For CdM: Bullshit jobs

[Syt]

Had this in my Facebook newsfeed and it made me think of CdM:

Bullshit jobs: why we're not all working 4h days

David Graeber, who wrote last year's incredible Debt: The First 5,000 Years, has an extraordinary essay up called "On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs," which explores the phenomenon of people in productive industries (nursing, teaching, etc) being relentlessly ground down on wages, job stability and working conditions; while all the big money aggregates to the finance industry and a layer of "bullshit jobs" like corporate attorneys, administrators, etc -- who do jobs that produce no tangible benefit.

Even more perverse, there seems to be a broad sense that this is the way things should be. This is one of the secret strengths of right-wing populism. You can see it when tabloids whip up resentment against tube workers for paralysing London during contract disputes: the very fact that tube workers can paralyse London shows that their work is actually necessary, but this seems to be precisely what annoys people. It's even clearer in the US, where Republicans have had remarkable success mobilizing resentment against school teachers, or auto workers (and not, significantly, against the school administrators or auto industry managers who actually cause the problems) for their supposedly bloated wages and benefits. It's as if they are being told "but you get to teach children! Or make cars! You get to have real jobs! And on top of that you have the nerve to also expect middle-class pensions and health care?"

If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it's hard to see how they could have done a better job. Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc) – and particularly it's financial avatars – but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value. Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. It emerged from almost a century of trial and error. But it is the only explanation for why, despite our technological capacities, we are not all working 3-4 hour days.

Full article:

http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

[Admiral Yi]

That essay is extraordinary.

[Grey Fox]

Testify, brother, testify.

[Ideologue]

a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed

Yeah, Money will love this.

And don't think I missed the "it's [sic] financial avatars" either.

[Eddie Teach]

So much revulsion for the gardeners tending the money plants.

[Caliga]

corporate attorneys produce no 'tangible benefit'?

[Ideologue]

Yet, after a couple of unsuccessful albums, he'd lost his contract, and plagued with debts and a newborn daughter, ended up, as he put it, "taking the default choice of so many directionless folk: law school." Now he's a corporate lawyer working in a prominent New York firm. He was the first to admit that his job was utterly meaningless, contributed nothing to the world, and, in his own estimation, should not really exist.

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?

There's an infinite demand?  That's news.

I suppose I (reluctantly) strongly agree that the economy is badly mismanaged in a way that benefits rent-seekers and harms everyone else--my own job is certainly at best a lot of wasted effort in order to achieve necessary output, at worst a billing scam to steal value from business that actually do things.  And, sure, a lot of jobs are pretty worthless, socially.  I do find it deeply amusing that he believes his own job is socially valuable, equivalent to a manufacturing or agricultural job, or even to a minor-league rock star, because he's an anthropology professor who only lives off the public weal because otherwise, I guess, demand for his services would just to be too great for people to afford.

But, fundamentally, the very notion that there are "too many" of these jobs can only be described as delusional and perhaps a little sick-headed.  Especially in Britain, for Christ's sake.

Also I don't know where he gets the idea that nurses are 1)poorly paid (maybe they are under the NHS?) or 2)would have strategic effects on the economy if they all struck tomorrow.  Nurses are not a link in some kind of goods chain that would break without them.

[Grey Fox]

No nurse is making millions of dollar. While some useless CEOs are.

[Ideologue]

corporate attorneys produce no 'tangible benefit'?

Somewhat true.  Lawyers are a cost center, and produce literally nothing of value; at absolute best they save you money by clarifying legal relationships, ensuring lawful action, or defending questionably lawful action successfully.

"Reducing exposure" is a tangible benefit, I guess, but you don't make money off marketing your lawyers' successful products liability defense, you make money off the product, which lawyers do not design, make, deliver, or sell.

No nurse is making millions of dollar. While some useless CEOs are.

And plenty of people in "bullshit jobs" are making $7.25/hr.  Most nurses make more than most lawyers, that's for fucking sure.  I guess they deserve it a bit more, but both industries are premised on extortion.

[garbon]

Nurses are not a link in some kind of goods chain that would break without them.

Hospitals would be pretty fucked without nursing staff.  That said, I agree that nurses can make bank. That's why I advised my cab driver to go to nursing school when he was thinking about law school.

[DGuller]

corporate attorneys produce no 'tangible benefit'?

Somewhat true.  Lawyers are a cost center, and produce literally nothing of value; at absolute best they save you money by clarifying legal relationships, ensuring lawful action, or defending questionably lawful action successfully.

"Reducing exposure" is a tangible benefit, I guess, but you don't make money off marketing your lawyers' successful products liability defense, you make money off the product, which lawyers do not design, make, deliver, or sell.

No nurse is making millions of dollar. While some useless CEOs are.

And plenty of people in "bullshit jobs" are making $7.25/hr.  Most nurses make more than most lawyers, that's for fucking sure.  I guess they deserve it a bit more, but both industries are premised on extortion.

To defend your kind, you can't have a rule of law without lawyers.

[Admiral Yi]

What do you mean by "rent seeker" and by "mismanaged" Ide?

[MadImmortalMan]

I guess having a bullshit job that pays $7.25 is the worst of both worlds.

[mongers]

Yet, after a couple of unsuccessful albums, he'd lost his contract, and plagued with debts and a newborn daughter, ended up, as he put it, "taking the default choice of so many directionless folk: law school." Now he's a corporate lawyer working in a prominent New York firm. He was the first to admit that his job was utterly meaningless, contributed nothing to the world, and, in his own estimation, should not really exist.

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?

There's an infinite demand?  That's news.

I suppose I (reluctantly) strongly agree that the economy is badly mismanaged in a way that benefits rent-seekers and harms everyone else--my own job is certainly at best a lot of wasted effort in order to achieve necessary output, at worst a billing scam to steal value from business that actually do things.  And, sure, a lot of jobs are pretty worthless, socially.  I do find it deeply amusing that he believes his own job is socially valuable, equivalent to a manufacturing or agricultural job, or even to a minor-league rock star, because he's an anthropology professor who only lives off the public weal because otherwise, I guess, demand for his services would just to be too great for people to afford.

But, fundamentally, the very notion that there are "too many" of these jobs can only be described as delusional and perhaps a little sick-headed.  Especially in Britain, for Christ's sake.

Also I don't know where he gets the idea that nurses are 1)poorly paid (maybe they are under the NHS?) or 2)would have strategic effects on the economy if they all struck tomorrow.  Nurses are not a link in some kind of goods chain that would break without them.

I read a report on the bbc recently that the number of managers had actually grown during the recession, now hitting 5.5 million out of 29million workforce. 

Soon a B-ark won't be big enough. 

[crazy canuck]

Lawyers are a cost center, and produce literally nothing of value

Yeah, because nobody needs properly drafted agreements.  I mean, what could possibly go wrong?  You are completely discounting the role commercial lawyers play in drafting agreements that have commercially advantageous language and perhaps more importantly the due diligence work that is required in most, if not all, commercial transactions.