Bullshit Jobs

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is a 2018 book by anthropologist <a href="/facts/David_Graeber/jVGTmlNk">David Graeber</a> that postulates the existence of meaningless jobs and analyzes their societal harm. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless and becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a <a href="/facts/Protestant_work_ethic/tImQUhFL">work ethic that associates work with self-worth</a>. Graeber describes five types of meaningless jobs, in which workers pretend their role is not as pointless or harmful as they know it to be: flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. He argues that the association of labor with virtuous suffering is recent in human history and proposes <a href="/facts/Trade_union/PjeN2WKu">unions</a> and <a href="/facts/Universal_basic_income/yHnay1za">universal basic income</a> as a potential solution.
The book is an extension of Graeber's 2013 popular essay, which was later translated into 12 languages and whose underlying premise became the subject of a <a href="/facts/YouGov/P1THrSCy">YouGov</a> poll. Graeber solicited hundreds of testimonials from workers with meaningless jobs and revised his essay's case into book form; <a href="/facts/Simon_%2526_Schuster/pESq8Dxl">Simon & Schuster</a> published the book in May 2018.
One prominent study has challenged the empirical claims of the Bullshit Jobs theory. Specifically, this study presents evidence that the fraction of people who believe their jobs are pointless is lower than Graeber claims (5-10% vs 20-50%), that it is declining rather than increasing, that the jobs which Graeber claims are useless are not the same as those the workers themselves feel are useless, and that being in debt does not make one more likely to feel their job is useless.

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Bullshit Jobs