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I recently read this book because I saw it recommended in Hackernews threads and my disappointment was immense. It is, without hyperbole, among the worst books

I recently read this book because I saw it recommended in Hackernews threads and my disappointment was immense. It is, without hyperbole, among the worst books I've ever read. It's a shame too because it has a seemingly interesting premise. Hey about 15% of people say that their jobs don't need to exist. Now roughly the same percentage believe in lizard people, bigfoot, etc. so we should maybe take self-reporting with a grain of salt but it does seem to ring true to us right? It feels like we've all seen people in jobs that don't need to exist. And by the way that's exactly what modern economic models would predict. When we say the market is efficient we don't mean that's it's 100% completely and instantly efficient. In fact innovation relies on people recognizing areas where there are marketplace inefficiencies and exploiting them. The propagation of new technologies through a market takes time and in that time there will by definition be useless jobs in places that technology has not propagated to yet. What's more the main objective of a job is not always clear. That government employee who feels like he's doing nothing might actually be doing nothing but the purpose of their job might not be to accomplish anything, it might be to make them financially dependent on the government (or maybe the government would say it's a means of economic stimulus). This is a really interesting topic and there's plenty to explore and lots of existing science to mine from economics to sociology, etc. David of course ignores all of this and uses the premise to set up a rant about anti-capitalism (without making a cogent argument for an alternative). He includes such amazing insights as, "The only reason countries have armies is because other countries have armies. If we all agreed to stop waging war we could spend that money on better things." Brilliant! Why hasn't a great philosopher thought of this before? He addresses this briefly in the book saying that the only push back he's gotten is that he's ignoring economics and that he doesn't consider that a valid argument. The problem is twofold. First, much like someone claiming they've found a perpetual motion machine, I don't need to debunk your specific version of it, I can just say, "That violates every observed law of physics, you'd better have extraordinary proof for me to consider your claim." Secondly, David makes no particular claim nor does he have any coherent theory. You can't 'disprove' his claim because he doesn't make any (or more specifically he doesn't have a central theory that can be disproven - he has an observation that broadly consistent with what we know about the world and would expect already, if surprising to some people). And his criticisms of capitalism contain so many logical fallacies and half truths that it would take a book of greater length or a youtube video on par with the classic "debunking ancient aliens" to get through them all. It's nonsense political drivel and it's disappointing that so many people here seem to consider the book profound in some way.

komali2 3y ago
> and uses the premise to set up a rant about anti-capitalism (without making a cogent argument for an alternative) It shouldn't be surprising that David graeber, one of the most famous modern anarchist philosophers, is an anti capitalist lol. I also find it strange that this burden of designing a perfect society falls on anyone that dares criticize the current one. Like when abolitionists criticized slavery, they were expected to come up with a solution for all the money cotton plantations would lose if slavery was abolished. So odd. By the way, he did propose two possibilities to alleviating the degradation of bullshit jobs: unionization, and universal basic income. > Hey about 15% of people say that their jobs don't need to exist. In the book, he argues that 50% of jobs are bullshit, not 15%. > He addresses this briefly in the book saying that the only push back he's gotten is that he's ignoring economics You may also be interested in his book Debt, an extensively cited book where he challenges the unscientific nature of modern economics. You'll find there a very rigorous critique of modern economics. > David makes no particular claim nor does he have any coherent theory. Perhaps the book was too steep an introduction to theories of labor and philosophy that are perpendicular to those commonly taught in public programs and held in general by a large part of society? The theories seemed quite coherent to me, but maybe that's because I had already read Marx and Kropotkin before reading Graeber. What did you think about some of these ideas from the book: 1. It's very strange that our society rewards hedge fund managers with hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and teachers with 50k a year, considering by any measurement a teacher is far more valuable to society than a hedge fund manager. It seems capitalism is not good at allocating resources in a way conducive to a healthy society. 2. The general application of Marx's concept of capitalist modes of production being highly alienating for workers, but applied to modern careers like middle management for insurance companies or whatever. 3. Puritan-capitalist work ethic has turned professionalism and capitalism into a religion 4. Bullshit jobs are keeping the population too busy to protest or revolt > And his criticisms of capitalism contain so many logical fallacies and half truths Really? I wish you had some time to list some, this is interesting to me, and a huge brush to paint across the entire book. None of his critiques of capitalism itself seemed all that surprising or even really new, it was mostly more arguments against the mythological invisible hand of the market and the fabled efficiency of the market so far as I read it.
- 3y ago

komali2 3y ago

> and uses the premise to set up a rant about anti-capitalism (without making a cogent argument for an alternative) It shouldn't be surprising that David graeber, one of the most famous modern anarchist philosophers, is an anti capitalist lol. I also find it strange that this burden of designing a perfect society falls on anyone that dares criticize the current one. Like when abolitionists criticized slavery, they were expected to come up with a solution for all the money cotton plantations would lose if slavery was abolished. So odd. By the way, he did propose two possibilities to alleviating the degradation of bullshit jobs: unionization, and universal basic income. > Hey about 15% of people say that their jobs don't need to exist. In the book, he argues that 50% of jobs are bullshit, not 15%. > He addresses this briefly in the book saying that the only push back he's gotten is that he's ignoring economics You may also be interested in his book Debt, an extensively cited book where he challenges the unscientific nature of modern economics. You'll find there a very rigorous critique of modern economics. > David makes no particular claim nor does he have any coherent theory. Perhaps the book was too steep an introduction to theories of labor and philosophy that are perpendicular to those commonly taught in public programs and held in general by a large part of society? The theories seemed quite coherent to me, but maybe that's because I had already read Marx and Kropotkin before reading Graeber. What did you think about some of these ideas from the book: 1. It's very strange that our society rewards hedge fund managers with hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and teachers with 50k a year, considering by any measurement a teacher is far more valuable to society than a hedge fund manager. It seems capitalism is not good at allocating resources in a way conducive to a healthy society. 2. The general application of Marx's concept of capitalist modes of production being highly alienating for workers, but applied to modern careers like middle management for insurance companies or whatever. 3. Puritan-capitalist work ethic has turned professionalism and capitalism into a religion 4. Bullshit jobs are keeping the population too busy to protest or revolt > And his criticisms of capitalism contain so many logical fallacies and half truths Really? I wish you had some time to list some, this is interesting to me, and a huge brush to paint across the entire book. None of his critiques of capitalism itself seemed all that surprising or even really new, it was mostly more arguments against the mythological invisible hand of the market and the fabled efficiency of the market so far as I read it.

3y ago