This post sets out my 4 main criticisms of the things I think Graeber got wrong in Bullshit Jobs. See also my related posts:
- Book summary of Bullshit Jobs;
- My 7 categories of supposedly bullshit jobs; and
- What I think Graeber got right.
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1. The rise of the information economy is bad
The main area where I disagree with Graeber is that he is far too dismissive of “information work” and things that provide intangible value. He almost seems to suggest that anything that doesn’t directly produce something of tangible value is bullshit or pointless.
For example, he suggests that all work involved in measuring productivity, with the hope of increasing it, is bullshit. But what if that paperwork did lead to improved processes? Take a large organisation whose main job is to produce widgets. It may well make sense for the organisation to devote some resources to stepping back and assessing what it is doing and how to improve it. If the organisation employed 100,000 people, then devoting even 1% of its resources (1,000 people) to such a task could be money well spent. Now, it is certainly possible that many – perhaps even most – organisations spend too much resources on navel gazing. But Graeber seems to suggest that any time spent reflecting rather than doing is pointless.
The thing is, life is messy. Markets are not perfectly efficient. Transaction costs and information and coordination problems exist. There is value in redistributing and reallocating things, since it’s not like things will move on their own. Moving information from one point to another can also be valuable.
One Hollywood scriptwriter sent Graeber a complaint about how his industry was going wrong. According to the scriptwriter, in the “Golden Age of Hollywood”, from the 1920s to 1950s, studios were headed by one man who made all the decisions by himself. Now, studios are conglomerates with boards of directors. Graeber writes that the system that eventually emerged was “suffused with bullshit on every level”, full of clone-like executives who know “almost nothing about the history or technicalities of film or TV”. The upshot, this scriptwriter says, is that movies and TV series now “suck”. This is some pretty elitist stuff. It’s true that some movies and TV shows today suck, but there was plenty of banal entertainment back in the day too. I, for one, welcome the greater diversity in film and television nowadays, compared to back when one-(probably white) man companies greenlighted shows.
2. There has been a rise in “bullshitisation” of work
Graeber spends much of his book trying to explain the causes of what he calls the “bullshitisation” of work. But he fails to show that there has even been such a “bullshitisation” to begin with. All he shows is that there has been a dramatic rise in the information economy since 1860. As explained above, however, I don’t think that the information economy is all bullshit. It’s possible of course that there has been a “bullshitisation” of work. But Graeber hasn’t shown it.
Graeber can’t even point to any evidence that knowledge workers are, on average, significantly less likely to find their jobs meaningful than workers in the manufacturing or traditional service economies.
He also complains anecdotally about the increase in paperwork that he has had to do in his own job over the years. Obviously, that falls far short of proof that there is a rise in bullshit jobs
3. Bullshit jobs are almost always demoralising
Graeber claims that bullshit jobs are almost always demoralising. To be fair, he does refer to two examples of people who wrote to him saying that they liked their supposedly “bullshit” jobs but says they are the exception rather than the norm. He also queries whether their jobs are truly bullshit.
Now, as someone who has had a couple of arguably bullshit jobs before, I certainly agree that a bullshit job can make you unhappy. But I don’t think the relationship between a bullshit job and unhappiness is as robust as Graeber suggests.
Selection bias
The term “bullshit job” is inherently pejorative. So feedback Graeber received was more likely to be from those dissatisfied with their jobs, rather than those happy with them. If Graeber had instead called his original article “On the phenomenon of cushy jobs”, or perhaps “easy jobs”, he may have received some very different responses. (It’s quite probable the article wouldn’t have gone viral, either.)
One of the examples Graeber gave involved a “Charles’ at a gaming company. Charles thought he had a bullshit job but says that his friends enjoyed having an incompetent producer because it gave them the freedom to do whatever they wanted. In this example, it seems like Charles had just as “bullshit” a job as others in the company. But he seemed to be the only one in that company who didn’t like his job and, not coincidentally, was the one to write to Graeber.
When bullshit jobs are/are not demoralising
Based on my own experience, I suggest that bullshit jobs may or may not be demoralising. A bullshit job is likely to be demoralising when:
- there are mismatched expectations;
- the job does not let you do other things; or
- working conditions are bad (e.g. bullying).
Mismatched expectations
It’s certainly true that some people look to their jobs to give themselves “meaning”. These people have high expectations for their job. They will likely find a bullshit job demoralising, even if they could do other things in their job and the working conditions are good. I am not sure that all, or even most, people fall in to this category, though.
Some people just see their job as a way to pay the bills, and look for meaning in other parts of life (these would be “Losers” according to the Gervais Principle). Such people could probably be quite happy in a bullshit job.
I also suggest that mismatched expectations are more likely to occur when a person has a bullshit job full-time without a clear way out. Bullshit jobs can be quite enjoyable if done on a part-time or temporary basis. I could easily imagine people who are financially independent taking on a part-time bullshit job for fun.
The job does not let you do other things
Some bullshit jobs allow you to skive off and do other things but usually within limits. For example, when I was a corporate lawyer, our partner was a huge bottleneck and we spent a lot of time waiting for him to be free. During that time, I did a lot of reading and even learned some programming. But I couldn’t leave the office and do my laundry or go play soccer.
Even if you could do other things like read during your job, you may not be explicitly allowed to. It is stressful to worry about your manager catching you not working.
I readily accept that bullshit jobs that make it difficult for you to repurpose your time can be demoralising. Humans are easily bored. There’s research to show that most humans can’t stand being alone with their thoughts doing nothing for too long.
There are some bullshit jobs that allow you to do other things. Indeed, Graeber referred to a few examples in his book. But since his definition of a bullshit job requires that the employee feels obliged to pretend that the job is not pointless, most probably won’t allow you to do other things. After all, the time cost for such bullshit jobs is the same as for non-bullshit jobs. (This may be less true with working from home becoming a lot more prevalent post-Covid.) So this is one thing I mostly agree with Graeber on.
Other bad working conditions
Bullshit jobs can come with working conditions that are bad. Bullying, sexual harassment and long hours are prevalent in the legal profession. They cause many lawyers to hate their jobs, regardless of whether those lawyers find their jobs meaningful. But not all bullshit jobs come with bad working conditions.
One of my other jobs required me to sit in a shop for long periods doing nothing. This was a situation where the company paid us to be “on call” (so this was one of those jobs that provide value some, but not all, of the time). At one point, we even had to pick rocks in a field (the manager admitted later it was “make work”). But the working conditions there were pretty good. I was friends with my co-workers, and we could chat amongst ourselves. I should also caveat that I knew my job was very much a temporary one. If I had to do it full-time for a long time, it might’ve been much more demoralising.
4. The reason for the inverse relationship between social value and economic value
The last main point where I disagreed with Graeber was his explanation of the reasons behind the inverse relationship between the social value provided by the job and its economic value (i.e. the pay). I accept that the inverse relationship exists, but not on why it exists.
Graeber argues that there is a sense that those who choose to benefit society, especially those who get the benefit of knowing they benefit society, shouldn’t be rewarded for it. By the same token, those who have to suffer through pointless or even harmful work just for the sake of money should be rewarded for more money. He suggests that this is what most people in our society think is morally right.
I find it really hard to take this argument seriously. It’s almost like Graeber is suggesting that “society” is a singular entity that doles out jobs and pay according to what the society thinks is moral. That’s just not how things actually work.
The real reason for the inverse relationship is externalities. Graeber dismisses supply and demand as a reason for the inverse relationship because the US has a shortage of nurses and an abundance of law graduates. But supply and demand, combined with the presence of externalities, do explain the inverse relationship. Jobs with positive externalities are undercompensated relative to their social value (and therefore undersupplied). Jobs with negative externalities are overcompensated relative to their value (and therefore oversupplied). I suspect Graeber just doesn’t have an adequate understanding of supply and demand or basic economics.
What’s bizarre is that Graeber identifies the existence of externalities in his book. For example, he refers to Lockwood, Nathanson and Weyl’s 2017 paper that shows that researchers add $9 of value to society for every $1 they are paid, while bankers subtract $1.50 for every $1 they are paid. The fact that the paper finds medical researchers produce much more positive externalities than schoolteachers ($9 vs $1) should have tipped off Graeber that his theory was incorrect. Medical researchers earn much more than schoolteachers on average. It just seemed like Graeber had blinders on and failed to make the obvious link between externalities and the inverse relationship.
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Have you read Bullshit Jobs? Disagree with my thoughts? Let me know in the comments below.