Bullshit Jobs

A Theory

by ,

13h runtime; narrated by Christopher Ragland

Published May 14, 2018 by Simon & Schuster Audio and Blackstone Audio.

ISBN:
9781508264668

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (5 reviews)

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is a 2018 book by anthropologist David Graeber that argues the existence and societal harm of meaningless jobs. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless, which becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth. Graeber describes five types of bullshit jobs, in which workers pretend their role isn't as pointless or harmful as they know it to be: flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. He argues that the association of labor with virtuous suffering is recent in human history, and proposes universal basic income as a potential solution.

12 editions

reviewed Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

Bullshitjobs und schlechtbezahlte nützliche Jobs

4 stars

David Graeber fragt sich, warum in einer kapitalistischen Gesellschaft so viele Jobs entstehen können, die offenbar keinen Sinn ergeben, wirtschaftliche unnötig sind und die Menschen, die dort arbeiten müssen, unglücklich machen. Eine Antwort hat er eigentlich nicht. Das Buch ist dennoch eine sehr gute Auseinandersetzung mit der kapitalistischen Arbeitsgesellschaft. Einige Kapitel lang wird die sehr interessante und wichtige Frage erörtert, warum gesellschaftlich sinnvolle Tätigkeiten im Gegensatz zu unnützen oder schädlichen Tätigkeiten so schlecht bezahlt werden. Als Lösungsvorschlag präsentiert Graeber das bedingungslose Grundeinkommen. Naja, das war etwas einfallslos, aber gut. Warum nicht. Es lohnt sich auf jeden Fall, seine Denkanstöße weiterzudenken. Vielleicht fällt „uns“ ja noch was besseres ein.

reviewed Trabajos de mierda : Una teoría by David Graeber

Trabajos que no deberían existir

5 stars

No sé cómo había llegado hasta aquí sin conocer esta teoría.

Como libro, en ocasiones es un tanto repetitivo, y se le puede criticar que toda su teoría y estudio no tiene mucho de científico porque es en base a un artículo y gente que le escribe... Y sabes qué, me da igual. La sensación de que este señor ha puesto por escrito algo que todos sabíamos de forma tácita.

La distinción este trabajo precario y trabajo de mierda también es importante

reviewed Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

Interesting Critique of the World of Work

4 stars

This is an interesting read. It was interesting to me as someone aspiring to not have a job and close to making that happen. The look at "why have jobs?" and "why treat them as so sacred?" really hit home.

I have long said that this reverence for having a job is rooted in Puritanism. Recently I am wondering if it is more deeply internalized capitalist frames. Graeber's viewpoint is that it is some of both, which I found interesting.

This book was a good companion piece to Chokepoint Capitalism

reviewed Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

A very interesting book about work

4 stars

It took me some time to enter into the Bullshit jobs book. At first, it appears as some leftist light essay. The book started when David Graeber wrote a first opinion piece about the fact that a significant percentage of the population is doing work that is useless to society and they know it. This first essay made a lot of noise, and some media made some polls : in UK, more than 35% of people say that they are doing a useless bullshit job. Based on these numbers and lot of testimonies, David Graeber wrote this book to elaborate on this concept. The first chapters appears as quite light : some definitions, some testimonies, some categories of bullshit job. Overall, I wasn't convinced : radically leftist but also pretty light theoretically, not real analysis of what is happening, no stats, everything described in a pretty broad context. But I …