Bulls**t Jobs and the Ever Elusive 15-Hour Work Week (Revisited)
Channel: Daily Insight
Date: 2020-09-16

“Young people in Europe and North America in particular, but increasingly throughout the world, are being psychologically prepared for useless jobs, trained in how to pretend to work, and then by various means shepherded into jobs that almost nobody really believes serve any meaningful purpose.” ~ David Graeber. Last week, I was saddened to hear the news of the passing of David Graeber on the 2 September 2020, who died in a Venice hospital aged 59 from apparently natural causes. He was an American anthropologist and anarchist who popularised the term “BS Jobs”. From Graeber’s perspective, it’s important to note that BS jobs are not the same thing as s**t jobs (let’s call them S-jobs from now on). A BS job is one which doesn’t really need doing. If the job didn’t exist, society would continue along just merrily. S-jobs on the other hand, are ones that are demeaning, or don’t pay very well, or ones where you work in difficult, dangerous, or dirty conditions. Most S-jobs are actually not BS jobs. Things like ditch diggers, or sewer cleaners, or fruit pickers. They might not be very appealing jobs. They might be a lot of hard work, but they’re jobs that need doing. For this reason, they should not be classified as BS jobs. But certainly, one day they’ll be automated. Nobody really wants to clean a sewer, but society needs clean sewers. BS Jobs on the other hand, don’t really need doing. As Graeber once said, “If we suddenly eliminated teachers or garbage collectors or construction workers or law enforcement or whatever, it would really matter. We’d notice the absence. But if BS jobs go away, we’re no worse off”. Graeber posited that there are basically five types of BS jobs: 1. Flunkies; 2. Goons; 3. Duct Tapers; 4. Box Tickers; and 5. Taskmasters. The job of the taskmaster is essentially to manage or create work for those who don’t need it. Think of all those middle-management positions, team leaders, and leadership professionals. It’s funny, in 1930, British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that technological change and productivity improvements would eventually lead to a 15-hour workweek by the end of the century. But that simply didn’t happen. Most people today still work 40 hours or more per week often doing tasks that they see as having little to no value. Look, I’m not against work. I think if work brings you purpose and meaning in your life, then that’s a good thing. But creating jobs just for the sake of creating jobs, regardless of their usefulness, is just BS in my opinion.

SOCIAL MEDIA
https://www.facebook.com/DailyRantAustralia/
https://odysee.com/$/invite/@DailyRantAustralia:d
https://twitter.com/RantAustralia

IMAGE RIGHTS
David Graeber, by Guido van Nispen from Amsterdam, The Netherlands / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)
John Maynard Keynes, by United Press International
Soviet Workers, by RIA Novosti archive, image #633872 / U. Ivanov / CC-BY-SA 3.0 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

ADDITIONAL IMAGES
https://pixabay.com

MUSIC
Solo Cello Passion by Doug Maxwell/Media Right Productions

#bsjobs #davidgraeber #wageslave