B******t Jobs
A Theory
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4.0 • 75 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
From David Graeber, the bestselling author of The Dawn of Everything and Debt—“a master of opening up thought and stimulating debate” (Slate)—a powerful argument against the rise of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs…and their consequences.
Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” It went viral. After one million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer.
There are hordes of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in b******t jobs.
Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. “Clever and charismatic” (The New Yorker), Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation and “a thought-provoking examination of our working lives” (Financial Times).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A tsunami of useless jobs is prime evidence of capitalism's moral derangement, according to this bare-knuckled polemic. Drawing on firsthand reports he gathered from workers, anthropologist Graeber (Debt: The First 5,000 Years) taxonomizes pointless busywork: the administrative assistant with time to watch YouTube all day; the PR consultant who writes reports that nobody reads; the subcontractor who drives hundreds of miles to move a client's computer a few feet; the museum guard eternally watching an empty room. Like an update of economist Thorstein Veblen's theory of a purposeless "leisure class" as interpreted by Kafka and Dilbert, Graeber's funny, incisive analysis dissects the absurd social protocols of looking busy when there's nothing to do, and plumbs the depression and self-loathing that erupt when the psychological drive to be useful is thwarted. Less cogently, he elaborates a thesis that capitalism has a sadomasochistic, quasi-religious obsession with unpleasant labor as a "sacred duty." In his quest to be provocative, Graeber himself sometimes strays into BS territory (many people, he contends, believe "we should reward useless or even destructive behavior, and, effectively, punish those whose daily labors make the world a better place"), but his many subversive insights into alienating labor make for an enlightening book that every office drone will relate to.
Customer Reviews
Recalibrate your compass now
You have two choices. A life of adventure or a life of security.
I recommend this book to high school students destined to make an impact, and for those in corporate governance who need to get a life.
What would your childhood self think about you? Can you even look a child in the eye and say the future is better because of what you do? Do you sleep well at night? Do you jump out of bed in the morning in excitement for the contribution you make?
Authors like David Graeber, Shoshana Zuboff and Jaron Lanier reframe everything you know or want to know about how to live in modern society.
The world’s information is at your fingertips and all you want is to use your mind and body for a life of useless work?
Excellent!
Don’t listen to the other reviews from people with an obvious agenda. David Graeber spells out so much that’s wrong with not only capitalists societies but communist and socialist economies as well! We’ve created completely useless box ticking jobs that are not only unnecessary but wasteful and downright demeaning and soul crushing, all to keep an ‘economy running’. Instead of utilizing multiple other ideas in an economy that could help foster peoples creativity, feeling of worth, giving back to society, etc. We’ve become complacent, deceitful, angry, wasteful and selfish. It all contributes to many of the problems we are faced with in society!
Bull***t Book
A few issues: (1) it’s not a theory, as the author states, it’s an opinion, and an arbitrary one at that; (2) the author basking in the glow of one post about BS jobs is comical and self-indulging; (3) the author appeared on Russia Today, a propaganda channel, to promote his work (he states so himself in the book) — apparently, source of publicity is secondary to him, however unsavory.
Overall, the book fits a definition of an intellectual mastrubation and as such, complete waste of time.