SLOWING DOWN: You, Me, and Meaningless Jobs and Meaningless Jobs

By Kian Chan, Thomas Cheung and Katherine Law | Illustration by Isabelle Zee | Layout by Ningjing Huang

By Albert Hou | Illustrations by Yi-Mei Liu | Layout by Cici Cai

Jobs are the lifeblood of modern society. They produce goods and services, provide financial income, and create positive social externalities, or benefits to society. It would be difficult to envision a world without street cleaners and garbage collectors, teachers and professors, firefighters and policemen, musicians and artists, and even hairdressers and gardeners. These jobs are meaningful and necessary in maintaining a happy and healthy population.

However, there exists a large number of jobs that can be considered "meaningless". Consider, for instance, corporate lobbyists and corporate lawyers, telemarketers and PR researchers, hedge fund and private equity managers, as well as many clerks, bureaucrats, or those in middle managerial and administrative positions. It's difficult to imagine what positive externalities such professions generate beyond personal profit and advancement.

This is precisely the focus of a book I read titled "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory" by anthropologist David Graeber. It asserts that such "meaningless jobs" are increasing in both scope and quantity. This challenges common conceptions of the capitalist system and human psychology, which tell us that these jobs should be eliminated as firms attempt to reduce operational costs or as people gravitate toward jobs they genuinely enjoy. How do we explain this discrepancy?

But before addressing that question, we must first ponder: what is a "meaningless job?"

It can be argued that all forms of paid employment have value: it provides financial income that allows for the purchase of goods and services. As such, there can be no "meaningless jobs'' - there is always a party that benefits. However, if we think instead in terms of positive social externality, it would be apparent that many jobs are, in fact, pointless - and thus should not exist.

This means that the definition of a meaningless job is subjective, as it is futile to properly quantify a concept as abstract as "social value". We would have to rely on the judgment of the employee. Again, it may be argued that the growing complexity of the modern economy from production to distribution results in highly specialized tasks that makes it difficult for workers to determine their contributions to their enterprise or to wider society. However, such cases are few and far between - people generally know what they're doing.

This leads us to Graeber's definition of a meaningless job: "a form of paid employment whose existence cannot be justified by the employee."

So, where can we see such "meaningless jobs"? What forms do they take?

You may have thought of doormen and concierges, or maybe even receptionists. They are paid full salaries with the ostensible purpose of performing simple, repetitive tasks such as opening doors and answering phone calls and the occasional errand of arranging a meet or greeting a guest. Their actual job is to emphasize the importance, influence, and legitimacy of their employer or superior. Graeber refers to these jobs as "flunkies"jobs that can easily be reassigned or automated, but are perpetuated by people's need for recognition.

Another category of meaningless jobs would be "goons". "Goon" jobs typically have an element of aggression or deception. Take, for example, corporate lawyers. They're there to protect companies from legal risks and lawsuits - from other corporations, through other corporate lawyers. Moreover, judging by the controversies surrounding large corporations today, they're not successful at ensuring the legality of transactions or lawyers. Moreover, judging by the controversies surrounding large corporations today, they're not successful at ensuring the legality of transactions or partnerships of companies either. Telemarketers, digital advertisers, and PR professionals, on the other hand, frequently re ect that their work seems deceitful. They manufacture demand and sell people things they don't require. They may even mislead the audience to the true quality of the product or service they are marketing.

"Duct tapers" are an odd bunch. It's di cult to categorize entire jobs into this group, as they are scattered in the nooks and crannies of modern enterprises as "assistants", "coordinators", and various other titles. They exist to mitigate faults, gaps, and shortcomings in the rm that could easily be resolved or automated but are not.

The growing emphasis on sustainability and corporate social responsibility have produced an entire new class of meaningless jobs - "box-tickers". They are a means for organizations to claim they have ful lled a obligation that they haven't, and consists of tedious exercises such as form- lling and report-writing which never achievesand may work against - its ostensible purpose.

Lastly, "taskmasters". Taskmasters are made up of middleor upper-managers that assign work to subordinates, and are separated into two types. The rst type are "unnecessary superiors", which applies in cases where intervention and supervision is not required. The second type is even worse. They attempt to create and delegate meaningless tasks and even produce new meaningless jobs. Similar to box-tickers, they draw people away from meaningful work and tasks and force them to partake in bureaucratic rituals - just to appear, ironically, busy.

Skip a hundred, or even two hundred years ago, and we would see that most of these jobs wouldn't have existed. Explaining its emergence and prevalence would require a close look at economic and social trends in recent centuries.

Economies largely consist of three main sectors: the primary sector (agriculture and mining), the secondary sector (industry and manufacturing), and the tertiary sector (services).

Over the last few centuries, we have seen a decline in the primary and secondary sectors in the economies of developed countries, which is matched by a growing tertiary sector - a pattern re ected in the economies of several developing but fast-growing countries as well, such as China and India.

At the end of the industrial revolution in 1840, the tertiary service sector took up 22.40% of the labor force. Over the next 175 years, it almost quadrupled to 83.52%. On the other hand, while the secondary manufacturing sector stayed relatively constant, the primary agricultural sector had a sharp decline from 63.07% to 1.63%. In short, the tertiary sector expanded tremendously - while the primary sector was reduced to, e ectively, thin air.

John Maynard Keynes, an English economist widely acknowledged as the founder of modern macroeconomics once predicted that developed countries such as the United States and Great Britain would be able to enjoy 15-hour work weeks owing to technological advancements that would increase e ciency and reduce labor.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Average working hours have largely remained unchanged, in America or otherwise, hovering between 40 - 44 hours. From the graph above, we can also see that while productive work in the agricultural and industrial sectors have been reduced due to increased automation since the 20th century, the service sector has ballooned dramatically, signifying the creation of many new jobs.

While the agricultural and manufacturing sectors produce and maintain tangible goods, the services sector provides actions or experiences. Examples of service jobs include waiters, doctors, cleaners, dockworkers, truck drivers, and writers. One may argue that the dramatic rise of the service sector is due to the rise of consumerism, where people choose to work more to consume more, resulting in both a greater demand and supply for such services. However, a closer inspection raises many questions: how can such services, according to Statista, account for almost two-thirds (65%) of global GDP today?

The above graph shows a four-sector structure of the economy. The quaternary, or fourth sector is shown as "information", which includes largely jobs such as managers and administrators, consultants and advisors, IT professionals, clerks and accountants. In the modern day, we have dubbed this the FIRE sector, which stands for nance, insurance, and real estate.

It's important to note that while "actual" services have experienced no signi cant change from 1860 to 1990, oating around 20%; the information sector has experienced signi cant growth. From 1910 to 1990, it has experienced a greater than threefold increase from 15% to 50% of the economy, and forms the bulk (70%) of the tertiary services sector we are so familiar with. In recent years, America's service sector continues to expand, albeit at a slower pace due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the following recession. As mentioned earlier, the growth of the tertiary sector is a global phenomenon. According to Statista, it had increased by 3.75% over the past decade in terms of GDP share.

A recent YouGov poll surveying Americans tells us the following: in 2015, 59% of working Americans polled felt that their job made meaningful contributions; in 2021, the number is reduced to 55%.

As established at the start of the article, we are inclined to trust the verdict of the employee or worker in question when discussing whether or not a job is "meaningless". Based on the aforementioned poll, a cursory observation would tell us that 45% of adult Americans are working meaningless jobs.

We can take this a step further. Many jobs in the agricultural, industrial, and "actual" service sectors have a positive, tangible e ect on society. Although such work may not be rewarding or ful lling, it is di cult for anyone to consider being a farmer, bus driver, or retail worker as meaningless. On the other hand, jobs in the FIRE and information sector are much more contentious. Moreover, the increase of meaningless jobs is matched by an increase in the tertiary sector - and by extension, the quaternary sector - which indicates a correlation between the two factors.

This hypothesis is supported by two separate sources: Source 1, "Taxation and the Allocation of Talent", a 2017 paper from a group of well-known US economists; and Source 2, "Social Return on Investment Analysis", by the think tank New Economic Foundation. In short, they calculated the externalities, both positive and negative, produced by a variety of professions of various incomes. Here are some interesting gures relevant to this analysis:

Professors Lockwood, Nathanson, and Weyl in their 2017 paper "Taxation and the Allocation of Talent" quanti ed and calculated the social externalities, or the e ect on society, produced by a range of professions for every dollar paid. The data indicates that jobs from the quaternary sector create neutral or negative social externalities - they often cause more harm than good. This is backed up by another study, "Social Return on Investment Analysis" from the UK think tank New Economic Foundation. The set of jobs analyzed was di erent, but the conclusion is the same: many jobs from the quaternary sector are not only meaningless, they are also detrimental to society as a whole.

More than anything else, jobs give human beings a sense of agency and meaning in life - it allows us to exert our in uence upon the world through work. A job where you do little, if any, work for a hefty paycheck seems like an amazing deal at rst, but for many, being forced to pretend to work in a job of no social value at all is demoralizing and frustrating.

Take Mia, a secondary student from CIS who worked as an intern in a local non-governmental organization.

Albert: What was your previous profession?

Mia: I worked as an intern at an NGO. I can't disclose the name of the NGO, but its primary goal was to help young girls and high school students gain work experience through o ering part-time jobs.

Albert: So the organization as a whole doesn't produce any tangible product?

Mia: Yeah, it doesn't actually do anything. I signed up because it claimed that its website required a renovation, but that was really just an excuse.

Albert: So what did you do? What were your responsibilities?

Mia: I was a copywriter, and was in charge of writing the content for the NGO's website. I was supposed to compose stu for their "About Us" page such as their mission and vision statements, past events, and current endeavors.

I invested a lot of time and energy into this job. I spent hours and hours rewriting their original draft, which was full of typos and errors, and even went overnight once just so I could nish on time. I also had lots of meetings and conferences where I pitched my draft to higher-ups. It was stressful to balance work with school.

Albert: Sounds like a demanding job. What makes it pointless for you?

Mia: Despite all the e ort I put into it, they didn't read or open it even once. They had lots of encouragement to give during those meetings, but no feedback at all. Moreover, I didn't get anything out of it. It's not like I'm expecting monetary compensation - let's be real, it's an NGO - but I thought I would receive a certi cate or something, not just a clap on the back. I also lost a better internship opportunity to a big tech corporation because of this job.

Albert: What was your response? How did this make you feel?

Mia: Not only was I surprised and disappointed, I also felt indignant and cheated. I think organizations and corporations do this so they can claim they are "helping the youth" or "supporting the community" and gain a better public image and ful ll their CSR. Meanwhile, I got nothing out of it. My draft was never used, and I never got my certi cate which they promised.

Mia had the unfortunate role of being both a ducttaper and a box-ticker. She was only an intern in the organization for three weeks, but its e ects are apparent. Not only was the work physically and mentally exhaustive; the realization that it was all for nothing made her feel slighted and frustrated. One could imagine the e ects of such a job over a longer period of time.

So far, we've seen the scope and the severity of this phenomenon - but no idea of why meaningless jobs are proliferating. A capitalist system is intrinsically rooted in the pursuit of pro t - rms and organizations should always be seeking ways to increase e ciency and decrease costs. Meaningless jobs should be the rst to get the ax - why would corporations hesitate in redistributing wealth to reward and encourage productive workers, increase capital, or ll the bank accounts of the wealthy elite?

As you can see, up until 1979, there existed a "Keynesian bargain" between workers, employers, and the government. There was an understanding that increased pro ts from increased productivity would be partially or wholly redistributed back to the workers. However, after the 1980s, this bargain had disappeared. Instead, the money has gone towards creating hordes of administrative and managerial sta

Take the healthcare industry, for example. Whilst physicians have increased by 150% since 1975, healthcare administrators have grown by a staggering 3200%. Another example can be found in educational institutions. According to NCES, between 1985 and 2005, the faculty-to-student ratio has remained largely the same, with increases of 50% and 56% respectively. On the other hand, the number of administrative sta tripled with an increase of 240%. Even accounting for new educational technologies and methodologies, did the process of teaching, learning, and assessing really get twice or thrice as complicated to warrant this growth?

Coupled with our observations on the rise of the quaternary FIRE and information sector, it can be concluded that our political-economic system is shifting the focus away from producing, transporting, and maintaining goods and services, but rather the appropriation and distribution of resources and goods within the system. Instead of a simple hierarchy of employer and employee, we see the creation of increasing tiers and ranks in between, managers and administrators of all shapes and sizes with the ostensible purpose of "increasing e ciency".

This shares interesting connections with medieval feudalism, where a lord grants land to a lesser noble in return for knights, food, or gold; and the process is repeated with another vassal. A large amount of the population is tasked with funneling resources up and down this system. Thus, it can be concluded that our modern socio-economic system is based not on capitalism but on some type of managerial feudalism where the allocation of wealth and position is based on political rather than economic reasons.

Moving on to the second question: If such jobs are so meaningless and pernicious, why aren't people speaking up against them? Why do the vast majority of human beings toil day after day for a job they don't care for? And why are productive workers, who often receive poorer compensation, not rebelling?

To nd the answer to this question, we must rst understand our attitude towards work. It is ingrained in the human psyche from an early age that "work" is the antithesis of "play". Hard work and sacri ce of personal pleasure is the prerequisite for nancial reward, social status, and material grati cation.

If you won a hundred-million dollar lottery, would you still work? A 2004 study examined 185 lottery winners in the United States. According to its ndings, 63% continued working full time in the same job, 10% started their own business, while 11% worked part time instead of full time. In sum, around 85% of the subjects surveyed chose to remain in the workforce.

These people could have led carefree lives of luxury and opulence with the amount of money at their disposal; indeed, if work was only a means towards an end - a way for people to accumulate resources and experience towards personal projects beyond the economic, none of them would have kept working. It's obvious, then, that work has greater signi cance to humans.

Throughout time and space, work is considered the way for people to mature, build character, and de ne their own identities. The Bible says that God created Adam to work, and that work glori es God in turn. In countries across the world, centuries ago, parents sent their children to serve, work, and apprentice in other households, under other masters to learn new skills and build character. Modern economists and anthropologists agree that humans want to work because it forms their inner self and provides them with dignity and purposesomething money can't buy.

In fact, a large reason why work is believed to have these properties is precisely because they are dour, miserable, and painful. According to economist Alfred Marshall in the book Principles of Economics, "We may de ne labor as any exertion of mind or body undergone partly or wholly with a view to some good other than the pleasure derived from the work". We're not supposed to enjoy or revel in our work, that would be "play". We are digni ed and exalted precisely because it is so degrading and hateful.

Moving on, we can see how it is precisely this psychology that led to the quiet dissolution of the "Keynesian Bargain" and the oppression of productive workers.

Unlike the other half of the working population, productive workers in the primary, secondary, and tertiary ("actual" service) sectors have the privilege of being employed in jobs that are valuable, meaningful, and o er intrinsic values and rewards. Thus these people should not be rewarded for further productivity, or paid higher wages. Why should you be compensated for doing something you love - e ectively, "playing"?

Productive workers are often underappreciated and overlooked, have lower wages than people in the quaternary sector, and are the subject of ruthless corporate capitalism. We reward people with meaningless jobs, and punish those with meaningful jobs - all because of a misplaced sense of moral envy, where feelings of resentment are directed towards a person because their behavior is seen as upholding a higher moral standard. It's plain to see that there's something very, very wrong with our society today.

So, what can we do about this?

A pragmatic response would be the complete elimination or automation of all meaningless jobs, and using Universal Basic Income to redistribute the extra pro ts back to the population, who will be free to pursue any path they desire. They may simply indulge and be of no value, certainly - but that would be no di erent than working a meaningless job. Instead, as so many studies have indicated, it is likely that they would pursue a meaningful project or personal work of some kind that could result in positive externalities for society.

But more importantly, meaningless work is a warning for us to slow down and reconsider the society we live in. Many of the ideas and feelings touched upon in this short article - and by its inspiration, "Bullshit Jobs" by David Graeber - are not revolutionary discoveries, but rather inherent impressions, suspicions, and notions lurking in our own psyches that just need to be found and expressed in an organized, logical manner.

Work, again, is the most important part of human life. It could be boring, pernicious, and damaging - but it can also be fun, engaging, and signi cant. It's time for us to rethink our attitude towards work and labor, and reset our ambitions and goals for the future.

What do you want to be?

By Rebecca Zhang |

那时我懵懂，日子在片片虚无、纯白的梦境中悠悠而 过。日夜都化作光影，朦胧的交织，虚虚的掩住深棕 色的眼瞳 。混沌的听觉让世界放慢数倍，只是那树 丛在拂动之间的沙沙交错尤其入耳。那时，风在影影 绰绰的暖阳下，拥有着虚幻的、似水一般的形状。

后来，我开始注意到身边的车水马龙，发现一年有四 季的分别。春天的柳絮总旋转在树丛之间，绵绵白白 的，一团团随着风落在我小小的手中。我在柳树细长 的阴影下，缓慢认真的感知周围的存在。

夏天是晶莹的海浪，初夏的蝉鸣。碧绿的叶与朦胧的 影交叠着，光线便丝丝缕缕地阳洒。我站在荫凉处， 捧起一缕光，悠然仔细地听夏日的声响。

秋天给空气带来凉丝丝的香气，每个早晨都是甜丝丝 的。我知道那是桂花的淡雅清香。墨绿的树丛中点缀 着一簇簇淡黄色的花，总是越开越多，沉甸甸的把树 枝压弯，最终染成清丽的黄色。我在树下，把桂花和 那澄澈的露水一同摘下，幸福耐心的闻出秋天的色 彩。

冬天是无瑕的、纯净的白。是我即便无知年幼，也不 忍打破的，几乎完全静态的安宁。偶尔落在睫毛上的 雪花，让冬天的白那样模糊。我在纷纷扬扬的雪花 中，平静安然地望。

直到四季不再有区别，不过是周而复始的奔波。落叶 的凋零突然开始加速。春天的复苏，不过是秋天凋零 的华彩。时间已经遥遥领先于我的意识，我甚至看不 清紧紧跟随而来的下一个秋天，再下一个秋天。我记 不起梦境的颜色，清风的形状。我踏出的每一步，都 在与天与云赛跑。行走在道路上，我不再注意身旁的 车水马龙，仅想着那几千、几万个目的地。而那一千 一万条独一无二的道路，毫无区别、毫无色彩。

直到某天晚上的闲暇之余，我深陷柔软的沙发，不过 安安静静的听了一首慢歌。轻合上双眼，温了一杯热 牛奶，浓郁的乳白色。轻轻吹一口，热腾腾、雾蒙蒙 的蒸汽四散开来，润湿凑近的脸颊，雾气虚虚蒙住深 棕色的眼瞳。

然后我开始怀念。怀念那种悠闲、缓慢的浪漫。