A lot of jobs are pure bullshit jobs that only exist because the corporation needed to hire inorder to appear growing. They then do mass firings to appear like they’re cutting costs. It’s all smoke and mirrors for the shareholders.
That doesn’t make the people filling those roles not working class, in fact it highlights how disposable the working class is to the capitalist class, and further reinforces my point: capitalists are the enemy.
anthropologist David Graeber that postulates the existence of meaningless jobs which cause psychological harm. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless and becomes psychologically destructive (when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth) because workers are required to pretend their role is not as pointless or harmful as they know it to be.
The word meaningless is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Is it meaningless to sort and file reports? In the grand scheme of things, and to society, maybe. But not to the company that’s paying you. They have value from it.
I’m not saying the companies are hyper efficient with only purposeful work. I’m saying that companies aren’t intentionally throwing out money on work that they know is useless. They’re too greedy for that.
I’m aware of Graeber’s work. I don’t really agree with much of his conclusions or analysis, as he is an anarchist and I’m a Marxist-Leninist, but we would agree that much of office work is indeed socially unproductive, if we were to pivot to a socialist economy. That being said, we exist in capitalism, and thus office workers are working class, regardless of how necessary the work they do is beyond helping generate profit.
Yeah, I’m an anarchist who generally does agree with Graeber, but I do think that it’s vital to understand that he did see office workers, including ones in bullshit jobs, as working class. He resented the bureaucracy not the bureacrat. And it’s important to note that plenty of office work isn’t inherently within his definition of bullshit jobs. Hell, I’d argue there’s a fair chance that the largest portion of people working bullshit jobs are in the category of “industry does more harm than good and the worker knows it”.
I doubt that. You could do the same thing with fake job postings if you really wanted, and it’s cheaper.
But let’s say you’re right. Those people would still be given lots of work and be busy, because if they were allowed to be not busy everyone else would see and not want to work.
A lot of jobs are pure bullshit jobs that only exist because the corporation needed to hire inorder to appear growing. They then do mass firings to appear like they’re cutting costs. It’s all smoke and mirrors for the shareholders.
That doesn’t make the people filling those roles not working class, in fact it highlights how disposable the working class is to the capitalist class, and further reinforces my point: capitalists are the enemy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
The word meaningless is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Is it meaningless to sort and file reports? In the grand scheme of things, and to society, maybe. But not to the company that’s paying you. They have value from it.
I’m not saying the companies are hyper efficient with only purposeful work. I’m saying that companies aren’t intentionally throwing out money on work that they know is useless. They’re too greedy for that.
This was an important part that shouldn’t be discounted since it was still at the core of the argument.
I’m aware of Graeber’s work. I don’t really agree with much of his conclusions or analysis, as he is an anarchist and I’m a Marxist-Leninist, but we would agree that much of office work is indeed socially unproductive, if we were to pivot to a socialist economy. That being said, we exist in capitalism, and thus office workers are working class, regardless of how necessary the work they do is beyond helping generate profit.
Yeah, I’m an anarchist who generally does agree with Graeber, but I do think that it’s vital to understand that he did see office workers, including ones in bullshit jobs, as working class. He resented the bureaucracy not the bureacrat. And it’s important to note that plenty of office work isn’t inherently within his definition of bullshit jobs. Hell, I’d argue there’s a fair chance that the largest portion of people working bullshit jobs are in the category of “industry does more harm than good and the worker knows it”.
I doubt that. You could do the same thing with fake job postings if you really wanted, and it’s cheaper.
But let’s say you’re right. Those people would still be given lots of work and be busy, because if they were allowed to be not busy everyone else would see and not want to work.
They do do that with fake job listings.