Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, by David Graeber

Staff review by Chris Saliba

Anthropologist and anarchist David Graeber argues that automation has already created mass unemployment, but the economy has filled the gap with dummy jobs. 

Have you ever worked a job that didn’t seem necessary at all? In fact, it was a complete mystery as to why the job was created in the first place? Or has your workplace laboured under an immense weight of pointless bureaucracy – box ticking and form filling? Have you ever found it affecting your mental health, driving you positively mad? Then David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs is just for you.

The book had its genesis in an earlier article Graeber wrote, speculating that a high percentage of jobs in the modern economy were essentially dummy jobs made up of useless busywork. The article was published widely and garnered a wealth of interesting responses and testimonials from readers who had done jobs they deemed pointless. Generous portions of the book are made up of frustrated employees explaining their mind numbing jobs that involve, for the most part, pretending to be busy while actually having nothing to do. Ironically, these easygoing “dream” jobs end up being quite stressful and people quit for lower paid, more meaningful work.

To test the hypothesis that a large portion of jobs are fake, a British pollster ran a question from Graeber’s original article, asking respondents if they thought their jobs contributed anything worthwhile to society or had any use. A staggering 37 per cent said they felt their jobs were pointless.

A book about useless jobs sounds like a bit of a dummy spit, but Graeber expands this single theme into an overwhelmingly fascinating thesis. British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted in the 1930s that automation would kill off the need to work long hours, and that in the future people would only work 15-20 hours per week. Graeber maintains that this is exactly what has happened. Automation and productivity gains have produced so much wealth we simply don’t need to work long hours. Writes Graeber:

“Automation did, in fact, lead to mass unemployment. We have simply stopped the gap by adding dummy jobs that are effectively made up.”

Bullshit Jobs discusses many other interesting facets of work, such as the value we give particular kinds of work (why are the useful professions, such as childcare and nursing, underpaid?), the mental health aspects of performing useless tasks and our general attitude to work (we see it as punitive and yet something everyone must be made to endure).

This is a totally liberating book that will make you rethink how the economy works and how it could be re-configured to serve us better. Graeber has a fine, incisive mind; every page offers original ideas and a unique perspective.

I wish everyone would read this book.

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, by David Graeber. Published by Allen Lane. ISBN: 9780241263884  RRP: $49.99

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