BS Jobs, Automation, and the Future of American Labor — The late anthropologist David Graeber published Bullsh*t Jobs back in 2018. The book expands upon his popular essay from 2013 and outlines the five archetypes of bullsh*t jobs—flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters.
The gist of the book is that, instead of only creating a new job when it’s necessary and adds value, businesses have inadvertently created a bunch of roles that don’t do much of anything.
Sure, people show up to the office (sometimes), work long hours, and look busy throughout the day. But does all the paperwork and email they generate add value to anyone?
Employees are incentivized to keep their heads down and do it on a daily basis since mentioning the pointlessness of their job to their boss wouldn’t end well for them.
How the f*ck did we get here? It has to be some collective insanity to create work for ourselves rather than let machines do it, like JM Keynes thought would happen.
Broadly speaking, there are a few factors that Graeber outlines as reasons for this phenomenon:
- Managers need underlings to feel important
- The collective belief in work as a virtue
- The wealth generated from technology has been invested into consumer growth rather than more leisure time
I’ve been thinking about the implications of all the people employed in bullsh*t jobs along with the millions of open jobs that can’t be filled and the perceived decline in American competitiveness.
Would something like a 4-day workweek cut much of the BS that employees deal with, allowing them to focus for a shorter time on truly productive tasks?
Maybe that’s not the solution, but maybe filling all these open jobs isn’t either. Maybe we need to take a fresh look at how organizations are structured, find how many jobs are truly necessary, and reevaluate.
That opens up a whole ‘nother can of worms around UBI, entitlements, and the like. That’s for another day, but Graeber’s theory is worth considering when thinking about the future of the American workforce.
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