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All bull, no point Bullshit Jobs – The Rise of Pointless Work, and What We Can Do About It by David Graeber ISBN: 9780141983479, paperback London & New York, Penguin Books, 332 pp., 2019. Reviewed by Thomas Klikauer
In 2013, British-American anthropologist David Graeber published an article On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs in a little-known British magazine called Strike! (Graeber, 2013). Bullshit Jobs received worldwide attention. In February 2019, Penguin Book launched Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs – The Rise of Pointless Work, and What We Can Do About It. Graeber says that many bullshit jobs appear to be ‘HR [human resources] consultants, communications coordinators, PR [public relations] researchers, financial strategists, corporate lawyers’ and so on (preface, p. xiii). Some might say these are useless jobs. Once there were productive jobs in manufacturing but many of these have been ‘automated away’ (p. xv) or relocated overseas. Still, there are plenty of jobs that will never be sent overseas. We do not fly to Bangladesh for a haircut and our cars will not be serviced in Zimbabwe just because it is cheaper. Similarly, we do not attend universities in Mongolia, India, Honduras and China just because it is cheaper. The very opposite is the case: too many Australian universities live off too many overseas students (Robinson 2019). Many of the jobs that have been exported, because they can be, have created unemployment at home. While some sections of the working class are unemployed or confined to precarious employment (Wright, 2016; Standing, 2016) others are overworked, toiling away for 60+ hours per week. Overwork and the capitalism 24/7 culture (Cray 2013) have created a host of ancillary industries like ‘dog washers, all-night pizza deliverymen’, etc. (p. xvi). These exist because others work for too long. This may also apply to what Graeber calls paper pushers. Their numbers seem to be on the increase. Overall, one is inclined to think that capitalism seems to generate a general rule that says that the more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less it is likely to get paid for. In other words, a nurse earns less than a merchant banker. It is not at all clear how our society would suffer if all ‘private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR experts, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs, legal consultants and HR professionals would disappear overnight’ (p. xix). These jobs are ideologically legitimised by the corporate business press, US billionaires vol. 62, no. 1, 2020
masquerading as working-class heroes, right wing political parties and their lackeys and missionaries. For decades, these have been ‘highly successful in engineering resentment against train drivers, school teachers and car workers’ but, of course, not against CEOs and rafts of managerialists guarding train drivers, car workers and school teachers. More importantly, the former group has contributed to the pathologies of capitalism including unseen environmental vandalism (Wallace-Wells 2017) far beyond what train drivers, teachers, nurses and lecturers could do. When some of those in bullshit jobs were asked ‘does your job make a meaningful contribution to society? [an amazing] thirty-seven per cent [said] it does not’ (p. xxii). In other words, there are jobs that are so completely pointless, unnecessary, and even insidious, that even those who do these jobs cannot justify what they do. They – in fact many of us – are forced to perform complex but ultimately worthless administrative rituals only to be told admin wants it and just do it for admin. A Wall Street banker even admits ‘I regard the moral environment as pathological’ (p. 13). My peers are ‘greedy and ruthless’ [they believe they have] ‘a God-given belief to make as much money as they can in any way that they can – legal or otherwise’ (p. 13). Their jobs seem to be bullshit jobs as many listed in Graeber’s astute book admit themselves. But what defines a bullshit job? Graeber says that his ‘definition is mainly subjective [and that his book represents a] worker’s perspective [because] I think it is safe to assume the worker knows best’ (p. 10). In other words, bullshit jobs are a ‘form of employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence’ (p. 3). But bullshit jobs are not shitty jobs. Shitty jobs are bad jobs like those filled by slaughterhouse workers, cleaners, promotional mascots, traffic wardens, animal food tasters, port-a-loo toilet cleaners, road kill removers, sewer cleaners and the like. Bullshit jobs are different. Shitty jobs are mostly manual labour jobs. They are paid hourly. By contrast, bullshit jobs are mostly white-collar, salaried jobs. These bullshit jobs are found in public administration as well as in corporations. Some work in outright bullshit jobs while All bull, no point Reviewed by Thomas Klikauer
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