Published: 2 Feb 2025
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory
- Release date: 2018
- Genre: Non-fiction, Economics, Politics
- Themes/Moods: Medium-Paced, Informative, Reflective
- Rating: 3.5/5
Bullshit Jobs is an important book, detailing and naming an important modern phenomenon that eminently “feels” true even with the numerous ‘obvious’ flaws - such as the evidencing data being collections of anecdata, some bias/ignorance when Graeber comes down to actually categorising what is and isn’t a “bullshit” job under his own definition (he is clearly biased against Finance and while I’m sympathetic, it does run contrary to Graeber’s initial definition) , as well as resting the entire thesis on a load-bearing conjecture that workers themselves have the best perspective on ascertaining whether their job is supposedly “bullshit”. I was willing to be charitable enough to accept these ‘flaws’ and find my own explanation, I wished Graeber was willing to defend these positions in more detail. This, combined with the rather anaemic conclusion piece which makes this more of a “pointing and naming a phenomenon” rather than something more comprehensive. All this leads me to believe that Graeber intended Bullshit Jobs to be a starting point, a lightning rod for others to run with, dissect and further augment the Bullshit Jobs theory into something more comprehensive, which hasn’t happened.
Despite these many flaws, there’s a lot of interesting insights that really resonated with me - the chapters on the “spiritual violence” that comes from knowingly working on useless jobs, discussing at length how misery is derived from being paid to do very little (despite sounding like the prototypical ideal job) whilst noting that perpetual boredom is even worse for the human psyche, as well as taking fire at the “protestant work ethic” and using his anthropological knowledge to clearly state that “it simply hasn’t always been this way” to thus imply things can change, and for the better - in fact I found Graeber having the most fun and being at his strongest when making these historical diversions, frequently harking back to medieval history (mainly Feudalism) to demonstrate how the nature of work/employment has changed drastically in some areas and yet parallels continue, e.g. using Feudalism’s “distributive” nature to explain why “bullshit jobs” may continue to exist. There are also lots of other little tidbits, such as the observation that any job with perceived social value is itself a reward hence they are relatively poorly paid (unpaid carers the most extreme, obvious example) amongst others that are certainly interesting to think about - again poking at the implicit assumptions and seams of society, intentionally trying to be “thought-provoking” in the ways I want from a book so intentionally provocative in its thesis.
Perhaps I should read the original essay written by Graeber to see how it compares however, as the book didn’t always justify the length.
