuse collection and cleaning. If your survey of 44,000 workers across 35 countries found that admins view their jobs as not useless, your survey is fucked.
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  I have a hard time believing that garbage men and janitors would describe their jobs as useless. They may be undesirable (to some) but there is no argument whatsoever to be made for them being useless.
  - courtf 5y ago
    It may just be the common perceptions of these jobs are so pervasive, it influences the worker's own assessment. It's certainly in character for the bureaucrats to consider their jobs to be important. Desensitized to petty politics and constant surveillance, they probably thought their answers would get back to their boss, and didn't want to appear redundant.
MichaelMoser123 5y ago
i suspect that economics is something of a bullshit science, where they draw arbitrary conclusions from hand picked data; (In this case one could ask both sides on what kind of professions they were surveying) also economists always act surprised when a real event like the great recession or great depression happens; other social sciences seem to be less detached from actual reality.
- thirdplace_ 5y ago
  I also had this suspicion for some time. In reality they have a large amount of premises in their economic models which must be true in order for the conclusion to follow. Also there is e.g. a large amount of empiric data supporting minimum-wage laws are beneficial and also a large ammount of empiric data showing it's harmful! Conslusion: there are no solutions only tradeoffs.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Its weird to see people completely dismiss an entire field just because they disagree with it. If someone said the exact same thing about another social science, like sociology or gender studies, it would see a pretty big pushback in the same circles that dismiss economics. And I frankly I don't see how you could argue that modern economics are more prone to arbitrary conclusions and cherry picking than idk say psychology or race studies. Btw I'm curious, do you have an example of economists being surprised by a recession? Because they usually don't claim to be able to predict one in the first place. There's a huge difference between pop econ columnists who write clickbait predictions and the actual academic consensus in the field.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    1. Some of the harshest criticisms of economics (both orthodox and heterodox) comes from ... economists. 2. Some of the harshest criticism of other social sciences comes from ... economists. (Notably of sociology, though also variously ecology, systems theory, and cybernetics.) 3. The 2007-8 Global Financial Crisis rocked mainstream economics to its core. a) Queen Elizabeth famously asked why nobody saw it coming (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/3386353/The-Queen-asks-why-no-one-saw-the-credit-crunch-coming.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/33863...), the failure is b) called the "Crisis of Economics" (https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-did-economists-not-foresee-the-crisis https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-did-economi... and c) Nobel Laureate in economics Paul Krugman has asked "why economics failed" (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/opinion/krugman-why-economics-failed.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/opinion/krugman-why-econo...). None of which is "pop economists".
ncmncm 5y ago
One thing true at all times and places: there is plenty of bullshit to stuff every category you can think of, with more left over. Bullshit that doesn't benefit employers, bullshit that doesn't benefit customers, bullshit that doesn't benefit governments, bullshit that doesn't benefit citizens.

If you ever worked in a corporate environment for at least a day, you will not need a scientific paper to understand that bullshit jobs is in fact a thing and it is quite real.

an_opabinia 5y ago

Yeah. > Furthermore, those who work in clerical and administrative jobs are far less likely to view their jobs as useless than those who are employed in roles that Mr Graeber regarded as essential, such as refuse collection and cleaning. If your survey of 44,000 workers across 35 countries found that admins view their jobs as not useless, your survey is fucked.

DangitBobby 5y ago
I have a hard time believing that garbage men and janitors would describe their jobs as useless. They may be undesirable (to some) but there is no argument whatsoever to be made for them being useless.
- courtf 5y ago
  It may just be the common perceptions of these jobs are so pervasive, it influences the worker's own assessment. It's certainly in character for the bureaucrats to consider their jobs to be important. Desensitized to petty politics and constant surveillance, they probably thought their answers would get back to their boss, and didn't want to appear redundant.

MichaelMoser123 5y ago

i suspect that economics is something of a bullshit science, where they draw arbitrary conclusions from hand picked data; (In this case one could ask both sides on what kind of professions they were surveying) also economists always act surprised when a real event like the great recession or great depression happens; other social sciences seem to be less detached from actual reality.

thirdplace_ 5y ago
I also had this suspicion for some time. In reality they have a large amount of premises in their economic models which must be true in order for the conclusion to follow. Also there is e.g. a large amount of empiric data supporting minimum-wage laws are beneficial and also a large ammount of empiric data showing it's harmful! Conslusion: there are no solutions only tradeoffs.
mardifoufs 5y ago
Its weird to see people completely dismiss an entire field just because they disagree with it. If someone said the exact same thing about another social science, like sociology or gender studies, it would see a pretty big pushback in the same circles that dismiss economics. And I frankly I don't see how you could argue that modern economics are more prone to arbitrary conclusions and cherry picking than idk say psychology or race studies. Btw I'm curious, do you have an example of economists being surprised by a recession? Because they usually don't claim to be able to predict one in the first place. There's a huge difference between pop econ columnists who write clickbait predictions and the actual academic consensus in the field.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  1. Some of the harshest criticisms of economics (both orthodox and heterodox) comes from ... economists. 2. Some of the harshest criticism of other social sciences comes from ... economists. (Notably of sociology, though also variously ecology, systems theory, and cybernetics.) 3. The 2007-8 Global Financial Crisis rocked mainstream economics to its core. a) Queen Elizabeth famously asked why nobody saw it coming (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/3386353/The-Queen-asks-why-no-one-saw-the-credit-crunch-coming.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/33863...), the failure is b) called the "Crisis of Economics" (https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-did-economists-not-foresee-the-crisis https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-did-economi... and c) Nobel Laureate in economics Paul Krugman has asked "why economics failed" (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/opinion/krugman-why-economics-failed.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/opinion/krugman-why-econo...). None of which is "pop economists".

ncmncm 5y ago

One thing true at all times and places: there is plenty of bullshit to stuff every category you can think of, with more left over. Bullshit that doesn't benefit employers, bullshit that doesn't benefit customers, bullshit that doesn't benefit governments, bullshit that doesn't benefit citizens.