Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

About This Book

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is a 2018 book by the American anthropologist David Graeber that postulates the existence of meaningless jobs which cause psychological harm. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless and becomes psychologically destructive because workers are required to pretend their role is not as pointless or harmful as they know it to be. Graeber classifies a job as bullshit if society would be no worse off if such job(s) disappeared, and names five classes of meaningless jobs: flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. He argues that the association of labor with virtuous suffering is recent in human history and proposes universal basic income as a potential solution which would allow individuals to choose how they would like to contribute to humanity.

Summary sourced from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0.