I have been thinking about that Graeber's essay intensively - because on one hand he is strikingly right about that many people now feel that they do a bullshit job, and on the other hand his explanation to why this happens is laughably silly.
My conclusion is that it is the complexity. It is that people don't understand why they do something - this makes their work meaningless for them. And accidentally there is a big chance that their job is useless in an objective way - it is just that the people that direct them also don't understand the system fully.
And the complexity grows in many ways. One is that our lives are much more regulated than they used to be - we have more laws about everything. In one way it makes lives more fair - but the complexity from the entangling of different laws grows quickly. Another is that we actually have less cultural regulations. For example - take noise from parties, in the past it was that there were just some dates when everyone was partying - because everyone had the same religion etc.
By they way - in 'User Innovation' there is this notion of 'advanced analog field' https://books.google.pl/books?id=BvCvxqxYAuAC&pg=PA134&lpg=P... - an area where there is a much stronger need for something then anywhere else. It is often that the innovation happens in that 'advanced analog field' and later it is adopted in all other areas. Like abs was invented first for airplane breaks - but later it was adopted by the car industry. I think that maybe we should treat software development as a kind of 'advanced analogue field' for law.
Complexity is a good word to generalize. I think there are a lot of specific reasons for these BS jobs. It is much easier for a manager to report that he has increased productivity in his division 10%. Rather than report that he has fired 40% of his employees because they were not really doing anything useful. In the first situation the manager is going to get a pat on the back for improvements. In the second situation his managers are going to want to know how this waste of resources was happening in the first place. Also the manager could be looking at a demotion since he isn't responsible for as many people any more.
This conspiracy between all company owners - this is in the article:
"""
"The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s)."
I am immediately bursting with questions. Such as, should we conclude that protesters around the world—in Brazil, India, North Africa, Turkey—are in fact too happy? How does the ruling class co-ordinate all this hiring, and if much of the economy's employment is useless in the first place why not just keep them on during recessions?
"""
What do you think the American Enterprise Institute is for? Cato? Chambers of Commerce? The multitude of other business umbrella lobby groups? What did you think they did other than come together to form a united front to represent their interests (conspire)?
I am immediately bursting with questions. Such as, should we conclude that protesters around the world—in Brazil, India, North Africa, Turkey—are in fact too happy?
I don't see why one would conclude that at all.
How does the ruling class co-ordinate all this hiring
Via a labor market which they try to mold using government policy to fit their interests.
if much of the economy's employment is useless in the first place why not just keep them on during recessions
Periodic cullings help keep the rest of the employees suitably terrorized.
What do you think the American Enterprise Institute is for? Cato? Chambers of Commerce? The multitude of other business umbrella lobby groups? What did you think they did other than come together to form a united front to represent their interests (conspire)?
We're talking about a conspiracy to hire people for no other reason than to keep them busy so they don't revolt. This is laughably absurd. What do I, as a company owner, gain by adhering to this conspiracy? What I lose is obvious: huge waste on salaries for jobs that accomplish nothing. This conspiracy does not pass the economics sniff test: it purports a huge artificial externality with no apparent free-riding.
Now you're just moving the goalposts. My response is directed towards the original claim made in Graeber's essay, not your liberal interpretations thereof.
If you use neoclassical assumptions like you did, his claims are absurd. However, we live in the real world, not some magic fantasy of perfect markets, perfect competition and zero transaction costs.
150 years ago leisure was rare and valuable. Being idle rich marked you as elite.
Now it's the opposite. Anyone in the west can easily be idle and afford an OK standard of living. It's having a "professional" job that marks you as elite, because there aren't nearly enough such jobs for those who are capable.
So you get large numbers of people hustling to land and hold various sorts of dumb office jobs. Mostly because the job is a coveted status marker.
Take a drive through any low income urban area or trailer park. Huge numbers of people who don't work. They milk welfare and so forth. The only reason these areas seem to afford a lousy standard of living is because your neighbors would be violent morons. The problem isn't lack of resources. There are large hasidic communities of unemployed people who mostly milk benefits and they have built rather nice neighborhoods.
Comments
I have been thinking about that Graeber's essay intensively - because on one hand he is strikingly right about that many people now feel that they do a bullshit job, and on the other hand his explanation to why this happens is laughably silly.
My conclusion is that it is the complexity. It is that people don't understand why they do something - this makes their work meaningless for them. And accidentally there is a big chance that their job is useless in an objective way - it is just that the people that direct them also don't understand the system fully.
And the complexity grows in many ways. One is that our lives are much more regulated than they used to be - we have more laws about everything. In one way it makes lives more fair - but the complexity from the entangling of different laws grows quickly. Another is that we actually have less cultural regulations. For example - take noise from parties, in the past it was that there were just some dates when everyone was partying - because everyone had the same religion etc.
By they way - in 'User Innovation' there is this notion of 'advanced analog field' https://books.google.pl/books?id=BvCvxqxYAuAC&pg=PA134&lpg=P... - an area where there is a much stronger need for something then anywhere else. It is often that the innovation happens in that 'advanced analog field' and later it is adopted in all other areas. Like abs was invented first for airplane breaks - but later it was adopted by the car industry. I think that maybe we should treat software development as a kind of 'advanced analogue field' for law.
Complexity is a good word to generalize. I think there are a lot of specific reasons for these BS jobs. It is much easier for a manager to report that he has increased productivity in his division 10%. Rather than report that he has fired 40% of his employees because they were not really doing anything useful. In the first situation the manager is going to get a pat on the back for improvements. In the second situation his managers are going to want to know how this waste of resources was happening in the first place. Also the manager could be looking at a demotion since he isn't responsible for as many people any more.
What you're talking about regarding work is pretty close to what Marx called alienation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation
What's so laughably silly about it?
This conspiracy between all company owners - this is in the article:
""" "The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s)."
I am immediately bursting with questions. Such as, should we conclude that protesters around the world—in Brazil, India, North Africa, Turkey—are in fact too happy? How does the ruling class co-ordinate all this hiring, and if much of the economy's employment is useless in the first place why not just keep them on during recessions? """
What do you think the American Enterprise Institute is for? Cato? Chambers of Commerce? The multitude of other business umbrella lobby groups? What did you think they did other than come together to form a united front to represent their interests (conspire)?
I don't see why one would conclude that at all.
Via a labor market which they try to mold using government policy to fit their interests.
Periodic cullings help keep the rest of the employees suitably terrorized.
What do you think the American Enterprise Institute is for? Cato? Chambers of Commerce? The multitude of other business umbrella lobby groups? What did you think they did other than come together to form a united front to represent their interests (conspire)?
We're talking about a conspiracy to hire people for no other reason than to keep them busy so they don't revolt. This is laughably absurd. What do I, as a company owner, gain by adhering to this conspiracy? What I lose is obvious: huge waste on salaries for jobs that accomplish nothing. This conspiracy does not pass the economics sniff test: it purports a huge artificial externality with no apparent free-riding.
No, we're talking about hiring people for this reason, among others.
You mean a share holder? Nothing. You seem to be laughably under the impression that the company is run for your personal benefit. It isn't.
You explain why companies hire based upon headcount instead of pure cost. It doesn't make intrinsic sense, but that's how it happens.
Congratulations, you just assumed away the principal-agent dilemma.
Now you're just moving the goalposts. My response is directed towards the original claim made in Graeber's essay, not your liberal interpretations thereof.
If you use neoclassical assumptions like you did, his claims are absurd. However, we live in the real world, not some magic fantasy of perfect markets, perfect competition and zero transaction costs.
150 years ago leisure was rare and valuable. Being idle rich marked you as elite.
Now it's the opposite. Anyone in the west can easily be idle and afford an OK standard of living. It's having a "professional" job that marks you as elite, because there aren't nearly enough such jobs for those who are capable.
So you get large numbers of people hustling to land and hold various sorts of dumb office jobs. Mostly because the job is a coveted status marker.
How?
Take a drive through any low income urban area or trailer park. Huge numbers of people who don't work. They milk welfare and so forth. The only reason these areas seem to afford a lousy standard of living is because your neighbors would be violent morons. The problem isn't lack of resources. There are large hasidic communities of unemployed people who mostly milk benefits and they have built rather nice neighborhoods.