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>The stated fact is that there are people doing jobs that they personally do not believe are necessary or useful to society at large. Except that the article s

by simonh 5y ago

>The stated fact is that there are people doing jobs that they personally do not believe are necessary or useful to society at large. Except that the article shows that this just isn't the case, depending what you mean by 'society at large'. Gerber's question was about a 'meaningful contribution to the world', but if you ask people if they are doing useful work you get completely different statistics. It looks like slipping in the phrase 'the world' in the question sets a completely unrealistic and for most people unattainable standard, but jobs don't have to be world changing to be worthwhile.

bhaak 5y ago
How about going backwards from Graeber's line of thought. His conclusion in the book is to introduce a universal basic income to get rid of bullshit jobs. If we turn that around the question becomes: How many jobs (and what kind of jobs) would still be there if people had UBI and wouldn't need to work for a living?
- simonh 5y ago
  You're assuming the premise implicitly, that there are a large number of bulshit jobs, but Gerber did not show this and his evidence for it is thoroughly discredited. If there are in fact very few bulshit jobs, the 'problem' of how to deal with them is moot. I know the popular image of UBI is a paradise where nobody needs to work anymore, but that's not actually the basis of actual UBI policy proposals. It's really just a different model for structuring social welfare. The problem is that all the studies have shown that in practice it discourages work and reduces overall productivity. People work fewer hours, students study less, take up of retraining opportunities falls. If you can actually show that many current occupations are in reality not productive, then of course that's something we need to address. However that has not been shown and even if it is true, it's not clear why so many people and companies are willingly funding these roles with their own money. So if you are claiming is that vast numbers of people in the economy are 'wrong' about their spending and hiring habits, you've got a fair bit of work to do to establish that (let's be clear, it has not been established) and come up with a credible plan as to what to do about it, and who gets to decide what the 'right' thing to do is.
  - bhaak 5y ago
    > I know the popular image of UBI is a paradise where nobody needs to work anymore, but that's not actually the basis of actual UBI policy proposals. It's really just a different model for structuring social welfare. The problem is that all the studies have shown that in practice it discourages work and reduces overall productivity. People work fewer hours, students study less, take up of retraining opportunities falls. Yes. That's exactly the goal of the UBI. That nobody NEEDS to work anymore. How many burger flipper are there that work as burger flipper because they like burger flipping? Your implicit assumption is that only paid work is real work. But if you remove money as the main motivator for work, people will look for more meaningful occupations and that's where we circle back to Graeber's bullshit jobs which don't qualify as meaningful work.
    - simonh 5y ago
      So we’re just going to close all the restaurants, eat at home and take sandwiches with us everywhere because nobody will want to work in service jobs? What is all this ‘meaningful work’ and who’s paying the taxes to support it?
      - Qwertious 5y ago
        >So we’re just going to close all the restaurants, eat at home and take sandwiches with us everywhere because nobody will want to work in service jobs? This is a strawman. Nobody is claiming that we'll close all restaurants. People who want extra money (or just want something to do) will work in service jobs, and if the supply of workers is too low then that will heavily incentivise automation and investing in productivity improvents.
        CRConrad 5y ago
        > People who want extra money (or just want something to do) will work in service jobs, and if the supply of workers is too low then that will heavily incentivise automation and investing in productivity improvents. As well as, possibly (and hopefully), rising pay in hitherto underpaid jobs.

by simonh 5y ago

bhaak 5y ago

How about going backwards from Graeber's line of thought. His conclusion in the book is to introduce a universal basic income to get rid of bullshit jobs. If we turn that around the question becomes: How many jobs (and what kind of jobs) would still be there if people had UBI and wouldn't need to work for a living?

simonh 5y ago
You're assuming the premise implicitly, that there are a large number of bulshit jobs, but Gerber did not show this and his evidence for it is thoroughly discredited. If there are in fact very few bulshit jobs, the 'problem' of how to deal with them is moot. I know the popular image of UBI is a paradise where nobody needs to work anymore, but that's not actually the basis of actual UBI policy proposals. It's really just a different model for structuring social welfare. The problem is that all the studies have shown that in practice it discourages work and reduces overall productivity. People work fewer hours, students study less, take up of retraining opportunities falls. If you can actually show that many current occupations are in reality not productive, then of course that's something we need to address. However that has not been shown and even if it is true, it's not clear why so many people and companies are willingly funding these roles with their own money. So if you are claiming is that vast numbers of people in the economy are 'wrong' about their spending and hiring habits, you've got a fair bit of work to do to establish that (let's be clear, it has not been established) and come up with a credible plan as to what to do about it, and who gets to decide what the 'right' thing to do is.
- bhaak 5y ago
  > I know the popular image of UBI is a paradise where nobody needs to work anymore, but that's not actually the basis of actual UBI policy proposals. It's really just a different model for structuring social welfare. The problem is that all the studies have shown that in practice it discourages work and reduces overall productivity. People work fewer hours, students study less, take up of retraining opportunities falls. Yes. That's exactly the goal of the UBI. That nobody NEEDS to work anymore. How many burger flipper are there that work as burger flipper because they like burger flipping? Your implicit assumption is that only paid work is real work. But if you remove money as the main motivator for work, people will look for more meaningful occupations and that's where we circle back to Graeber's bullshit jobs which don't qualify as meaningful work.
  - simonh 5y ago
    So we’re just going to close all the restaurants, eat at home and take sandwiches with us everywhere because nobody will want to work in service jobs? What is all this ‘meaningful work’ and who’s paying the taxes to support it?
    - Qwertious 5y ago
      >So we’re just going to close all the restaurants, eat at home and take sandwiches with us everywhere because nobody will want to work in service jobs? This is a strawman. Nobody is claiming that we'll close all restaurants. People who want extra money (or just want something to do) will work in service jobs, and if the supply of workers is too low then that will heavily incentivise automation and investing in productivity improvents.
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        > People who want extra money (or just want something to do) will work in service jobs, and if the supply of workers is too low then that will heavily incentivise automation and investing in productivity improvents. As well as, possibly (and hopefully), rising pay in hitherto underpaid jobs.