Bullshit Jobs

by David Graeber

hardcover, 333 pages

Published June 3, 2018 by Allen Lane.

ISBN:: 978-0-241-26388-4

(12 reviews)

Be honest: if your job didn't exist, would anybody miss it? Have you ever wondered why not? Up to 40% of us secretly believe our jobs probably aren't necessary. In other words: they are bullshit jobs. This book shows why, and what we can do about it.

In the early twentieth century, people prophesied that technology would see us all working fifteen-hour weeks and driving flying cars. Instead, something curious happened. Not only have the flying cars not materialised, but average working hours have increased rather than decreased. And now, across the developed world, three-quarters of all jobs are in services, finance or admin: jobs that don't seem to contribute anything to society. In Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber explores how this phenomenon - one more associated with the Soviet Union, but which capitalism was supposed to eliminate - has happened. In doing so, he looks at how, rather than producing …

This book is for anyone whose heart has sunk at the sight of a whiteboard, who believes 'workshops' should only be for making things, or who just suspects that there might be a better way to run our world.

12 editions

Bob 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 powered through it and found myself suddenly into pretty intense and deep writing about what is work, what is the value we put into work, how capitalism forced an evolution about these concepts, and all this starting from the question of how do we globally accepts that some works are totally useless. I am not used to read that kind of broad essays, but I really enjoyed this anthropological thinking about work and may read some more David Graebber.

Dave Slusher - Books 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

linobanshee@bookwyrm.gatti.ninja reviewed Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

Ammettere l'esistenza di lavori del cavolo è un taboo

5 stars

Saggio dell'antropologo anarchico David Graeber. Il libro affronta a mo' di testo argomentativo come più della metà dei lavori della nostra società siano senza senza senso e/o frustranti. Per farlo l'autore riporta testimonianze e dati raccolti da un campione di persone che hanno risposto al suo sondaggio. Consigliatissimo, soprattutto per le prospettive nuove e stimolanti.

Carlos Cámara reviewed Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

Fun, depressing, provocative

4 stars

Halfway between the humoristic and scientific publication, what started as a provocation ends up in building a theory that is in fact a (often humoristic, sometimes depressing) criticism to capitalistic system and the work culture that is embedded on it. A must-read.