> the statement “I have the feeling of doing useful work”

> In contrast the question Gerber used about a "meaningful contribution to the world" [...] It's a very heavily loaded way to put the question.

You're right that Graeber's question is vague (it could do with improvement/narrowing) but the first question quoted above isn't so much worse but just completely irrelevant. They've asked an entirely different question unrelated to what Graeber was trying to get at.

If I don't "have the feeling of doing useful work", does that mean my job is not useful, or my job is potentially useful but carried out inefficiently. Am I attempting useful work but blocked from doing so by some administrative or practical barrier? Do I consider myself insufficiently talented or qualified at my job to carry it out in a useful manner.

Graeber's question, while in need of improvement, is at least asking about the right things: the jobs themselves. This new question is asking about the people's individual relationships to their jobs, not the actual purpose of the role.

The economist is trying to redefine "bullshit jobs" to mean simply "jobs which hold no value to anybody". This excludes zero sum jobs - they are useful to someone.

Graeber defined "bullshit jobs" as jobs which hold no value to society at large. This includes zero sum jobs.

It's an argument over definition followed by an ad hominem - "So what is really going on? Part of the problem, surely, is the prejudice felt by academics like Mr Graeber towards those who work in finance".

It reminds me of this quote:

"It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought ... should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words."

>The economist is trying to redefine "bullshit jobs" to mean simply "jobs which hold no value to anybody"

That is not the case. They don't talk about who the jobs do or don't have value to at all anywhere in the article, they only address the evidence Graeber used as the basis of his book - how employees think and feel about their own employment.

I don't know about the research they are citing, perhaps that does what you say.

It is the case. It's apparent if you diff the survey questions they relied upon from the ones Graeber used.

Is a zero-sum job defined as one where the only person benefitting is the employee? If so, it seems like the only ethical way to eliminate those jobs from the economy would be some kind of guaranteed minimum income.

One of the examples of the distinction was a guy who worked at a post production company that:

A) Made cool explosions and aliens for movies, etc. which he loved and thought counted as socially useful coz audiences did too.

B) Made hair shinier and teeth whiter and other visual trickery to give false impressions of branded products. These things served only to take market share from other similar companies that made products that weren't markedly different to theirs.

B made up the majority of what he did, hence "mainly bullshit".

Graeber's claim is that this class of job (dubbed "goons"), according to those ppolled/interviewed only exist because other people employ them too. I.e. if there were an armistice on toothpaste ads that showed white teeth nothing would really change for consumers but if one company stopped the mindshare arms race they would lose market share.

You see this argument in discussions of the finance industry a lot. What percentage of financial trading is useful allocation of capital, and how much is just shifting ownership of the things other people make?

Yep - this was also the theme of the movie Margin Call (a point rammed home by the final scene).

It's usually really hard to draw the line in finance, though - unless you're deep in the weeds.

This is partly why Graeber's attempt to look at this issue through the lens of people doing the jobs themselves was probably the best way to formulate the research.

It's just a shame he used such blatantly loaded questions, which hopelessly biased his conclusions, as demonstrated by the new research.

But even then I'm not sure this is true. Surely the best people to evaluate the value of a worker are the people paying for their services?

you can have positive value for the one paying while having a net negative value for the one paying the one paying you or society at large.

Do you though, I’m reality? I don’t think that has been demonstrated at all, not at a significant level anyway.

Here's an extreme example to make the point: we pay soldiers to kill people and destroy property. At the level of our "business" (our country) this may increase "value" (our security), while at the level of "society" (the world) it may be a net loss and an enormous tragedy. The problem is that this whole idea of "the good of society/the world" is extremely fuzzy and not that useful. It presupposes the only worthwhile actions are those that increase the utility function of the entire world, which we undoubtedly lack the knowledge to do. Capitalism is just a best-try approximation at achieving that and seems to have more success than other systems we've tried.

Of course you do. You could define bullshit jobs as any job with a negative externality whose value exceeds its profitability. Many of the arguments in our society are over the existence or not of externalities and the measurement and allocation of liability for them where their existence is an agreed-upon fact.

I suspect this is based on Marx's analysis of the creation of value. That is, for Marx only primary production creates value, all other economic or human activity destroys value. So for example in Marxism making a clock creates value, but transporting that clock from the factory to a shop, giving it shelf space, advertising it and selling it to a customer all destroy value. They are additional services that increase the cost of the product, and Marx actually used the term parasitic for these activities and argued they should all be minimised or preferably eliminated.

This resulted in Marxists creating uniform, identikit societies with standardised products directly distributed wherever possible. No advertising, no consumer choice because the process of accumulating the information necessary, and selecting products on an individual basis instead of collectively is wasteful.

The result was actual productivity in the real economy collapsed because it turns out some of these parasitic activities are kind of important. They ruthlessly stripped out all the bullshit and produced stale, drab societies of bored hungry drones. Thanks guys.

Who actually needs plays, books of fiction, music, nice clothes, holidays to pretty places? Who needs nice haircuts, polished nails, stylish cars, waited service? All of that is bullshit we don't need.

The only slight problem is it eliminates everything that actually makes life worth living. It eliminates all forms of aesthetic and cultural value, recognising only productive economic value, devoted to the activity of production itself. It suborns human value to material value.

There's a big chapter of Graebers book where he discusses potential sociological causes for the phenomenon of bullshit jobs. He criticizes the labor theory of value (initially pushed by economists like Adam Smith before Marx turned it on its head as a way to radicalized workers) as pushing people to socially value 'work' in the abstract, rather than the result of work, which contributed to the phenomenon of bullshit jobs in the first place.

Graeber feels we should be concentrating less on purely economic theories of value than theories of values which involve more social interests, which seems like the more 'primary' value. In particular, he questions whether the CGI artist's job was creating value for society as a whole. The artist himself didn't seem to think he was, hence why the CGI artist felt his job was bullshit. Maybe the artist's internal system of social value included some aspect of labour value, but it's hard to say since our own perspectives on social value are so murky.

I'd love to see a source for this, I've not heard it in his name but the conclusion I came to myself is that economic activity can be divided three ways:

1. Things that create value (in the sense of producing something people want and trading it for money or other things [which can include looking at ads])

2. Things that don't add value but are necessary because markets are imperfect (advertising agencies, marketing consultants, accountants, lawyers, real estate agents, etc.)

3. Things that _exploit_ imperfect markets for profit (hedge funds, investment banks, landlords, speculators, patent trolls, etc.)

2. and 3. seems to be where the money is these days. My feeling is that a society that prioritizes 2. and 3. is not adding much value to itself, and therefore isn't in a healthy place.

> I suspect this is based on Marx's analysis of the creation of value. That is, for Marx only primary production creates value, all other economic or human activity destroys value.

Can I have a source for that please? It seems absurd.

> They are additional services that increase the cost of the product, and Marx actually used the term parasitic for these activities and argued they should all be minimised or preferably eliminated.

Today we use the term "overhead". Are you saying that the cost of distributing products should not be minimized?

> The result was actual productivity in the real economy collapsed because it turns out some of these parasitic activities are kind of important. They ruthlessly stripped out all the bullshit and produced stale, drab societies of bored hungry drones. Thanks guys.

So the Soviet economy failed because... the things it produced were not actually distributed to the people as that would have destroyed value in the eyes of the CPSU? I never heard of that theory before.

> Who actually needs plays, books of fiction, music, [...]?

As a specific example? People who like to criticise them after dinner, like Marx.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8116796-for-as-soon-as-the-...

that's not was is being said here though.

you can have your advertising and everything else you want, but if the bread and butter of your advertising strategy is over-exploiting dark patterns and others shady mechanism while keeping the products the same, are you creating value (for the consumer)?

I don't think they have any problem with the original theory of advertising, which is informing the potential consumer of your product, about its existence, its usefulness and the advantages it has over the competition.

a more coherence basis of what is said in the book is simply that a a non negligible part of today economy is about wealth extraction but disguised as wealth creation, and the people that are tasked to do that can tell.

There’s a satirical comic in the UK called Viz. when it shows scenes set in football matches there are advertising slogans on the stands saying things like “Drink Tea”, “Eat Bread”, “Fill Your Bath With Water”.

Who gets to say what is an acceptable advert? We already have regulations prohibiting misleading advertising. I suppose we could beef those up, but this goes far, far further than marginal practices in advertising. It cuts to the heart of huge swathes if service jobs, hospitality, entertainment, culture and even sport. I’m not clear how you think all this should be regulated, how such prohibitions should be enforced, and what kind of society would result.

>That is, for Marx only primary production creates value, all other economic or human activity destroys value. So for example in Marxism making a clock creates value, but transporting that clock from the factory to a shop, giving it shelf space, advertising it and selling it to a customer all destroy value.

This is the most bizarre take on the Marxist labor theory of value I've ever seen.

Do you have a source for this idea that transporting a clock destroys value?

I see - that’s philosophically, but maybe not economically different from what I was thinking of - “make-work” jobs, or jobs that could easily be replaced by automation.

Edit to add: one major difference might be in the level of skill or education the employee has/needs.

Who else discuss these topics? I'm deeply interested in this.

I don't really follow you. A questionnaire can only find out what the respondents think about their job. If you want to objectively know whether their jobs are actually useful, independent of their opinions or feelings, a survey just isn't the way to do it, no matter what questions you ask.

I think Graeber makes the assumption that the statement "my job makes no (net) contribution to society" is as closest to reality as we can possibly get.

The interviewed person is probably the best to know if the job is valuable. Even if they falsely assume that their job makes no difference, the sentiment is a problem in itself.

I am not agreeing or disagreeing, just giving my interpretation of the intent.

Can you pleas explain where you got that question and phrasing from please, because I don't recognise it from the research under discussion and I don't believe it is supported by any of the evidence.

> a survey just isn't the way to do it, no matter what questions you ask

That's fair but even still, Graeber's question should at least be probing whether people might think their jobs are useful; this new question only probes whether people think their contribution is useful individually.

If the question is rephrased to something like “if your company/product ceased to exist, would the world be better off, worse off, or no different?”

In my case, it would be no different (beyond a handful of job losses which are insignificant in the grand scheme). That, to me, is a bullshit job. Meaningless time consumption.

Is it no different because some other company would fill in the gap? Or because literally no one cares whether or not whatever your company does gets done?

If someone else would step in and do it, it’s not unique but isn’t necessarily bullshit.

This company's customers / clients and suppliers might of course care... But if the suppliers exist only to supply this, and the clients in turn don't produce anything otherwise useful either, maybe none of them really matter. So if someone else would step in and do it, that might just mean that then someone else would be doing an equally bullshit job.

> This new research was based on what people said about their own jobs though.

Right, and apparently:

> those who work in clerical and administrative jobs are far less likely to view their jobs as useless than those who are employed in roles that Mr Graeber regarded as essential, such as refuse collection and cleaning.

Which leads me to believe that people are not a good judge of the usefulness of their work. I think most reasonable people would agree that it's incorrect to classify refuse collection and cleaning as useless jobs. Perhaps the people doing them don't find the jobs meaningful, but refuse collection is certainly useful; without it, everyone would have to cart their trash to the dump, or, worse, we'd just have trash everywhere.

So it strikes me that all of this is just kinda pointless. I think we can reasonably make the argument that bullshit jobs do exist, but the number of these jobs is a very subjective take, and people seem to often incorrectly value their own jobs.

>I think most reasonable people would agree that it's incorrect to classify refuse collection and cleaning as useless jobs.

I think they did by and large (as did Graeber). The exceptions I remember listed were 1) "second order bullshit" - necessary jobs for "unnecessary companies".

E.g. cleaners for a debt collections call center - I don't think all reasonable people would believe this is socially useful. If the company doesnt need to exist the cleaners shouldn't either.

2) for example, cleaners who said that they were routinely ordered to clean things that already were clean or to do a small amount of cleaning and look busy the rest of the time. Performative cleaning, in other words.

The economist was specifically trying to misrepresent these examples to undermine the broader point, I think.

How is debt collection useless unless you believe lending money as an investment shouldn't exist?

Beside the task there are other elements. You can almost turn any act into a pain or the opposite.

Clarity of intent. (Quality of training)

Adequate load sharing.

Interest of the approach (some petty tasks can made fun and challenging).

Then there's the systemic / social side of it. If your work flows with others. There a parallel with kinetic energy and inertia. A job where things flow is probably gonna be appreciated even if it has low value.

I think this may be over reading into it.

You can have a job where you feel useful and valuable without changing the world.

There are also jobs where you are being very useful, but it's arguably not good for society at large. You've got companies like FB that exist to just sell user data and serve ads and in HFT that milk ever penny out of the stock market where the speed of light isn't competitive enough for them, so they have to be as close to the exchanges as possible. Valuable to the company, but not through a bigger picture lens. Even worse, those companies have absorbed some of our best and brightest STEM graduates for years and prevented them from solving more noble pursuits.

Indeed, and the number of "bullshit-jobs" might actually be grossly underestimated, since I've found in general people will often try to justify the status quo and especially their own jobs. Most people would say a three-card monte street hustler has a net negative impact on society, but the hustler can argue that it's a form of entertainment, that people know what they're getting into, that people are paying a relatively small price for an iconic experience, etc.

There's a large amount of the economy that I'd consider a net negative for society - advertising and the industries created to convey it (radio, TV, most websites), credit cards, junk food, sales, etc. There are also a lot of cases where increased input doesn't seem to make people happier off. For instance, a lot of work goes into making special effects better than they were decades ago, but doesn't necessarily mean an audience in 2021 is going to enjoy movies more than an audience in 2000 did.

As a society we should probably spend a lot more time talking about where our economic output is going, and if it's going towards the things we actually want it to.

Im not personally a huge fan of Facebook, I barely use it, but the fact is I know a lot of people who do use it. I’m in several clubs and societies that use it heavily, and derive massive benefits from it. One society I’m in quadrupled in size after establishing a strong social media presence.

The value Facebook gets out of Facebook may well be obtained in questionable ways, but the fact is the service itself creates tons of value and utility for hundreds of millions of people. And yes I’m sure it causes some harm as well, definitely, but it’s not as simple as you make it out.

Before Facebook, these clubs were still on the internet and had a similar presence using junk like geocities I think. Also email threads and so forth.

Perhaps the utility of Facebook isn't zero, but I certainly think the harm (has led to genocide in some countries like Myanmar) far out weighs the benefits.

Consider the two data points being discussed:

• When asked "whether their job made a meaningful contribution to the world", 37-40% of respondents thought their job didn’t qualify. (And this is what Graeber [not Gerber] wrote about.)

• When counting those respondents who thought that the statement “I have the feeling of doing useful work” applied to them “rarely” or “never”, this was only 4.8%. (The newer research.)

It is hardly surprising that fewer people thought their job failed to clear the lower bar represented by the latter question (this is precisely what one would expect); so it's not clear what is being contradicted or refuted.

Even the data that the latter number is decreasing over time, or has a different distribution across kinds of work (than predicted by Graeber for the former question) is not necessarily a contradiction: those working in several "bullshit" jobs (under Graeber's definition) may well more frequently have a feeling of doing useful work, while also being less confident that their job itself serves a purpose and ought to exist. I can imagine this especially for the "goons" and "duct tapers" kinds of jobs (in his classification).

(In fact, if you look up and examine the full results of the YouGov poll at https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/docume... you'll find that even among the 37% who said their job "is not making a meaningful contribution to the world", only 21% of them said they found it "Not at all fulfilling"!)

The Economist article dismisses the former question with "This seems a high bar to clear; it is unsurprising that 37-40% of respondents thought their job didn’t qualify", and you dismiss it by calling it "vague aspirational follow your dreams guff" and a "very heavily loaded" question that "hopelessly biased his conclusions", but this is all value judgement. It is not at all clear to me whether the "correct" question to ask is the latter one rather than the former one; surely it depends on what one is trying to conclude.