David Graeber talks about 'Bullshit Jobs' at WORT FM
A 2015 YouGov survey revealed that 37% of working British adults think their jobs do not make a meaningful contribution to the world. Similarly, 40% of workers in the Netherlands reported that their jobs had no good reason to exist. Why are so many 21st century workers trapped in useless, meaningless jobs?
On today’s special Labor Day episode, Patty interviews David Graeber, author of Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. They discuss the “BS-ization” of work and its social implications, along with broader labor issues such as the effects of automation, the proliferation of paperwork, the psychological toll of BS jobs, and the argument for a universal basic income.
David Graeber is a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics. He is the author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Melville House, 2011), The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy (Melville House, 2015), and Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (Penguin, 2018).
Originally aired on 03/09/2018.