David Graeber was a social anthropologist who earned my respect by not getting tenure at Yale in part because he wrote in English and not jargon, and Bullshit Jobs: A Theory helps prove that point. This book is very readable, often because it makes its points by using long direct quotations from case studies.
Graeber’s argument is that many people work jobs that they know are bullshit, and this often comes at a cost to their own emotional well-being. He goes further by arguing that in our economic system we pay the least to people who do work that is absolutely not bullshit – nursing, teaching, emergency work, police, firefighting. Instead, folks who have jobs that often literally require them to do nothing (not just not make a meaningful contribution to the general good) actually make a lot of money, further exacerbating the divide.
Graeber carefully deconstructs the corporate infrastructure that produces this absurdity, utilizing his academic training to lay bare the foundations of inanity.
I am also moved by the parallels I see in my own work. I am fortunate to work for a non-profit where no one makes an insane amount of money and where everyone is engaged in work that threatens to upend existing social structures, but I also see the ways that companies hide their shit jobs in rhetoric of mission and values and Fun. As Graeber identifies, many people know that this is bullshit, but being able to exist while stepping outside of this structure is very difficult and requires almost constant intentionality in ways that most of us are not capable of doing.
I’m sorry that Graeber has died, as he definitely feels like one of the good ones. I’m really curious about the supposed social inadequacies that also got him kicked out of the Yale social anthropology club – I suspect that the idea that he didn’t play well with others came because he tried to translate his intellectual prowess into actual activism, which feels like a no-no in vast pockets of academia.