Middlemen Are Eating the World (and That's Good, Actually)
inchpin.substack.com
Middlemen Are Eating the World (and That's Good, Actually)
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: Middlemen Are Eating the World (and That's Good, Actually)
#2I think many people have some intuition that work can be separated between “real work“ (farming, say, or building trains) and “middlemen” (e.g. accounting, salespeople, lawyers, bureaucrats, DEI strategists). “Bullshit jobs” by David Graeber is a more intellectualized framing of the same intuition. Many people believe that middlemen are entirely useless, and we can get rid of (almost) all middleman jobs, RETVRN to people doing real work, and society would be much better off.
Like many populist intuitions, this intuition is completely backwards. Middlemen are extremely important! Coordination problems are real problems, and the bottlenecks to global wealth and flourishing.
The post goes into details for why.
Re: Middlemen Are Eating the World (and That's Good, Actually)
#3Boy did this set off my pendant side!
> “middlemen” (e.g. accounting, salespeople, lawyers, bureaucrats, DEI strategists).
I wouldn't call any of those positions "middlemen", though. A middleman is an entity that sits between a producer and a purchaser and takes a cut, usually by connecting the two. None of the examples listed are that.
Re: Middlemen Are Eating the World (and That's Good, Actually)
#4Boy did this set off my pendant side! > “middlemen” (e.g. accounting, salespeople, lawyers, bureaucrats, DEI strategists). I wouldn't call any of those positions "middlemen", though. A middleman is an entity that sits between a producer and a purchaser and takes a cut, usually by connecting the two. None of the examples listed are that.
I agree I used the word substantially more expansively than some other people use it. That's why I defined it in the beginning so people can understand the local scoping of the relevant word! :)
(That said "salespeople" are in the middle layer under your definition as well)
The other term I was thinking of using for this post was "bullshit jobs." So titling my post "bullshit jobs are real jobs" but I didn't want to fight against the motte-and-bailey of specific jobs being possibly bullshit jobs.
("coordinators" presumed the conclusion too much and also points to a specific thing )
Re: Middlemen Are Eating the World (and That's Good, Actually)
#5I think many people have some intuition that work can be separated between “real work“ (farming, say, or building trains) and “middlemen” (e.g. accounting, salespeople, lawyers, bureaucrats, DEI strategists). “Bullshit jobs” by David Graeber is a more intellectualized framing of the same intuition. Many people believe that middlemen are entirely useless, and we can get rid of (almost) all middleman jobs, RETVRN to pe…
These examples are not good, almost none of those are what most people would call middlemen. A perfect example of an actual middleman would be the type of hustle grindset loser who sets up an Amazon store that sells merchandise from Alibaba at steep price hikes while contributing nothing to the product or its delivery. That’s a middle man.
Re: Middlemen Are Eating the World (and That's Good, Actually)
#6I think many people have some intuition that work can be separated between “real work“ (farming, say, or building trains) and “middlemen” (e.g. accounting, salespeople, lawyers, bureaucrats, DEI strategists). “Bullshit jobs” by David Graeber is a more intellectualized framing of the same intuition. Many people believe that middlemen are entirely useless, and we can get rid of (almost) all middleman jobs, RETVRN to pe…
These examples are not good, almost none of those are what most people would call middlemen. A perfect example of an actual middleman would be the type of hustle grindset loser who sets up an Amazon store that sells merchandise from Alibaba at steep price hikes while contributing nothing to the product or its delivery. That’s a middle man.
Yep, you can't just "redefine" a noun to get a clickbait title
Re: Middlemen Are Eating the World (and That's Good, Actually)
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
These examples are not good, almost none of those are what most people would call middlemen. A perfect example of an actual middleman would be the type of hustle grindset loser who sets up an Amazon store that sells merchandise from Alibaba at steep price hikes while contributing nothing to the product or its delivery. That’s a middle man.
Yep, you can't just "redefine" a noun to get a clickbait title
I mean, you just described a whole lot of the internet.
Re: Middlemen Are Eating the World (and That's Good, Actually)
#8Boy did this set off my pendant side! > “middlemen” (e.g. accounting, salespeople, lawyers, bureaucrats, DEI strategists). I wouldn't call any of those positions "middlemen", though. A middleman is an entity that sits between a producer and a purchaser and takes a cut, usually by connecting the two. None of the examples listed are that.
I'll be the pedant and say the word is "pedant" :)
Re: Middlemen Are Eating the World (and That's Good, Actually)
#9I think many people have some intuition that work can be separated between “real work“ (farming, say, or building trains) and “middlemen” (e.g. accounting, salespeople, lawyers, bureaucrats, DEI strategists). “Bullshit jobs” by David Graeber is a more intellectualized framing of the same intuition. Many people believe that middlemen are entirely useless, and we can get rid of (almost) all middleman jobs, RETVRN to pe…
The problem is the value tends to be ephemeral and single use. Once the connection is established, the parties are better off communicating directly.
That’s why marketplaces like TaskRabbit struggle to generalize and grow. Contracting firms often struggle in similar ways and try to put clauses in their contracts to retain their relevance.
Re: Middlemen Are Eating the World (and That's Good, Actually)
#10>Bloody bean counters! Mate they just need to pick up a toolbelt and do some real work all they do is fuck everything up.
A sentiment often expressed by my dad as the 'bean counters' organize 1000s of people across 100s of companies and tons and tons of materials and machinery to all arrive on site and preform specific tasks in an efficient manner.