The Growth of Meaningless Work
I finally managed to read the original article* by the late David Graeber**, which made me reflect here on how we are wasting time, money, patience, health, and worse: hope.
- GRAEBER, David. “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant” In Strike Magazine, issue 3, Summer of 2013 which can be accessed here
- **David Graeber (New York, Feb 12, 1961 — Venice, Sep 2, 2020) was an anthropologist, Doctor Professor of anthropology (Yale and London universities), writer, anarchist. There are still unpublished books of his, about cities (scheduled for Sep. 2024), and as The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, with David Wengrow, released in 2022
The 2013 article, which expanded into the book “Bullshit Jobs: A Theory” (2018), is important for addressing a change in work in the 20th century. It suggests that technological advances could have allowed a significant reduction in work, as predicted by John Maynard Keynes in 1930. Instead, there is a proliferation of pointless and unsatisfactory work. This trend would not be the result of technological or economic forces, but due to moral and political choices that favor the maintenance of power structures in capitalist societies.
Graeber highlights the growth of jobs for management professionals, administrative, sales, and service, which, despite the promise, did not translate into increased productivity or well-being. Instead, it led to a situation where a large part of the workforce feels that their jobs are meaningless. There is no economic necessity for this. This results from a social structure that values work for work’s sake and maintains a class of workers whose roles consist more of defending a system that benefits the rich and powerful, rather than contributing to the well-being of citizens. It’s about our society in general.
I guess Graeber wanted to question the broader implications of these trends for the moral and spiritual health of society. For him, it now seems more than obvious, “bullshit jobs” waste human potential, and reinforce social and economic inequalities. Keeping people busy with unnecessary work prevents them from engaging in more meaningful, creative, or revolutionary activities. He links the proliferation of unnecessary jobs to the erosion of freedom. Especially to the erosion of academic freedom, which he faced, as most university professors I know, cannot deny, which occurs not only in private universities but, to no one’s surprise, especially in public universities.
The article cites recent research reports comparing employment in the US between 1910 and 2000, but it is probably a consensus throughout the 20th century, the number of workers fell, concerning “professionals, management, office, sales, and service” tripled, growing “from a quarter to three-quarters of total employment,” including the working masses in India and China. Based on my personal experience as a university professor, I have observed that the university has terminated or curtailed the employment and earnings of teachers and researchers, while utilizing these resources to create new positions and enhance marketing functions. This has resulted in a preference for professors who focus more on marketing rather than knowledge and creativity.
Graeber identifies a broad loss of freedom in the economy and highlights his concern with how institutional and economic structures limit individual agency and creativity. He sees the expansion of managerial and administrative functions as symptomatic of a society that prioritizes control and compliance at the expense of innovation and genuine productivity. His analysis resonates not only with university professors, but with many who feel disillusioned with the contemporary work environment and question the social values that support it. His work, in many other books, invites us to reconsider what we value as a society and how we can organize work and economic life to better serve human needs and potentials. In my perception, it doesn’t even seem advisable to cite a disguised and frightening erosion of freedom about consolidated knowledge, and more especially about speculative reflections.
Often, it is possible, but not necessary, to develop extensive historical analyses — for example, about the growth of pointless work, in the face of technological, economic, and social advances. Nor is it worthwhile to explore the psychological impacts of pointless work on workers’ mental health, life satisfaction, and social cohesion. Imagine the negative economic perspectives regarding effective productivity (promised vs. actually occurred), including the analysis of how pointless jobs affect innovation and competitiveness. More difficult, and perhaps useless in practice, would be to reflect on alternatives and solutions to reduce or eliminate pointless work. It seems hopeless to propose a reevaluation of social values around work, or worse, a restructuring of the labor market to emphasize jobs with clear purpose and social benefit.
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