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I agree it would be nice to have more concrete numbers, but this in itself is a pretty shallow criticism of the bullshit jobs idea. Part of Graeber's argument,

I agree it would be nice to have more concrete numbers, but this in itself is a pretty shallow criticism of the bullshit jobs idea. Part of Graeber's argument, too, is that many of us are employed doing useful jobs in service of others who have useless jobs. Think of all the office staff, product designers, marketers, janitors, factory workers hired by Juicero, for instance. They all had meaningful jobs in service of a product that should never had existed. I also don't think that Graeber's standard is unfair -- making a meaningful contribtion to the world is quite a low bar for something we spend our entire lives doing for 8hr/day. Besides, a useless job may be done by an employee who is unable or unwilling to realize it -- "it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it". It's really tough to find meaningful work that pays a living wage, so many of us try to find small amounts of meaning in the jobs that we have. It doesn't make our jobs any less useless, though.

sien 5y ago
Apologies for those who can't get around the paywal. It gets worse for Graeber's thesis. The next paragraph from the ones previously quoted: "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. Indeed, the researchers found an inverse relationship between education and the feeling of usefulness. Less educated workers were likelier to feel that their jobs were useless. And student debt does not appear to be a factor. In Britain, where its level is the highest in Europe, non-graduates under 29 were twice as likely to feel useless as their indebted graduate peers." So not only are his numbers pretty poor his thesis gets the numbers the wrong way around for those who feel their jobs are of little value. Link to the paper : https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170211015067 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170211015...
- benrbray 5y ago
  Perhaps that's where my own theory of bullshit jobs diverges from Graeber's then. I'd say a job can be bullshit regardless of whether or not the person doing it agrees. As for janitors feeling like their jobs are meaningless and office workers feeling meaningful, I'd say that's a reflection of our culture. Universities are full of administrators with fancy titles who probably feel very important, but it's not clear their presence furthers the very important goal of education.
NaOH 5y ago
>I also don't think that Graeber's standard is unfair -- making a meaningful contribtion to the world is quite a low bar for something we spend our entire lives doing for 8hr/day. I'm aware of Graeber's work but haven't read it, so I'm sidestepping it and focusing on your comment here. So what is a meaningful contribution to the world? I've thought about that, and narrowed it down as best I can. I have a simple list for defining meaningful work: 1) work that gives life-providing help to others (e.g., teachers or physical therapists); 2) working on problems of existence (e.g., medical research); 3) make art. As I've outlined it, most of us are not doing meaningful work, myself included. Certainly, any criteria for meaningful work necessitates a bunch of not-meaningful work for support—"the office staff, product designers, marketers, janitors, factory workers," etc. you mentioned—but that comparatively low number of people actually doing meaningful work suggests (if my criteria are valid) it's a rather high bar.

sien 5y ago

Apologies for those who can't get around the paywal. It gets worse for Graeber's thesis. The next paragraph from the ones previously quoted: "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. Indeed, the researchers found an inverse relationship between education and the feeling of usefulness. Less educated workers were likelier to feel that their jobs were useless. And student debt does not appear to be a factor. In Britain, where its level is the highest in Europe, non-graduates under 29 were twice as likely to feel useless as their indebted graduate peers." So not only are his numbers pretty poor his thesis gets the numbers the wrong way around for those who feel their jobs are of little value. Link to the paper : https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170211015067 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170211015...

benrbray 5y ago
Perhaps that's where my own theory of bullshit jobs diverges from Graeber's then. I'd say a job can be bullshit regardless of whether or not the person doing it agrees. As for janitors feeling like their jobs are meaningless and office workers feeling meaningful, I'd say that's a reflection of our culture. Universities are full of administrators with fancy titles who probably feel very important, but it's not clear their presence furthers the very important goal of education.

NaOH 5y ago

>I also don't think that Graeber's standard is unfair -- making a meaningful contribtion to the world is quite a low bar for something we spend our entire lives doing for 8hr/day. I'm aware of Graeber's work but haven't read it, so I'm sidestepping it and focusing on your comment here. So what is a meaningful contribution to the world? I've thought about that, and narrowed it down as best I can. I have a simple list for defining meaningful work: 1) work that gives life-providing help to others (e.g., teachers or physical therapists); 2) working on problems of existence (e.g., medical research); 3) make art. As I've outlined it, most of us are not doing meaningful work, myself included. Certainly, any criteria for meaningful work necessitates a bunch of not-meaningful work for support—"the office staff, product designers, marketers, janitors, factory workers," etc. you mentioned—but that comparatively low number of people actually doing meaningful work suggests (if my criteria are valid) it's a rather high bar.