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On July 04 2014 08:21 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2014 07:51 AeroGear wrote:On July 03 2014 08:15 Pr0wler wrote:
How in the world can you put finance and management in the "bullshit job" category ? I mean, how do you run efficient economy without knowing how to manage it properly ? Just compare the the economies now and 100-200 years ago, when these two "bullshit jobs" didn't exist... Actually... They existed even back then... Because they are not bullshit jobs and are needed. Finance, management and their respective field of works are rather broad. Lending and investing for growth and development is good. Market and currencies manipulations, fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, unrestrained speculation...etc, all for maximization of profit$, not so much. Management is just as important but suffers similar woes, usually in the form of incompetence, failure to report risk or incidents (GM being a pretty recent example), lack of ethics and integrity, grossly overpaid...? I dont think it was used, encompassing every workers in these respective industries. I think if it was placed in a context of 'bullshit man-hours' vs non it might be a bit more palatable for those who have trouble grasping what the meat of this point is about. It's not necessarily that entire 'jobs' or 'sectors' are 'bullshit' (although I already showed some that are) but that many jobs have tons of 'bullshit man-hours' (BMH's) Defining what a BMH 'is' will still be a bit contentious, but I don't think anyone would disagree that virtually every profession has BMH's that could be trimmed. The recent rapid rise in productivity while keeping wages stagnant and cutting workers is about as obviously evident as you can get of such a fact. It's also evident on how these types of activities can go on for decades in a free market system and are really never truly exposed/resolved during economic good times, but only bubble to the surface when we hit hard times.
I think defining the terms is quite important. I suspect that these BMHs are not actually bullshit, but the people being burdened by the work, aren't able to perceive the benefits of such work, because they do not directly relate to them. Doing paperwork is perceived by many to be unnecessarily complex and time consuming, but doing it does serve a purpose for society as a whole. That is not to say that the feeling of doing meaningless work is not to be taken seriously.
That said, I can think of certain activities which are apparently bullshit. Financial arbitrage, online poker player (non-entertainer), daytrader in the stock market, those cunts that resell concert tickets, any kind of market manipulation. Those are all money making activities which have no apparent direct benefit to society, and even the indirect benefits seem so small that they are hard to take seriously. But there actually aren't many people doing those.
Epic Necro
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As long as it is related to ressource allocation and that it produce any kind of satisfaction or utility for anybody it's an economic activity like any other.
Any distinction between the different type is either descriptive - you work in this field or this field - or moral - this has more value than this one.
Taylor, the "inventor" of the taylorism belive that any type of activity that was not producing goods - industry or agriculture - was useless and didn't created any wealth. The result is he is only known for his scientific organisation of labor, which is basically a frame to increase cooperation and specialisation of workers and thus their productivity : he produced a service in management.
People who consider that some kind of labor is bullshit or not are just making a judgement on value, and nothing else. This philosopher have, by the way, one of the most bullshit work ever (from my point of view) : spouting nonsense, and giving his point of view while still presenting himself as objective in any way.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
graeber is an anthropologist.
anyway there's something to his thesis but its targeting is not very well developed.
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On September 28 2014 23:06 oneofthem wrote:
graeber is an anthropologist.
anyway there's something to his thesis but its targeting is not very well developed.
How's that anthropology ? Any field work ? Observation ? Reference to previous anthropologists ?
That's social philosophy.
You can point out the lack of productive "meaning" of some jobs in an "economy of knowledge", and then ask yourself what's the reason such jobs actually exist, what they actually do, do they actually create wealth or do they exist for other meanings ? This guy just say "well that's bullshit" and that's it, there are no analysis, just a judgement. Then, in his interview, he points out random response from people who read him as material to sustain his point of view... It's anthropology really ?
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On September 28 2014 21:19 WhiteDog wrote:
As long as it is related to ressource allocation and that it produce any kind of satisfaction or utility for anybody it's an economic activity like any other.
Any distinction between the different type is either descriptive - you work in this field or this field - or moral - this has more value than this one.
Usually you have intelligent and interesting insights but if I don't misunderstand you gravely then this is either a truism (and thus kind of useless for the discussion at hand) or patently false. I mean it should be obvious that economic activities are not like each other in a general sense, in fact it is rather difficult to define what makes them similar in the first place (that you get money/some other benefit from some entity after/before doing them???). Even if two people do the same activity (for example logging) what this means for themselves, the society around them, the economy (whatever that should be) and how this changes the world can be extremely different (logging the rainforest/logging cultivated Christmas trees). The distinction between those activities seems pretty relevant despite them being nominally the same.*
If, of course, you mean they are like each other in some "economical sense" then I have to ask you to define what this should mean. I would be very surprised if you find a definition of "economic activity" and being "like each other in the economical sense" from which the above follows in a way that is not a truism.
This boils down to: Why should we see activities that are obviously different as the same?
*Or you could mean that any difference at all is descriptive but knowing your other posts I doubt that.
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On September 28 2014 23:27 silynxer wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2014 21:19 WhiteDog wrote:
As long as it is related to ressource allocation and that it produce any kind of satisfaction or utility for anybody it's an economic activity like any other.
Any distinction between the different type is either descriptive - you work in this field or this field - or moral - this has more value than this one. Usually you have intelligent and interesting insights but if I don't misunderstand you gravely then this is either a truism (and thus kind of useless for the discussion at hand) or patently false. I mean it should be obvious that economic activities are not like each other in a general sense, in fact it is rather difficult to define what makes them similar in the first place (that you get money/some other benefit from some entity after/before doing them???). Even if two people do the same activity (for example logging) what this means for themselves, the society around them, the economy (whatever that should be) and how this changes the world can be extremely different (logging the rainforest/logging cultivated Christmas trees). The distinction between those activities seems pretty relevant despite them being nominally the same.* If, of course, you mean they are like each other in some "economical sense" then I have to ask you to define what this should mean. I would be very surprised if you find a definition of "economic activity" and being "like each other in the economical sense" from which the above follows in a way that is not a truism. This boils down to: Why should we see activities that are obviously different as the same? *Or you could mean that any difference at all is descriptive but knowing your other posts I doubt that.
Yes but the point is you cannot judge the difference from the two from a purely economic manner. It's always a moral judgement that will permit anyone to makes distinctions and judgements on the usefulness of such job.
Since labor is always a social activity, you cannot judge the usefulness of a doctor or a politician "in itself" : it's the division of labor that create wealth and not a job in itself (cf Adam Smith). The wealth created by the doctor is null if there are no workers to cultivate food for exemple (what's the point of having a good health if you die of hunger ?).
One of the main problem of modern economy is the polysemy of the word "value", which as an economic dimension - creating wealth - and a moral or ethical dimension - the degree of importance of an activity / good / person, etc.
A (good) anthropologist would have questionned the division of labor today, pointing out the loss of meaning in many activities too specialised to give a good perspective on their usefulness or role in our society, thus creating a sense of uselessness (the "bullshit jobs"). This has been done in 1956 for exemple by George Friedman in his book Le Travail en miettes (the labor in pieces). It's a point of view that dates back to Marx's critics, with the idea of alienation of labor - workers in the XIXth century lost the control over the result of their production (from handicraft to mass production) and felt their jobs had lost its meaning because it was specialized.
But the conceptualization of "bullshit jobs" is giving the idea that the belief that one's job is useless is based on an objective (and objectivable) reality - a reality that is in fact impossible to define from an objective standpoint.
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But one objective thing you could measure the value of a job with for society is quality of life. Let's say we take all unemployed people and let them paint pictures of the president. Now we have zero unemployed people but all we have done is started a redistribution program. A more realistic example would maybe be unneeded bureaucratic jobs with people barely working but getting paid full time. That is not to the benefit of society. If all these unemployed people could magically become doctors we'd simply have better healthcare. That's something that would measurably improve peoples quality of life.
Or take the military and security sector in the US. The service they provide is "safety", but I'd argue that the US isn't a safer place than most other Western countries. If all the people working for the military would start building homeless shelters that would probably help homeless people more than what they're doing now.
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My dad worked at a bank for a couple years getting big paychecks (mathematician) and he said he basicly did nothing. He was sitting watching youtube 5 hours a day. And after a year he got sick of basicly not working so he switched job. For you guys that wanted an example of a bullshit job.
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On September 29 2014 00:33 Nyxisto wrote:
But one objective thing you could measure the value of a job with for society is quality of life. Let's say we take all unemployed people and let them paint pictures of the president. Now we have zero unemployed people but all we have done is started a redistribution program. A more realistic example would maybe be unneeded bureaucratic jobs with people barely working but getting paid full time. That is not to the benefit of society. If all these unemployed people could magically become doctors we'd simply have better healthcare. That's something that would measurably improve peoples quality of life.
Or take the military and security sector in the US. The service they provide is "safety", but I'd argue that the US isn't a safer place than most other Western countries. If all the people working for the military would start building homeless shelters that would probably help homeless people more than what they're doing now.
Even "unneeded" bureaucratic jobs achieve things. Typically its better allocation of resources or labor.
Now, if those jobs were truly wasted time, the employers of those "unneeded" bureaucrats would notice the diminishing returns and would cease hiring more. You'd never end up with every single unemployed person "meaningfully" employed.
You can't have a command economy like you're suggesting. Sticking people in jobs because you think it would help society more to have them there is a fool's errand.
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On September 29 2014 00:38 sertas wrote:
My dad worked at a bank for a couple years getting big paychecks (mathematician) and he said he basicly did nothing. He was sitting watching youtube 5 hours a day. And after a year he got sick of basicly not working so he switched job. For you guys that wanted an example of a bullshit job.
There are no link between "productivity" and paychecks, just like there are no link between economic value and ethical value. Him gaining a lot and doing nothing is two things completly different things. Wage and profit is a social matter.
Secondary, most likely he did nothing 5 hours a day, but his role in economy was not "bullshit" - even someone that just watch and protect a house everyday, with no roberry in sight, still has a use, in the way that he permit others to do something else. That's what I was referring to when I was saying "division of labor" : it's more efficient to have someone do nothing full day, than everybody doing nothing for five minute a day, and trying to produce the rest of the day (which is the role of police officer btw).
Finance is mostly "bullshit", in the way that the money it accumulate is not in any way related to their economic role (like all other jobs but it's most obvious for them since they gain more than others) : there are no sense of "justice" behind the remunerations. But finance still have an economic role (financing the economy, facilitating the liquidity) and without it the economy would work differently (not necessarily with the same productivity - even if I believe there are other way to finance the activity).
Maybe your father's role in the division of labor in his work was full of holes and free time, but nothing in your description makes me believe that that free time did not have any role or utility from a macroeconomic perspective. Maybe ask him in depth and try to build the hierarchy of his firm to understand his role : him having a role does not mean that the role has obvious first hand meaning.
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On September 29 2014 00:59 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2014 00:33 Nyxisto wrote:
But one objective thing you could measure the value of a job with for society is quality of life. Let's say we take all unemployed people and let them paint pictures of the president. Now we have zero unemployed people but all we have done is started a redistribution program. A more realistic example would maybe be unneeded bureaucratic jobs with people barely working but getting paid full time. That is not to the benefit of society. If all these unemployed people could magically become doctors we'd simply have better healthcare. That's something that would measurably improve peoples quality of life.
Or take the military and security sector in the US. The service they provide is "safety", but I'd argue that the US isn't a safer place than most other Western countries. If all the people working for the military would start building homeless shelters that would probably help homeless people more than what they're doing now. Even "unneeded" bureaucratic jobs achieve things. Typically its better allocation of resources or labor. Now, if those jobs were truly wasted time, the employers of those "unneeded" bureaucrats would notice the diminishing returns and would cease hiring more. You'd never end up with every single unemployed person "meaningfully" employed. You can't have a command economy like you're suggesting. Sticking people in jobs because you think it would help society more to have them there is a fool's errand.
I don't actually want to advocate a command economy, quite the opposite. People getting fired if they're unproductive only applies to the private sector. The military,police force and public bureaucracy have a monopoly. They can spend as much money as they get and as the long as the tax payer is willing to keep them in their job. The US military and police force is a trillion dollar business, so it's not like we're talking about insignificant amounts of money here. That's why GDP is only a very
vague indicator of living standard.
The only way I don't see these jobs as wasted is if the giant police force would actually increase everybody's standard of living. If that's not the case it's just another form of an unemployment program.
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On September 29 2014 00:38 sertas wrote:
My dad worked at a bank for a couple years getting big paychecks (mathematician) and he said he basicly did nothing. He was sitting watching youtube 5 hours a day. And after a year he got sick of basicly not working so he switched job. For you guys that wanted an example of a bullshit job.
Maybe whatever work he did do was worth the 5 hours of free time?
On September 29 2014 01:06 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2014 00:59 Millitron wrote:On September 29 2014 00:33 Nyxisto wrote:
But one objective thing you could measure the value of a job with for society is quality of life. Let's say we take all unemployed people and let them paint pictures of the president. Now we have zero unemployed people but all we have done is started a redistribution program. A more realistic example would maybe be unneeded bureaucratic jobs with people barely working but getting paid full time. That is not to the benefit of society. If all these unemployed people could magically become doctors we'd simply have better healthcare. That's something that would measurably improve peoples quality of life.
Or take the military and security sector in the US. The service they provide is "safety", but I'd argue that the US isn't a safer place than most other Western countries. If all the people working for the military would start building homeless shelters that would probably help homeless people more than what they're doing now. Even "unneeded" bureaucratic jobs achieve things. Typically its better allocation of resources or labor. Now, if those jobs were truly wasted time, the employers of those "unneeded" bureaucrats would notice the diminishing returns and would cease hiring more. You'd never end up with every single unemployed person "meaningfully" employed. You can't have a command economy like you're suggesting. Sticking people in jobs because you think it would help society more to have them there is a fool's errand. I don't actually want to advocate a command economy, quite the opposite. People getting fired if they're unproductive only applies to the private sector. The military,police force and public bureaucracy have a monopoly. They can spend as much money as they get and as the long as the tax payer is willing to keep them in their job. The US military and police force is a trillion dollar business, so it's not like we're talking about insignificant amounts of money here. That's why GDP is only a very vague indicator of living standard. The only way I don't see these jobs as wasted is if the giant police force would actually increase everybody's standard of living. If that's not the case it's just another form of an unemployment program.
Ah. In that case at least, we agree. The military is way too huge. But its difficult to say how huge is too huge. Preparedness is pretty valuable. If we downsize the military, and then shit hits the fan, we'd have to go through a mad scramble trying to get back up to strength. And even once we've got the numbers back up, there's immaterial losses to deal with as well, like experience and initiative. Just like what happened at the beginning of WW2. For example, after WW1, the US sniper training program got cut. WW2 rolls around, and it becomes apparent that we need snipers. But everyone who knew anything about sniping has long since retired or been promoted out of combat or training rolls.
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Finance is at its core a very useful activity, in theory it is concerned with the efficient allocation of capital to its most productive use, and we need people to be doing that. But when it comes to evaluating and re-evaluating existing assets (on financial exchanges), there seems to be a huge amount of waste. A slight edge in evaluation can make millions or billions of dollars, so we have a situation where tons of resources are commited to gaining an edge over the competition. So many people concerned with making money at the expense of other people (losers must equal winners).
Banks are getting a lot of shit. But this is only because their job is actually extremely important, and when they fuck it up there are huge consequences. The brokers and arbitrageurs and even fund managers/analysts seem to be doing things we dont need doing nearly as much.
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On September 28 2014 23:41 WhiteDog wrote:
Yes but the point is you cannot judge the difference from the two from a purely economic manner. It's always a moral judgement that will permit anyone to makes distinctions and judgements on the usefulness of such job.
Since labor is always a social activity, you cannot judge the usefulness of a doctor or a politician "in itself" : it's the division of labor that create wealth and not a job in itself (cf Adam Smith). The wealth created by the doctor is null if there are no workers to cultivate food for exemple (what's the point of having a good health if you die of hunger ?).
One of the main problem of modern economy is the polysemy of the word "value", which as an economic dimension - creating wealth - and a moral or ethical dimension - the degree of importance of an activity / good / person, etc.
I'm not completely sure how this relates to my point but it seems that in the end you didn't want to say that economic activities are all alike but rather that there is no objective (which you seem to conflate with economic, something I would dispute) way to value them. With this I agree, with the caveat that I don't think the objective/subjective dichotomy is particular usefull in this case. In fact someone else agrees as well!
David Graeber wrote
Now, I realise any such argument is going to run into immediate objections: “who are you to say what jobs are really ‘necessary’? What’s necessary anyway? You’re an anthropology professor, what’s the ‘need’ for that?” (And indeed a lot of tabloid readers would take the existence of my job as the very definition of wasteful social expenditure.) And on one level, this is obviously true. There can be no objective measure of social value.
Which makes this a bit baffling:
A (good) anthropologist would have questionned the division of labor today, pointing out the loss of meaning in many activities too specialised to give a good perspective on their usefulness or role in our society, thus creating a sense of uselessness (the "bullshit jobs"). This has been done in 1956 for exemple by George Friedman in his book Le Travail en miettes (the labor in pieces). It's a point of view that dates back to Marx's critics, with the idea of alienation of labor - workers in the XIXth century lost the control over the result of their production (from handicraft to mass production) and felt their jobs had lost its meaning because it was specialized.
But the conceptualization of "bullshit jobs" is giving the idea that the belief that one's job is useless is based on an objective (and objectivable) reality - a reality that is in fact impossible to define from an objective standpoint.
Obviously his essay is a polemic and he doesn't even pretend that it is scolarly or particular objective. The term "bullshit jobs" appears to be more a call to action than an analytical tool. His political agenda, morality, what he thinks is good etc., all of these are not hidden. Why you choose to read it in such an uncharitable way, I don't know. Especially, since some of his points echo what you wrote above (as I'm sure he knows about alienation) and are worth analyzing in depth (and less polemical) in my opinion. But this is already more than should have been said on this subject.
More importantly let's discuss alienation and your definition of bullshit jobs. I don't disagree that specialization leads to alienation and a feeling of uselessness. I would, however, disagree with alienation being causally reduced to specialization. Some jobs alienate more than others and some very specialized jobs don't seem to alienate at all (take for example the reasearcher who are personally invested in their research). My personal experience is that administrative/bureaucratic tasks trigger a stronger feeling of uselessness than most others and thus a general critique of bureaucracy is in order. Now, a certain amount of bureaucracy comes with specialization but one can hardly say that the amount we have now is the exact amount that we need to keep our standard of living (or whatever "objective" measurement you want to apply, for me "have a good life" would be the one).
The thread is moving fast and I am typing slow, so forgive me for not taking the new responses into account.
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On September 29 2014 02:02 silynxer wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2014 23:41 WhiteDog wrote:
Yes but the point is you cannot judge the difference from the two from a purely economic manner. It's always a moral judgement that will permit anyone to makes distinctions and judgements on the usefulness of such job.
Since labor is always a social activity, you cannot judge the usefulness of a doctor or a politician "in itself" : it's the division of labor that create wealth and not a job in itself (cf Adam Smith). The wealth created by the doctor is null if there are no workers to cultivate food for exemple (what's the point of having a good health if you die of hunger ?).
One of the main problem of modern economy is the polysemy of the word "value", which as an economic dimension - creating wealth - and a moral or ethical dimension - the degree of importance of an activity / good / person, etc. I'm not completely sure how this relates to my point but it seems that in the end you didn't want to say that economic activities are all alike but rather that there is no objective (which you seem to conflate with economic, something I would dispute) way to value them. With this I agree, with the caveat that I don't think the objective/subjective dichotomy is particular usefull in this case. In fact someone else agrees as well!Show nested quote +David Graeber wrote
Now, I realise any such argument is going to run into immediate objections: “who are you to say what jobs are really ‘necessary’? What’s necessary anyway? You’re an anthropology professor, what’s the ‘need’ for that?” (And indeed a lot of tabloid readers would take the existence of my job as the very definition of wasteful social expenditure.) And on one level, this is obviously true. There can be no objective measure of social value.
Which makes this a bit baffling: Show nested quote +
A (good) anthropologist would have questionned the division of labor today, pointing out the loss of meaning in many activities too specialised to give a good perspective on their usefulness or role in our society, thus creating a sense of uselessness (the "bullshit jobs"). This has been done in 1956 for exemple by George Friedman in his book Le Travail en miettes (the labor in pieces). It's a point of view that dates back to Marx's critics, with the idea of alienation of labor - workers in the XIXth century lost the control over the result of their production (from handicraft to mass production) and felt their jobs had lost its meaning because it was specialized.
But the conceptualization of "bullshit jobs" is giving the idea that the belief that one's job is useless is based on an objective (and objectivable) reality - a reality that is in fact impossible to define from an objective standpoint.
Obviously his essay is a polemic and he doesn't even pretend that it is scolarly or particular objective. The term "bullshit jobs" appears to be more a call to action than an analytical tool. His political agenda, morality, what he thinks is good etc., all of these are not hidden. Why you choose to read it in such an uncharitable way, I don't know. Especially, since some of his points echo what you wrote above (as I'm sure he knows about alienation) and are worth analyzing in depth (and less polemical) in my opinion. But this is already more than should have been said on this subject. More importantly let's discuss alienation and your definition of bullshit jobs. I don't disagree that specialization leads to alienation and a feeling of uselessness. I would, however, disagree with alienation being causally reduced to specialization. Some jobs alienate more than others and some very specialized jobs don't seem to alienate at all (take for example the reasearcher who are personally invested in their research). My personal experience is that administrative/bureaucratic tasks trigger a stronger feeling of uselessness than most others and thus a general critique of bureaucracy is in order. Now, a certain amount of bureaucracy comes with specialization but one can hardly say that the amount we have now is the exact amount that we need to keep our standard of living (or whatever "objective" measurement you want to apply, for me "have a good life" would be the one). The thread is moving fast and I am typing slow, so forgive me for not taking the new responses into account.
I said more than that : value and wealth are created through the division of labor, and jobs that he consider useless play a part in this division, thus enabling other more "productive" or "valuable" work.
That he knows about alienation doesn't mean much : it's a completly different perspective from his moral judgement that some jobs are "bullshit".
He point out, in the papers, jobs such as "when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other."
To me it's obvious filing out insurance forms and sending information are important part of the production, mainly because we have a socialized healthcare system in most occidentals countries, and also because knowing the history of a patient is half the work needed to take care of him. That sending information is less fulfilling than directly treating the patient is a given, but that does not make it less productive nor useful. To me, he is just giving his "judgement", or moral point of view, on the usefulness of the people that are filling insurence forms rather than giving me a good insight on the structure of the labor market today.
Maybe we need to change our society for the better, most specifically work, but his arguments are not the good ones for that from my point of view.
About bureaucraty, less bureaucraty would maybe increase the "standard of living", but it is for a completly different reason : the goal of many bureaucraties is not to increase or facilitate production / living condition, but rather to control the population, affirm the power of the state on the population. It's a social matter, much like the role of the police, and it's role is perfectly played - it is not "bullshit", but it's just not responding to economic matter for the most part.
And about administrative task giving stronger feeling of uselessness, it is absolutly right, but if you've observed any administrative firm or governmental bureaucraty, you'd know that the people that work in there have no freedom whatsoever in their job, every action they can make are officially coded and legalized : it's a perfect exemple of alienation, where the individual completly disappear.
edit : sorry I can't prevent myself from writing "bureaucraty" because in french it's bureaucratie...
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On September 29 2014 02:20 WhiteDog wrote:
About bureaucraty, less bureaucraty would maybe increase the "standard of living", but it is for a completly different reason : the goal of many bureaucraties is not to increase of facilitate production / living condition, but rather to control the population, affirm the power of the state on the population. It's a social matter, much like the role of the police, and it's role is perfectly played - it is not "bullshit".
But if nothing good comes out of this control then it's warranted to call it a "bullshit job". Prohibition agencies/officers only exist to arrest people for doing something that should arguably be legal. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people employed in Americas prison system that only exists because of draconian laws. There is nothing useful about these jobs except for the people who get paid for doing something that is only for their own benefit. There are easily dozens of branches that work that way.
edit: The question is "would there be a demand for these goods or services if there wasn't a government enforcing or creating them in the first place (through arbitrary laws)?" If the answer to this is no I think it' fair to say the service or good produced is useless.
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On September 29 2014 02:33 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2014 02:20 WhiteDog wrote:
About bureaucraty, less bureaucraty would maybe increase the "standard of living", but it is for a completly different reason : the goal of many bureaucraties is not to increase of facilitate production / living condition, but rather to control the population, affirm the power of the state on the population. It's a social matter, much like the role of the police, and it's role is perfectly played - it is not "bullshit". But if nothing good comes out of this control then it's warranted to call it a "bullshit job". Prohibition agencies/officers only exist to arrest people for doing something that should arguably be legal. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people employed in Americas prison system that only exists because of draconian laws. There is nothing useful about these jobs except for the people who get paid for doing something that is only for their own benefit. There are easily dozens of branches that work that way.
Nothing good for who ? In France the bureaucraty force people to accept a 12 % unemployment rate without much social trouble, it's a pretty effective institution. It's a matter a perspective. Without the minimum revenu of solidarity, France would be in a revolution already.
Rich and old white people are pretty happy with black young dude in prisons, it's more "safe".
edit: The question is "would there be a demand for these goods or services if there wasn't a government enforcing or creating them in the first place (through arbitrary laws)?" If the answer to this is no I think it' fair to say the service or good produced is useless.
But why do you absolutly want to force an economic view (offer and demand) on something that's not ? Those work that you point out (police, governmental bureaucracy) are not there for economical matters, even if they do have an economic role (if everybody was forced to look behind his back without the police and law, I'd bet the trading would be quite less dynamic).
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On September 29 2014 02:35 WhiteDog wrote:
Rich and old white people are pretty happy with black young dude in prisons, it's more "safe".
Come on you can't be serious. You're purposely creating a tautology here.
But why do you absolutly want to force an economic view (offer and demand) on something that's not ? Those work that you point out (police, governmental bureaucraty) are not there for economical matters, even if they do have an economic role (if everybody was forced to look behind his back without the police and law, I'd bet the trading would be quite less dynamic).
Because the original question was "does such a thing as a useless job exist?" and I think that's basically tied to the question "do people produce goods and services that no one would naturally/voluntarily buy if they were not forced to?". Obviously a police force can be useful,but only if people demand more safety. If it has become a system that gets bigger and bigger just because people are making money out of tax payers it's corruption and that's basically the opposite of "usefulness" by any sane definition of the word.
You could argue that instead of people working all these security or bureaucratic jobs just hand them a check and send them to engineering or medical school where they will learn something for which actual real demand exists.
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On September 29 2014 02:39 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2014 02:35 WhiteDog wrote:
Rich and old white people are pretty happy with black young dude in prisons, it's more "safe". Come on you can't be serious. You're purposely creating a tautology here. Show nested quote +But why do you absolutly want to force an economic view (offer and demand) on something that's not ? Those work that you point out (police, governmental bureaucraty) are not there for economical matters, even if they do have an economic role (if everybody was forced to look behind his back without the police and law, I'd bet the trading would be quite less dynamic). Because the original question was "does such a thing as a useless job exist?" and I think that's basically tied to the question "do people produce goods and services that no one would naturally/voluntarily buy if they were not forced to?". Obviously a police force can be useful, but only if people demand more safety. If it has become a system that gets bigger and bigger just because people are making money out of tax payers it's corruption and that's basically the opposite of "usefulness" by any sane definition of the word. You could argue that instead of people working all these security or bureaucratic jobs just hand them a check and send them to engineering or medical school where they will learn something for which actual real demand exists.
Ok then, from an economic standpoint, I'd say safety is a common good, that has positive externality on the economy, a situation that justify that the state investment in it even if the game of offer and demand does not "naturally" create a police force, and even if the existence of those institutions (bureaucraty and police force) are not completly efficient in ressource allocation.
That a police officer spend half his day doing nothing does not stop that from being true : it's the simple existence of a police force that create a positive externality on the economy, by permitting normal relationship and trading between the people.
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Norway28784 Posts
I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person. 
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
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EPT
