To anyone who would rather be doing something useful with themselves.
Preface: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs
In the spring of 2013, I unwittingly set off a very minor international sensation.
It all began when I was asked to write an essay for a new radical magazine called Strike! The editor asked if I had anything provocative that no one else would be likely to publish. I usually have one or two essay ideas like that stewing around, so I drafted one up and presented him with a brief piece entitled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.”
The essay was based on a hunch. Everyone is familiar with those sort of jobs that don’t seem, to the outsider, to really do much of anything: HR consultants, communications coordi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Chapter 1: What Is a Bullshit Job?
Let us begin with what might be considered a paradigmatic example of a bullshit job.
Kurt works for a subcontractor for the German military. Or… actually, he is employed by a subcontractor of a subcontractor of a subcontractor for the German military. Here is how he describes his work:
The German military has a subcontractor that does their IT work.
The IT firm has a subcontractor that does their logistics.
The logistics firm has a subcontractor that does their personnel management, and I work for that company.
Let’s say soldier A moves to an office two rooms farther down the hall. Instead of just carrying his computer over there, he has to fill out a form.
The IT subcontractor will g... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Chapter 2
What Sorts of Bullshit Jobs Are There?
My research has revealed five basic types of bullshit jobs. In this chapter, I will describe them and outline their essential features.
First, a word about this research. I am drawing on two large bodies of data. In the wake of my original 2013 essay, “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs,” a number of newspapers in different countries ran the essay as an opinion piece, and it was also reproduced on a number of blogs. As a result, there was a great deal of online discussion, over the course of which many participants made references to personal experiences of jobs they considered particularly absurd or pointless. I downloaded 124 of these and spent some time sorting through t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Chapter 3: Why Do Those in Bullshit Jobs Regularly Report Themselves Unhappy? (On Spiritual Violence, Part 1)
Workplaces are fascist. They’re cults designed to eat your life; bosses hoard your minutes jealously like dragons hoard gold.
—Nouri
In this chapter, I’d like to start exploring some of the moral and psychological effects of being trapped inside a bullshit job.
In particular, I want to ask the obvious question: Why is this even a problem? Or to phrase it more precisely: Why does having a pointless job so regularly cause people to be miserable? On the face of it, it’s not obvious that it should. After all, we’re talking about people who are effectively being paid—often very good money&... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Chapter 4: What Is It Like to Have a Bullshit Job? (On Spiritual Violence, Part 2)
The official line is that we all have rights and live in a democracy. Other unfortunates who aren’t free like we are have to live in police states. These victims obey orders or else, no matter how arbitrary. The authorities keep them under regular surveillance. State bureaucrats control even the smallest details of everyday life. The officials who push them around are answerable only to higher-ups, public or private. Either way, dissent or disobedience are punished. Informers report regularly to the authorities. All this is supposed to be a very bad thing.
And so it is, although it is nothing but a description of the modern workplace.
—Bob Bl... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Chapter 5: Why Are Bullshit Jobs Proliferating?
In the Scilly Islands… the natives of that group are popularly said to have eked out a precarious livelihood by taking in each other’s washing.
—obscure nineteenth-century joke
A bourgeois paradise will supervene, in which everyone will be free to exploit—but there will be no one to exploit. On the whole, one must suppose that the type of it would be that town that I have heard of, whose inhabitants lived by taking in each other’s washing.
—William Morris, 1887
If the preceding chapters merely described forms of pointless employment that have always been with us in one way or another—or even that have always been with us since th... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Chapter 6: Why Do We as a Society Not Object to the Growth of Pointless Employment?
How vain the opinion is of some certain people of the East Indies, who think that apes and baboons, which are with them in great numbers, are imbued with understanding, and that they can speak but will not, for fear they should be imployed and set to work.
—Antoine Le Grand, c. 1675
We have already considered the economic and social forces that have led to the proliferation of bullshit jobs, as well as the misery and distress those jobs cause for those who have to do them. Yet despite this evident and widespread distress, the fact that millions of people show up to work every day convinced they are doing absolutely nothing has not, until no... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Chapter 7: What Are the Political Effects of Bullshit Jobs, and Is There Anything That Can Be Done About This Situation?
I believe that this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, simply fear of the mob. The mob (the thought runs) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think.
—George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
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 terrorized stratum of the, universally reviled, unemploye... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the hundreds of people who shared their stories of workplace woe, but cannot be named. You know who you are.
I would like to thank Vyvian Raoul at Strike! for commissioning the original essay and everyone else at Strike! (especially The Special Patrol Group) for making all this possible.
This book wouldn’t exist without the hard work of my team at Simon & Schuster: editor Ben Loehnen, Erin Reback, Jonathan Karp, and Amar Deol, and without the encouragement of my agent, Melissa Flashman at Janklow & Nesbit.
And, of course, much gratitude to my friends who put up with me and my colleagues at LSE, for their patience and support, and particularly to the administrative staff: Yanina and T... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
About the Author
Photographer: MARI JAN MURAT
David Graeber is a Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. He is the author of DEBT: The First 5,000 Years, and a contributor to Harper’s, The Guardian, and The Baffler. He lives in London. (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Bibliography
Ackroyd, Stephen, and Paul Thompson. Organizational Misbehavior. London: Sage, 1999.
Anderson, Perry. Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism. London: Verso Press, 1974.
Applebaum, Herbert. The Concept of Work: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern (SUNY Series in the Anthropology of Work). Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992.
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.
Baumeister, Roy, Sara Wotman, and Arlene Stillwell. “Unrequited Love: On Heartbreak, Anger, Guilt, Scriptlessness, and Humiliation.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64, no. 3 (1993): 377–94.
Beder, Sharon. Selling the Work Ethic: From Puritan Pulpit to Corporate PR. London: Zed Books, 2000.
Black, Bob... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Bibliography
Ackroyd, Stephen, and Paul Thompson. Organizational Misbehavior. London: Sage, 1999.
Anderson, Perry. Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism. London: Verso Press, 1974.
Applebaum, Herbert. The Concept of Work: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern (SUNY Series in the Anthropology of Work). Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992.
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.
Baumeister, Roy, Sara Wotman, and Arlene Stillwell. “Unrequited Love: On Heartbreak, Anger, Guilt, Scriptlessness, and Humiliation.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64, no. 3 (1993): 377–94.
Beder, Sharon. Selling the Work Ethic: From Puritan Pulpit to Corporate PR. L... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
[1] I’ve got a lot of push-back about the actuaries, and now think I was being unfair to them. Some actuarial work does make a difference. I’m still convinced the rest could disappear with no negative consequences.
[2] David Graeber, “The Modern Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs,” Canberra (Australia) Times online, last modified September 3, 2013, www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/the-modern-phenomenon-of-bullshit-jobs-20130831-2sy3j.html.
[3] To my knowledge, only one book has ever been written on the subject of bullshit jobs, Boulots de Merde!, by Paris-based journalists Julien Brygo and Olivier Cyran (2015)—and the authors told me it was directly inspired by my article. It’s a good book but ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
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