On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs
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On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs
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Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs
#2"Sure, in the old inefficient socialist states like the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both a right and a sacred duty"
Well, to be honest in the United States employment is considered to be such a right and sacred duty that we elect politicians based on employment and even make modulation of employment a core function of the central bank.
A lot of laws also require people to be at their desks for 40 hours - because there's a categorical definition of 'full-time equivalent' - whether or not that person is actually (instead of nominally) working all 40 of those hours.
"where Republicans have had remarkable success mobilizing resentment against school teachers"
Graber misses quite a bit here (read on for the full context); Republicans are not resentful of teachers in general, just public sector teachers.
Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs
#3This seems to me like an employee's opinion, rather than that of a founder. I mean that the worker's view of a company is as a job-creator, whereas a company founder sees a company as a tool to fill a market niche (and usually generate profit).
The argument against the article's proposal is quite simple - if people will pay for a service, doesn't that fact give the service value over 'bullshit'?
It's not that either's wrong and I don't know anything about the author's backgound. Just interesting to think from the other person's POV.
Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs
#4This seems to me like an employee's opinion, rather than that of a founder. I mean that the worker's view of a company is as a job-creator, whereas a company founder sees a company as a tool to fill a market niche (and usually generate profit). The argument against the article's proposal is quite simple - if people will pay for a service, doesn't that fact give the service value over 'bullshit'? It's not that either'…
"There’s a lot of questions one could ask here, starting with, what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (Answer: if 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call “the market” reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.)"
Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs
#5This seems to me like an employee's opinion, rather than that of a founder. I mean that the worker's view of a company is as a job-creator, whereas a company founder sees a company as a tool to fill a market niche (and usually generate profit). The argument against the article's proposal is quite simple - if people will pay for a service, doesn't that fact give the service value over 'bullshit'? It's not that either'…
David Graeber is an athropology professor, mostly known for a quite good text "Debt: the first 5000 years" - actually I am probably on the opposite side of the political ideology from Graeber and disagree quite a bit with some of his conclusions[0] but he does bring up a lot of good points and the book is a very swift read (in fact it happens to be sitting on my desk at this very moment).
[0] particularly funny was when he suggests that the erroneous historical model of the genesis of money was created to justify the academic economist's profession, while offering an anthropological counter-narrative. This could just be a major exercise in projection.
I happen to agree with a lot of what he writes in this short essay, too - especially about how Keynes' prediction has come true (although I would disagree as to what is causal).
Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs
#6Related: An epic Reddit answer to 'Why Americans get so little vacation time'
Short answer: Communism lost
http://www.reddit.com/r/business/comments/d8eiv/why_do_ameri...
Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs
#7This seems to me like an employee's opinion, rather than that of a founder. I mean that the worker's view of a company is as a job-creator, whereas a company founder sees a company as a tool to fill a market niche (and usually generate profit). The argument against the article's proposal is quite simple - if people will pay for a service, doesn't that fact give the service value over 'bullshit'? It's not that either'…
"There’s a lot of questions one could ask here, starting with, what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (Answer: if 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call “the market” reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.)"
Isn't it interesting that the one example Graeber comes up with is possibly the profession writ large whose demand is largely influenced by a social structure outside of the free-market? Likewise, a over promulgation of workers in finance is suggestive that maybe there is some non-free-market force is incentivising individuals to go into that field...
Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs
#8Related: An epic Reddit answer to 'Why Americans get so little vacation time' Short answer: Communism lost http://www.reddit.com/r/business/comments/d8eiv/why_do_ameri...
That answer is complete bullshit.
> In the United States, socialism is virtually nonexistent.
Except for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Unemployment.
And don't forget the military.
Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs
#9Graeber's idea on the solution to the problem: "revolt of the caring classes" instead of mass dropout is even more interesting in this interview.
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/01/help_us_thomas_piketty_the_1...
To put it in a naive tech twist - maybe there should be an online tool that allows me to distribute a proportion of my wages to a list of "people who care for me and things I care about".
Basically, can I create my own tax system and transact most of my affairs in it? Would anyone be interested in joining? Has DogeCoin already tried to do that?
I would never live completely outside of state taxation, because of obvious practicalities like the military. (By the way, Graeber has an argument that army is the reason for existence of both money and taxes in his book on Debt.)
In technical terms, post-bitcoin there is no reason for the state to be involved in the tax system. DogeCoin was a close attempt at an ecosystem where money goes around and contributes to good causes, not sure what is going on with it now.
There are successful local currencies(Brixton pound) that support local city councils, can the same thing be done on a global scale?
Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs
#10Related: An epic Reddit answer to 'Why Americans get so little vacation time' Short answer: Communism lost http://www.reddit.com/r/business/comments/d8eiv/why_do_ameri...
That seems so completely misguided. Why is it the government's responsibility to fix your vacation for you? Isn't it just a matter of earning enough money to afford a vacation? I doubt rich people worry as much about little vacation time - they buy those expensive yachts and then have only two weeks per year to ride them?
And even supposing there simply aren't enough jobs for everyone, and if you go on vacation somebody uses the opportunity to snatch away your job: isn't that rather a problem of distribution and work organization, not of social welfare? If it's more efficient for organizations to have one person work 40 hours than two persons 20 hours, they'll prefer that.