Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is a 2018 book by anthropologist David Graeber that argues the existence and societal harm of meaningless jobs. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless, which becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth. Graeber describes five types of bullshit jobs, in which workers pretend their role isn't as pointless or harmful as they know it to be: flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. He argues that the association of labor with virtuous suffering is recent in human history, and proposes universal basic income as a potential solution.
Saggio dell'antropologo anarchico David Graeber. Il libro affronta a mo' di testo argomentativo come più della metà dei lavori della nostra società siano senza senza senso e/o frustranti. Per farlo l'autore riporta testimonianze e dati raccolti da un campione di persone che hanno risposto al suo sondaggio. Consigliatissimo, soprattutto per le prospettive nuove e stimolanti.
Halfway between the humoristic and scientific publication, what started as a provocation ends up in building a theory that is in fact a (often humoristic, sometimes depressing) criticism to capitalistic system and the work culture that is embedded on it. A must-read.
First argument for UBI that’s come close to convincing me.
An eye-opening study of the Sisyphean tasks imposed on blue- and white collar wageworkers, as a mechanism of control, due to incompetence of rulers and/or by grindset moralism. Graeber investigates the historic and contemporary anthropology of work-ethic and the politics of subjection behind it. His conclusion: workers of the world, stop working!
This is a great book on the fallacies of our capitalistic society.
However, the author tends to see way too many jobs as bullshit.
For example, yes, middle management can be bullshit. But it's either because the company's organization is bad, or the person is at the wrong place. Both can be fixed, and middle managers who like what they do have a great impact around them.
My first intro to Graeber. The book is poignant, funny, and well-argued, tying together anthropological, economic, and political theory into a satisfying web of connected ideas about labor, value, and human happiness. I'm not surprised that a lot of readers got mad because they were expecting a libertarian lambasting of government regulation of markets; I, for one, was pleasantly surprised at how well-situated his argument was in anarchism, marxism, and feminism.
Fantastic theory about labor, the value of labor, and how we can change our relation to labor. If everyone in society understood this theory and demanded structural change to obey the dignity of human life and labor, we'd make leaps in human progress!
Un essai passionnant et extrêmement instructif sur le travail, son évolution dans l'histoire, comment il est abordé par la religion, la philosophie, la sociologie, la politique, les travaux d'économistes... Il dénonce aussi la société patriarcale et raciste. De nombreux témoignages de personnes occupant des "jobs à la con" ponctuent l'ouvrage et viennent enrichir le propos. Il devrait être lu du plus grand nombre et nous pousser collectivement à réorganiser la société, l'économie et le travail. La lecture est très claire, humoristique, fluide et, en somme, agréable. Grand coup de cœur de mes lectures de cette année !
David Graeber presents his theory - that an alarming number of jobs in western society (37-40% at least) are made up just to waste time or fill space, for various reasons. Each chapter digs a little deeper into these reasons, from the overcomplexity of western capitalist systems, to a puritanical attitude toward work (and suffering) being humanity's lot. Finally, he puts forward ideas on what can be done about this. This is all presented with Graeber's artistically analytical eye, his fierce political views, and his wry sense of humour.
Bullshit Jobs was Graeber's final book, which is a pity as it feels like it's building up to a crescendo. He observes western society as an anthropologist, unapologetically making sweeping statements, but using interview and survey as means to reinforce his theory. And it is very convincing. Few people who read this book would fail to identify with some of what …
David Graeber presents his theory - that an alarming number of jobs in western society (37-40% at least) are made up just to waste time or fill space, for various reasons. Each chapter digs a little deeper into these reasons, from the overcomplexity of western capitalist systems, to a puritanical attitude toward work (and suffering) being humanity's lot. Finally, he puts forward ideas on what can be done about this. This is all presented with Graeber's artistically analytical eye, his fierce political views, and his wry sense of humour.
Bullshit Jobs was Graeber's final book, which is a pity as it feels like it's building up to a crescendo. He observes western society as an anthropologist, unapologetically making sweeping statements, but using interview and survey as means to reinforce his theory. And it is very convincing. Few people who read this book would fail to identify with some of what Graeber writes, and his biting criticism of western politics (left and right) is pitch perfect.
I wish I could go back in time and give this book and Tom Hodgkinson's "How to Be Idle" to my 27-year-old self. It would have opened my eyes to what was going on with me and my career at the time. I was pretty miserable after a few dead-end jobs, and starting to despair. Hodgkinson would've shown me I wasn't alone and I wasn't broken. This book would've shown me exactly where the working world WAS broken, and why I was having such a hard time with it. Sadly, neither book was available back then.
The main question of this book is "Why aren't we all working 15-hour weeks, as we were promised in the 1930s?" The answer Graeber finds is that we absolutely could be, but because of some unfortunate political and cultural choices made by society in the 20th century, 94% employment was taken as the greatest …
I wish I could go back in time and give this book and Tom Hodgkinson's "How to Be Idle" to my 27-year-old self. It would have opened my eyes to what was going on with me and my career at the time. I was pretty miserable after a few dead-end jobs, and starting to despair. Hodgkinson would've shown me I wasn't alone and I wasn't broken. This book would've shown me exactly where the working world WAS broken, and why I was having such a hard time with it. Sadly, neither book was available back then.
The main question of this book is "Why aren't we all working 15-hour weeks, as we were promised in the 1930s?" The answer Graeber finds is that we absolutely could be, but because of some unfortunate political and cultural choices made by society in the 20th century, 94% employment was taken as the greatest good and the goal of the economy. Thus, a number of meaningless jobs have been created, and even those jobs that aren't meaningless are increasingly buried in bullshit paperwork.
Graeber's mostly interested in exploring the nature of the problem, rather than solving it, but he does see some promise in the Universal Basic Income proposals of the late 20th century, although he acknowledges these can be hijacked by right-wing bad actors if we're not careful. Solutions aside, his history of how the problem arose is very compelling.
I am entirely here for the premise of the book (having read the final third today at my own BS employment), but he conflates jobs that are BS within their firms/organizations with those that are BS parts of the economy. This allows him to inveigh at length about the pointless financial sector (a paradigmatic example of the latter type of BS job) without ever really engaging in the question of the former - is it always just inefficiency and human error that leads to these pointless positions within ostensibly profit-making or efficient operations, or is there a larger phenomenon at work? He never really gets at that question, which I kind of think was what the book promised to do. Minus one star for mismanaged expectations, and his other book drops off the "to-read" list
J’avais envie de lire depuis un moment ce livre, tiré du célèbre article du même auteur sur les « bullshit jobs » (les jobs à la con) qui avait fait beaucoup de bruit à l’époque de sa parution.
J’ai beaucoup aimé cet ouvrage, qui aborde frontalement une réalité vécue par beaucoup. Je dois tout de même avouer avoir survolé certains chapitres, en particulier les derniers. Non pas que leur contenu ne soit pas intéressant, bien au contraire, mais ils sont plus théoriques que les premiers et comme je m’interroge beaucoup depuis un moment sur mon rapport au travail, et à mon travail actuel en particulier, j’avais peur d’y retrouver de trop près mes préoccupations actuelles. Manque de courage peut-être, mais je suis persuadé que je reviendrai vers ce livre pour une lecture plus approfondie quand je m’y sentirai prêt.
Interesting book, but way too long. I had to fight with boredom to complete the book, but eventually after 6 weeks I'm done.
A very interesting book. The last chapter is an argument for UBI that gets done better in other books, in my opinion.
The rest of the book is a really interesting description of what a bullshit job is, how they proliferate, and why we suffer them. I definitely saw aspects of these descriptions in jobs friends or I have held, so the arguments stand up.
Graeber always has a good way of weaving together argument and example. That alone makes this worth reading!
