People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

Re:People kept working, became healthier while on basic inco... by throw_away on Thursday March 05, 2020 @12:42PM (#22495931)

David Graeber talks about this in his book Bullshit Jobs, which has been discussed here previously. He makes the distinction that a bullshit job is one where both the employer and the employed must both pretend that the job is useful even though both of them know that it is not.

Under this definition, a lot of dirty or otherwise maligned jobs are still essential to society (including stall cleaning, depending on your perspective of how essential having horses is) and are thus not bullshit jobs, but a lot of others (rubber stampers, make workers, flunkies) are bullshit jobs.

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Re:People kept working, became healthier while on basic inco... by qqqwerty on Thursday March 05, 2020 @02:03PM (#22496848)

I think a better framework to think about this is 'Bullshit Businesses', not bullshit jobs. A lot of companies only exist to make the owners/investors rich, provide little to no value to the world, and/or rely on dirt cheap labor for the economics to work. Think spammy call centers, Walmart, amazon warehouses, etc...

If people were not in desperate need of a paycheck and were able to negotiate/hold out for better jobs, or spend more time on career training, then a lot of the business would not exist, or would be forced to treat their employees better.

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