ANTHROPOLOGIST David Graeber has written an amusing essay on the nature of work in a modern economy, which seems to involve lots of people doing meaningless tasks they hate:
In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshalled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.
It is not the case, he writes, that people have to keep working to produce the consumer goods for which the rich world hungers. Outrageously, meaningless employment—in what he calls "bullshit jobs"—is concentrated in “professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers”:
In other words, productive jobs have, just as predicted, been largely automated away (even if you count industrial workers globally, including the toiling masses in India and China, such workers are still not nearly so large a percentage of the world population as they used to be).
But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world’s population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the “service” sector as of the administrative sector...
Why in the world would firms spend extraordinary amounts of money employing people to do worthless tasks (especially when they've shown themselves to be exceedingly good at not employing people to do worthless tasks)? Says Mr Graeber:
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?
But there is actually an important point here. The place to start is to recognise that, romance aside, many of the industrial jobs that have been automated away were incredibly tedious and unpleasant for those doing them. The development of assembly line processes contributed to rising worker wages in part because of increased productivity...but also because employers were tired of training workers only to lose them once they realised they'd be affixing Tab A to Frame B, repeatedly, all day long.
Employers had to retain such workers—had to pay them a wage sufficient to keep them on the job despite its dreadful tedium—because the machines of the era lacked the manual dexterity to complete the required tasks, and so a line of human machines was the only way to make the highly productive assembly-line system work. As technology evolved, however, automating routine tasks became ever easier. And the high wages needed to compensate labourers for the soul-crushing repetitiveness of their work gave employers every incentive to automate routine tasks as soon as it was technically feasible.
Perhaps you see where this is going.
As technology has improved, it has become ever easier to dispense with human labour in mechanical processes. There are still jobs where a very high level of physical dexterity and task flexibility is needed—in construction, for example, or janitorial work—and people continue to do those jobs. But it is not surprising that employment growth has shifted elsewhere. And administrative jobs are the modern equivalent of the industrial line worker.
Over the past century the world economy has grown increasingly complex. The goods being provided are more complex; the supply chains used to build them are more complex; the systems to market, sell and distribute them are more complex; the means to finance it all is more complex; and so on. This complexity is what makes us rich. But it is an enormous pain to manage. I'd say that one way to manage it all would be through teams of generalists—craftsman managers who mind the system from the design stage right through to the customer service calls—but there is no way such complexity would be economically workable in that world (just as cheap, ubiquitous automobiles would have been impossible in a world where teams of generalist mechanics produced cars one at a time).
No, the efficient way to do things is to break businesses up into many different kinds of tasks, allowing for a very high level of specialisation. And so you end up with the clerical equivalent of repeatedly affixing Tab A to Frame B: shuffling papers, management of the minutiae of supply chains, and so on. Disaggregation may make it look meaningless, since many workers end up doing things incredibly far removed from the end points of the process; the days when the iron ore goes in one door and the car rolls out the other are over. But the idea is the same.
One question is why today's workers aren't rewarded with high wages for their suffering. And one possible answer is that, well, they are. Real wages for today's clerical workers are far higher than they were for manufacturing workers a century ago, and the work, for all its tedium, probably isn't nearly as unpleasant. Administrative workers get to sit down in climate-controlled offices, tweeting and playing fantasy football on their desktop when time allows. If firms had to pay more to get a body in the deskchair, they would.
Technology continues to improve, however. Just as robots became ever better at various manual tasks over the past century—and were therefore able to replace human labour in a growing array of jobs, beginning with the most routine—computer control systems are able to handle ever more of the work done by human administrative workers. Jobs from truck driver to legal aid to medical diagnostician to customer service technician will soon be threatened by machines. Starting with the most routine tasks. Human labour will not be eliminated entirely from these sectors. Jobs that require a particularly high level of task flexibility, or creativity, or empathy may continue to employ people (for a while). Yet most office jobs will eventually go the way of the dodo.
And at that point advanced economies may find it necessary to address what is really the central complaint in Mr Graeber's essay. The issue is not that jobs used to have meaning and now they don't; most jobs in most periods have undoubtedly been staffed by people who would prefer to be doing something else. The issue is that too little of the recent gains from technological advance and economic growth have gone toward giving people the time and resources to enjoy their lives outside work. Early in the industrial era real wages soared and hours worked declined. In the past generation, by contrast, real wages have grown slowly and workweeks haven't grown shorter.
The development of large-scale technological unemployment or underemployment, however, would force rich societies to revisit a system that primarily allocates purchasing power via earned wages. And that, in turn, could allow households to get by or even thrive while working many fewer hours than is now typically the case—albeit through a pretty hefty level of income redistribution. They would then be free to write poetry or tutor disadvantaged children, though we shouldn't be surprised if most use their new leisure to spend more time with a beloved video game.
We can't be certain that the robots are coming for all our jobs. Disemployment in administrative jobs could create new, and perhaps highly remunerative, work in sectors or occupations we can't yet anticipate. If we're lucky, that work will be engaging and meaningful. Yet there is a decent chance that "bullshit" administrative jobs are merely a halfway house between "bullshit" industrial jobs and no jobs at all. Not because of the conniving of rich interests, but because machines inevitably outmatch humans at handling bullshit without complaining.
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I've tried to run some figures on bullshit jobs in Europe - I think Graeber is wrong, but not quite in the way the Economist thinks.
http://lolgreece.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-bullshit-jobs-conundrum.html
"Job" as an basic society role nowadays lost its original meaning. In Latin, job means what a person did for gain. So I don't see any difference among different jobs. Otherwise, with the development of technology, people are seeking for more efficient employers.One example would be part of traditional handicrafts man probably was replaced by the new efficient robot,it is not only a society issue but a economic gravity.
When I saw the title “bullshit job”, it reminded me of my several intern jobs experiences in my past summer holidays. I worked all day long for the boring repeated stuffs, like collecting the newspaper, typing, which made me feel like a robot. Actually, in this modern society, many kinds of jobs can be defined as “bullshit job”, especially in our China. Many people drop out of school and find a job in a factory to earn a living and sometimes to support their family. Day after day, the do the same work without any promotion. Even some have lost their passion for life and their beautiful dreams which they have when they were a little child. That is all because of the “bullshit job”, which I think should be done by robot. However, what we can do now is to improve ourselves as excellent as possible to avoid being treated as robot.
Laziness is the cause of problems in the WESTERN World. When people get Rich they becomes lazy and they becomes re-dump and the only solution is to be like the CHINESE & Indian as the working hours for these 2 types of People is still the same even they are getting richer now.
In the WEST works stop after 5 pm whereas in most business ran by Chinese or Indian works stops between 9 pm and midnight.
If the WEST thinks they are RIGHT think again twice harder if WHAT I JUST wrote is TRUE. KILL me if you wanted to, as I am willing to sacrifice my LIFE to tell the TRUTH and nothing but the TRUTH.
When it comes to "bullshit job", a memory rushes in my mind. I used to work in a factory doing some bullshit job. You work all day long for some boring repeated stuffs not knowing what the meaning of your job is besides your our salary every month. In this case, many people burst into confusion and lose themselves gradually. The greatest damage of "bullshit job" for people is the damage to people' mind. However, bullshit job is needed for that every boring and reapeated bullshit job has its meaning. I am not against 'bullshit job', but I hope there will be no human being doing such job. In this meaning, robot is a good existence. Time and techonology could tell us what'll happen in the future, but now you have to improve yourself as excellent as possible to avoid being treated as a robot.
Not all works are meaningful, this is a truth we've all known. When we were in the middle school or high school, we had to do almost the same thing everyday, like doing the boring math exercises or reciting the history or politics book. All of this made us feel annoyed as we regarded them as the bullshit work which benefit little for our future job.So we finished them with a lot of complaint just like the workers mentioned in the passage. However, all these work are a part of the chain so they cannot be cancelled. Moreover, I'm quite interested in an idea provided in the passage which is using robots to do these boring jobs. It's an innovative idea but I think the correctness of this idea should be questioned. I always believe that human is more powerful than the robot and some works done by human cannot be replaced by the robot. For it just my opinion and afterall how this problem will be solved? Time will tell.
A11 jobs have to be done by HUMAN or with HUMAN Factors. A robot is created by human right? Unless only day robots creates robots then we are no more needed on this EARTH and that is when many thinks the world will ENDS. Can it happens - NO, as we are created by the SKY above us or some like to call it heaven.
What we humans are doing, the SKY is watching and if you over done your SINS, the SKY will answer YOU like 9/11 and 3/11. Your guess are as good as mine what these 2 numbers means to this WORLD???
A11 jobs have to be done by HUMAN or with HUMAN Factors. A robot is created by human right? Unless only day robots creates robots then we are no more needed on this EARTH and that is when many thinks the world will ENDS. Can it happens - NO, as we are created by the SKY above us or some like to call it heaven.
What we humans are doing, the SKY is watching and if you over done your SINS, the SKY will answer YOU like 9/11 and 3/11. Your guess are as good as mine what these 2 numbers means to this WORLD???
A11 jobs have to be done by HUMAN or with HUMAN Factors. A robot is created by human right? Unless only day robots creates robots then we are no more needed on this EARTH and that is when many thinks the world will ENDS. Can it happens - NO, as we are created by the SKY above us or some like to call it heaven.
What we humans are doing, the SKY is watching and if you over done your SINS, the SKY will answer YOU like 9/11 and 3/11. Your guess are as good as mine what these 2 numbers means to this WORLD???
A11 jobs have to be done by HUMAN or with HUMAN Factors. A robot is created by human right? Unless only day robots creates robots then we are no more needed on this EARTH and that is when many thinks the world will ENDS. Can it happens - NO, as we are created by the SKY above us or some like to call it heaven.
What we humans are doing, the SKY is watching and if you over done your SINS, the SKY will answer YOU like 9/11 and 3/11. Your guess are as good as mine what these 2 numbers means to this WORLD???
A11 jobs have to be done by HUMAN or with HUMAN Factors. A robot is created by human right? Unless only day robots creates robots then we are no more needed on this EARTH and that is when many thinks the world will ENDS. Can it happens - NO, as we are created by the SKY above us or some like to call it heaven.
What we humans are doing, the SKY is watching and if you over done your SINS, the SKY will answer YOU like 9/11 and 3/11. Your guess are as good as mine what these 2 numbers means to this WORLD???
A11 jobs have to be done by HUMAN or with HUMAN Factors. A robot is created by human right? Unless only day robots creates robots then we are no more needed on this EARTH and that is when many thinks the world will ENDS. Can it happens - NO, as we are created by the SKY above us or some like to call it heaven.
What we humans are doing, the SKY is watching and if you over done your SINS, the SKY will answer YOU like 9/11 and 3/11. Your guess are as good as mine what these 2 numbers means to this WORLD???
Many people would say to their friends or secretly think that they are doing "bullshit jobs". I do agree there are many of such jobs. But it can't be denied that our society needs people to do such jobs at this time. It's the reality.
As for future, there are some possibilities. Perhaps someday, the word "job" is concerned no longer with human beings but robots. "What do you do?" would probably means "what's your hobby?" instead of "what's your job?".
I can't live long enough to see what the world will be like, but I have this dream. Maybe I should feel lucky for that.
"As technology has improved, it has become ever easier to dispense with human labour in mechanical processes."
Technology has helped to replace a lot of manual labor, however, any discussion of bullshit jobs has to acknowledge the role that information technology (IT) plays in turning good jobs to bullshit jobs. IT is to blame for creating and perpetuating bullshit jobs in the "knowledge sector" of our economy by producing new manual labor, the kind that involves dismissing pointless dialog windows, copying and pasting text between application programs, or re-doing work unceremoniously destroyed by the computer when its behavior is erratic or unforgiving of user errors. This new manual labor is not the back-breaking manual labor of the old days. It's just finger-jabbing and mouse-sliding. But lots of the labor is artificial, time-wasting, and dispiriting. It cries out to be automated. It only looks productive because it involves a computer, because it takes constant attention and manual activity, and because virtually nobody measures actual productivity won or the potential productivity gains that are missing in actual applications of IT.
The issue pointed out that with the development of technology and economy,comparing with wages and work hour before, the industrial workers can't get as high rate of wage increasment as they got. Although, the robots are playing a more important role in the product line, due to the importance of people there guarentee the normal working. we people can't be replaced by the technology. But it seems that we are more inclined to having a administrative job, just sitting in the office. We were all taught to study hard since we are small then we'll get an easy job, although we don't like it. We still have to repeat the job till the whole rest of our life. Like what the author set forth, it's not the work is meaningless now, but the work we had is what we don't like. So it seems the work become bullshit. So the machine comes first to our mind, they also don't complain. I think this is not the cause of the unemployment and underemployment but the wishes to be at an administrativfe work.
I think every job has their own meaningful, and all people want their work to be meaningful. But it doesn't mean the job should create great success. Nowadays, Machines to do work for us. It not only improves efficiency but also help people not need to spend too much energy. But I think machines can't replace person because machine has not thoughts. So I think “professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers” are not "bullshit jobs".
People want to have a job,and their interested about it. But sometime have some special reason we can't achievement our dream. I think it doesn't influence our life. May be we should do more hard to learn more knowledge to improve ourselves.
The author pointed the reality that nowadays many manual work has been replaced by the machines. However, does it mean the previous human labour is useless or bullshit?We can not deny that with the development of technology, machines can do better than handwork. On the other hand, the machines lacked the manual dexterity to complete the required tasks, and so a line of human machines was the only way to make the highly productive assembly-line system work.
Anyway, I have something to express. First, according to our national conditions, we have a large number of workers who need jobs. If machines, robots took place of human beings, society would become unstable and disorder. We need these “bullshit jobs”. Secondly, I believe that the robot technology will be very powerful one day. We have to face the reality and think more ways to create new needed jobs. What’s more, innovation is the first productivity,and our country needs people who are creative. We have to cultivate our innovative ability and be a innovative-oriented talents.
Well, when i first saw the title "on bullshit jobs", was wondering what jobs are bullshit. Then the auther gave me the answer -- “ professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers ”. And via the whole article, i was almost convenced. But i still have some diverse opinions.
First is about the definition of "bullshit jobs". Every job has its own meaning. As one job, some may consider it as dreadful tedium, but some may be interested in it. Different people would have various opinions and there won't be the only right answer.
And then, robots and mecians can not replace human beings in a lot of cases. Actually many jobs especially administrative jobs, which the auther said are repeated and meaningless, can only done by human. While running the firms or managing the companies, human emotions and feelings are significant, because we are in the conplex society and nothing can understand the rule of the world better than ourselves.
Lastly, the society can not be changed easily and some trends are inevitable,so the attitude becomes important. Try to adapt the society we wre in, find the good things in our jobs and lives, learn to enjoy ourselves; then we can be happy and satisfied in this complex world.
Just be optimistic!
So what you're saying is The koch brothers don't have to pay health insurance as their machines don't require it.
So why workers aren't rewarded with high wages for their suffering? Who grab the fruits of economic growth? So why the technological advance and economic growth fail to give people more time and resources to enjoy their lives outside work?Obviously, we all know the reason, the dirty secret.
As for machine, if robots are really able to take over the "bullshit jobs", it will be a disaster for our human beings. They will be tired of the "bullshit jobs" one day just like us and grow hatred toward us and drive us away the Earth! Poor men!
We should live to enjoy life, not just to stay alive. Many of us are going to have a job in three years. We are supposed to become a administrative worker, or someone likes that. We know we don't like that, however, we would rather like to be a warm boiled frog. In many cases, we can't change the curriculum, but we can change ourselves. In my eyes, a "bullshit job" is a job we are tired of and do it again and again in the same way without enjoyment and innovation. Yes. The society today can't give us a lot of free time to do what we like, but we can choose our jobs. Maybe it can be really difficult. But someone has told me that: "the harder I work, the luckier I get". He said,"maybe you get lucky, maybe not. But, you can never look back and say that you did not try."
As time goes by, the social material wealth trends to increase as a result of the development of science and technology. Maybe people in the future can live a wealthier life and can earn enough money to support their lives in shorter work time and with simpler work. In this case, people’s labor will become more valuable. Working three or four hours a day, they can spend their time doing what they like to do, isn’t it the long-term dream of human beings for thousands of years? Human beings can live a more meaningful life to create more valuable humanistic work instead of working like a machine which strips them of time to think about the significance of their existence and the value of lives. What’s more, the ways of distributing social resources may change from asking people to work for money to other better ways that encourage people to live a fulfilling life and to chase their dreams in a legal way. Maybe that change will make our society less materialistic than it is now.
Last but not least, the definition of bullshit jobs in author’s opinion might change according with time which means there’s possibility that all kinds of jobs can be replaced by robots. Therefore, why don’t we figure out some new ways to help people living a better life instead of fighting against this inevitable trend?
Here are my shallow opinions, or, “bullshit”.
Unavoidably, machines outmatch many manual operations and almost replace human labor in a growing array of jobs, and computer control systems handling work done by human administrative workers becomes a routine. Therefore, it appears “professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers” to do what the author call "bullshit jobs"—meaningless employment.
But I don't think it's bullshit time when they do their bullshit job. After all no one wants to do uninteresting jobs with lower wage. However, everyone has different ability, so some of them are compelled to do what they can do---meaningless jobs. Undoubtedly, workers can make use of bullshit work time to invent to create, just like the persons in the CCTV programmer "I Love Inventing". Most of them do bullshit jobs to make a living, but they don't waste time but catch up pace of time to invent ,to make value. How meaningful. To do but to create your value.
In my opinion, there are no so-called "bullshit jobs". What are meaningless jobs? It depends. Different people have different answers. Different people have different definition of meaningful jobs. However, reality is cruel. It maybe luxury for some people to talk about their dreams. Most people accept meaningless jobs that they hate just for the wages. They need the wages to make a living. Only a small number of people can be qualified for their dream jobs and do their meaningful jobs. To change this serious situation, I think governments, companies and people themselves should all take the responsibility. At first, governments should offer chances for everyone to be qualified for their dream jobs. Secondly, companies should not only appeal their employees by wages. They should create a warm atmosphere and make them feel at home. It also benefits companies a lot. Thirdly, people should seize every opportunities to improve themselves to be qualified for their meaningful jobs. Different people have different pursuits. We should know what we want. Everyone should be responsible not only for their jobs but also themselves.
“Bullshit jobs”, when I first heard it,it was very novel. However, according to David Graeber, the jobs are mainly “professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers”, which many people would like to be.
What the author says is right, but in my opinion, one point is not practical. With the development of technology, the automating routine tasks did become easier, and the high wages needed to compensate workers for the soul-repetitiveness of their work. But actually, though the wage is higher than that of one century ago, it’s reduced compared to other jobs. Because people think that since your job is easier, and you should get less money. Apparently, it ignores the worker’s inner world. But this is the cruel reality. What we can do is to improve ourselves.
Though some jobs are meaningless, to some extent, they’re still necessary. And whether the job is meaningless or not, it’s relative. I think interest is an important element. If you choose the job you like, you won’t think it meaningless. So, follow your heart and make it meaningful.
At the first glance of Graeber's perspective, I was almost persuaded.
For centuries, along with the rapid development of technology, robots and machines somehow gradually took the place of human labor in various kinds of work, allowing the whole society to be more efficient in aspect of productivity. Then, the society flourished, followed by quantities of industries which provide the jobs that are concentrated in "professional, managerial, clerical, sales and service workers".
The basic point Graeber focuses on is about difference between productive jobs and what he calls "bullshit jobs" that are meaningless. He himself acknowledges, however, that the social value of a job cannot be "objectively measured". Therefore, how could we judge a job whether it belongs to "bullshit jobs" or not? With simple reference of productivity? I cannot simply agree with.
During childhood, we were inculcated of an opinion that every legal and legitimate job has its own meaning to human society. Undoubtedly there are some with less or least meaning, but they do have.
"Yet there is a decent chance that 'bullshit' administrative jobs are merely a halfway house between "bullshit" industrial jobs and no jobs at all." What an amazing viewpoint. Since most jobs in office become more and more routine just like works in assembly line centuries ago, it can be expected that people would work less than 3-4 hours in a not far future. But, what would happen then?
BTW, actually Graeber's theory of "bullshit jobs" is not anything but fact. In terms of some expressions like "do-nothing politicians", it dose work.