David Graeber’s adventure with Bullshit Jobs began when he was asked to write an essay for the radical magazine Strike. His essay, On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, which was published in 2013, was read over a million times and translated into seventeen different languages. His book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, expands on this concept and outlines how meaningless work has become. Meaningless jobs were more associated with the Soviet system where they’re making up jobs to keep everybody looking like they’re working. Capitalism is supposed to be the opposite. Markets were supposed to fix the inefficiencies created by the socialist states. Still, somehow, it happens,all over the place.

So, what’s going on? Graeber argues that is has to do with the ideology of work. It is based in the puritan idea that work is valuable in itself; it doesn't have to produce anything. Work, even if it is totally pointless, became a virtue. If you are working in something that you don’t like, the problem is you, never the work. You are lazy or just a bad person.

Graeber thinks that is a strange thing that this very subject is not considered a social problem. He argues, that we need to reconsider what is valuable in labour. Most of the people that emailed him after the publication of his article or those he interviewed about their work, said that they want to do a job where they care of other people or benefit them in some way. He, therefore, suggests, that we need to think about a new theory of value at labour, a reformulation of what work is valuable, and he suggests that a good point to start is with women’s work,or what is called ‘caring work’. Also to think about production and what production even is.

What I admire in David Graeber is that he says things that,normally, people do not say, even if they think about them. I am totally convinced with his argument about this new theory of value of work, but I get behind about Basic Income. Although it might seem to many like it is another expansion of the state power, it is,in fact, exactly the reverse. Millions of governmental official and workers would be thrown out of their current jobs, but they will receive basic income and therefore many of them will come up with something genuinely important to do, something that they are good at and they are enjoying doing. By offering a reasonable standard of living to all, it’s up to each individual to decide what to do with their life, whether they want to pursue wealth, or devote themselves in studying ancient philosophers or do gardening. A Universal Basic Income program could provide a profound transformation to our societies.

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