* Tags:: #🗞️Articles * Author:: [[David graeber|David Graeber]] * Link:: https://web.archive.org/web/20200926035023/https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/ * Source date:: [[2013-08-01]] * Finished date:: [[2020-09-29]] The seed article of [[Bullshit jobs|Bullshit Jobs]]. > In the year 1930, John Maynard [[keynes|Keynes]] predicted that, by century's end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a fifteen-hour work week. But this obviously didn't materialized. **Is it because we choose to work more but have iPhones? Not really** according to Graeber: productive jobs (e.g., farm sector) have been automated. It is the administrative sector (financial services, telemarketing, corporate law...) that grew. These are what he considers **bullshit jobs: pointless jobs for the sake of keeping us working.** And surprisingly, people with jobs with most obvious benefits (e.g., nurses) earn less and are resented, as if money compensates the feeling of pointlessness of jobs: >"But you get to teach children! Or make cars! You get to have real jobs! And on top of that, you have the nerve to also expect middle-class pensions and health care?" How can that happen under [[capitalism|Capitalism]]? >The answer clearly isn't economic: it's moral and political. **The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger** (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the '60s). And, on the other hand, **the feeling that work is a moral value in itself**, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, **is extraordinarily convenient for them.** The author is not really that "conspiranoid": >Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. But: >Answer: if 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call ‘the market’ reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.