But does economy have to make sense? – David Graeber: “Bullshit Jobs”

Anthropologist David Graeber based this book on his own 2015 article “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant”, and the concept is as simple as it is provocative: A surprising number of the jobs that modern people spend so much of their time doing, have no purpose at all!

He bases this argument on both statistics and personal reports from and interview with employees. And anyone who has ever had a job will probably recognize the sentiment from themselves or from co-workers.

Of course, the idea sparked relentless criticism from (neo-liberal) economists: Economic theories state that companies strive for maximum efficiency, so having as much as a single useless employee in any company would be a liability.

Faced with overwhelming evidence, the book becomes a thorough investigation of the very history of work itself. From feudal lords employing large numbers of flunkies to show their wealth – over pre-capitalist apprentice systems – to Calvinist work ethics, declaring work an end in itself (an ideology that strangely seems to have been preserved in modern labour politics).

It also repeats the question why technology hasn’t freed the proletariat yet. In the age of machines and robotics, why do we still have to work nearly as much as before? It’s almost as if we live under an economic system that only works if you keep the serfs busy with some sort of pointless work.

Graeber died before the current AI scare. But while reading this, a thought occurred to me: If you’re afraid of losing your job to an oversized chatbot toy, that job would probably best be described as bullshit.