It is not, but let's not pretend most of us work to increase societal good. It just happens to be that our rent-seeking behavior is aligned with society's interests.
I don't agree with Graeber's conclusions, but his observations are solid:
Only 1% of the workforce in the US produce food. That feeds America and some other countries.
> Someone has to work to produce electricity.
Again, you need really very few people to make electricity.
I just commented that the basic necessities of life (food, water, electricity, etc…) can be covered with very few people.
Of course there are bullshit jobs out there, but I think we are under estimating
When you hit scale like that with specialization, it's conceivable a relatively small amount of jobs can provide a society with the base necessities.
Food production - planting seeds, collecting crops, watering the farms, creating anti-pesticides, creating all the farming equipment, packaging food, distributing food, storing food (for storing food just think about all the work that goes into creating a fridge - from mining metals from the ground, to designing the fridge and building a factory that create thousands of fridges quickly)
Punishing unproductive people and encourage them to work in fast food or other wage-slaving do not make sense.
The main argument is UBI.
Not to mention fast food is generally of poor quality.
I'm not saying they don't know how to cook- but I'm saying that the least the rest of society who aren't responsible for sustaining us can do is make life better for those who do
I think what would really improve a job like fast food is if workers were part owners of their franchise. Most fast food restaurants are franchises owned by one person or a local corporation that owns several franchises. Putting ownership into the workers hands would mean profit sharing, it would mean when you bust ass over the hot grill working a double shift or cleaning shit and blood from the walls in the bathroom, you are actually rewarded for the increased demand on the restaurant. It would be like a built in hazard pay for when things got busy and stressful and awful. At least benefits would be nice, I know several people who burned their forearms really bad on the fryer.
"The main argument is UBI." - is that it? UBI will solve everything? Let's just print more money and give it to everyone. Problem solved.
As I said in my other comment, I am not saying that the current status-quo is right. I think there is plenty of inequality and injustice in the world, but I just don't think "antiwork" is the way to solve that.
Not all jobs are unnecessary, but there are jobs that are more important than others. There are a lot of jobs people wish they would not work or that they think nothing would change if they did not work those jobs. Just read about David Graeber and his book, Bullshit Jobs.
Just imagine all the workers in fast food. Look around and you will see a lot of people working jobs when they could spend time at university instead. You only listed the best jobs. People who work in insurance, sales, fast food, uber drivers, food delivery, clothing shops, etc.
> Let's just print more money and give it to everyone. Problem solved.
That's already what happens when there are bailouts. Giving money to people instead of giving it to the banks makes more sense.
I'm not saying that everybody should quit their jobs, I'm just saying that once you raise unemployment benefits, you will see a lot of wage slave quit their jobs and nothing will change.
One problem being lack of social integration and interaction.
But honestly I don't think I can believe in the necessity of having a job, if I can't see purpose or meaning. There are few jobs that matter, and a lot of barriers and filtering.
/r/antiwork is really a viewpoint I can understand and defend.