BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, Work - what is it good for?
Unfortunately, there is a lot of pointless work:
STRIKE! Magazine – On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber review – the myth of capitalist efficiency
Is your job one that makes the world a better place? If not, it is probably bullshit, part of a system that is keeping us under control
Eliane Glaser
Fri 25 May 2018 07.30 BSTLast modified on Sat 26 May 2018 00.10 BST
Ihad a bullshit job once. It involved answering the phone for an important man, except the phone didn’t ring for hours on end, so I spent the time guiltily converting my PhD into a book. I’ve also had several jobs that were not bullshit but were steadily bullshitised: interesting jobs in the media and academia that were increasingly taken up with filling out compliance forms and time allocation surveys. I’ve also had a few shit jobs, but that’s something different. Toilets need to be cleaned. But to have a bullshit job is to know that if it were to disappear tomorrow it would make no difference to the world: in fact, it might make the world a better place.
When I read David Graeber’s essay On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs in Strike! magazine in 2013, I felt somehow vindicated. I had sat in the pub on many a Friday evening moaning to colleagues about data entry and inefficient meetings. But with the Martian gaze of the anthropologist, Graeber managed to articulate my plight in a way that made me feel part of some grand, absurdist outrage.
I wasn’t alone. The essay went viral, receiving more than 1m hits, and was translated into a dozen languages. “Guerrilla” activists even replaced hundreds of ads in London tube carriages with quotes from the essay, presumably in order to jolt commuters out of their apathetic stupor. As is the way in the world of reactive non-fiction publishing, a book followed.
The argument of both essay and book is this: in 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that technological advances would enable us to work a 15-hour week. Yet we seem to be busier than ever before. Those workers who actually do stuff are burdened with increasing workloads, while box-tickers and bean-counters multiply.
In an age that supremely prizes capitalist efficiency, the proliferation of pointless jobs is a puzzle. Why are employers in the public and private sector alike behaving like the bureaucracies of the old Soviet Union, shelling out wages to workers they don’t seem to need? Since bullshit jobs make no economic sense, Graeber argues, their function must be political. A population kept busy with make-work is less likely to revolt.
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber review – the myth of capitalist efficiency | Books | The Guardian
The Rise of Bullshit Jobs - Jacobin Magazine
Bullshit Jobs - Wikipedia
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5 Types of Bullsh*t Jobs with David Graeber - YouTube
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David Graeber - Bullshit Jobs - YouTube
[Bullshit Jobs] | C-SPAN.org
Others have thought about this:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Golgafrincham - YouTube
Colonising A New Planet - The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - BBC - YouTube
The FT looks at 'the solutions':
Why do pointless jobs exist?
‘Bullshit Jobs’ provides a thought-provoking examination of our working lives
The solution he proposes will be familiar to many readers: the universal basic income. An unconditional lump of cash for all citizens would, he thinks, free people from meaningless jobs and allow them to pursue lives of real purpose.
It is a concept that already has advocates from across the political spectrum. Leftists think it could help end poverty and advance female equality. Silicon Valley billionaires such as Elon Musk think it will eventually become necessary as machines steal human jobs. Graeber’s aim is more radical. He wants to shatter the link between livelihood and work entirely.
He may be waiting some time. Pilot basic income programmes have been launched around the world in recent years, from Kenya to Canada and the US. The results are still coming in. Finland announced last month that its closely watched trial of the concept would not be extended beyond its planned two-year lifetime.Why do pointless jobs exist? | Financial Times
Here these ideas are further expanded by someone from Silicon Valley:
Roy Bahat and Bryn Freedman: What is the meaning of work? | TED Talk
For a little more:
Futures Forum: Automation and the future of work > How secure are East Devon's new warehousing jobs?
Futures Forum: Creating/destroying jobs >>> Creative Destruction and Artificial Intelligence
Futures Forum: Power-relations and control > "Who will own the future?" > on Artificial Intelligence, Universal Basic Income and the potential threats from automation
Futures Forum: Artificial Intelligence on the farm > software, hydroponics and reducing costs
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