"In “Bull__ Jobs,” Graeber, an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics, applies a critical eye to the Western world of work, where, he says, companies pay people to carry out an endless array of tasks that make no meaningful contribution to society. Graeber is expanding on a 2013 essay that he published in Strike! magazine and that subsequently went viral. In it, citing a famous prediction by the economist John Maynard Keynes, he argued that technology should have made workers more productive, leading to a 15-hour workweek, but instead has been used to make people work more, in pointless jobs they hate."

The rise of pointless work and what we can do about it

Bullshit Jobs, by David Graeber, professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, delighted me with its clear thought on an issue I hadn’t read about.

Bring back boredom, alleviate bullshit!

We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everyone has to be employed at some sort of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darvinist theory, he must justify his right to exist
Buckminster Fuller

What qualifies and what to do about them…

Overlong, but the book offers comfort to those who are performing the white-collar version of burger-flipping and hating...

Is your job one that makes the world a better place? If not, it is probably bullshit, part of a system that is keeping us under control

Many jobs are pointless. Others are being automated away. In the future, who will still work for a paycheck?

Explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln.

Bullshit Jobs builds upon David Graeber’s 2013 essay titled On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs. He posits that many of us are working in jobs that we know don’t need to be done, that we could stop doing them and no one would notice. And he suggests that these jobs are bad for us as individuals and society. If you’re nodding at this point, my condolences.

"In Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber looks at the increase of jobs that do not contribute anything meaningful society. He reasons that the role of bureaucracies and perverse incentives are to blame for the rise of this phenomena."

Economies around the world have, increasingly, become vast engines for producing nonsense.

And why this professor thinks we need a revolution.

David Graeber’s new book raises many questions about the function and worth of work, but doesn’t entirely explain why useless work persists, finds Clare Solomon

For more and more people, work appears to serve no purpose. Is there any good left in the grind?

Anthropologist David Graeber’s new book accuses the global economy of churning out meaningless jobs that are killing the human spirit.

"The citation—sensitively different from Kant’s—is a fitting opener to Graeber’s pamphlet. Bullshit Jobs is bent on debunking the contemporary cult of work and kick over the idols of our work-craved society, a world in which man is nothing and work is everything."

This provocative book argues millions of us do work that has no use at all. The case is enjoyably overstated, says Emma Duncan

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber is an academic investigation based on Graeber's viral newspaper article about why some people feel their jobs are meaningless and why people do jobs they think are "bullshit." This book should be required reading for any economics or business student and would be a great gift for anyone who is unhappy but isn't quite sure why.

David Graeber’s snarky study of the meaningless nature of modern employment adds little to our understanding of it

A subversive new book argues that many of us are working in meaningless “bullshit jobs”. Let automation continue and liberate people through universal basic income

"ANTHROPOLOGIST AND POLITICAL ACTIVIST David Graeber wrote a 2013 essay for Strike! Magazine that got more attention than an essay in a niche radical magazine typically gets. The piece, called “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs,” inspired responses in outlets from The Economist to Jacobin; the Guardian insisted that the essay would “change your life.”

The current trend for fashionable post- and anti-work thinking has been given a boost by David Graeber’s book Bullshit Jobs, recently featured in an RSA event and accompanying video. Graeber’s critique of the modern world of work has been understandably popular and gained widespread media coverage. Stemming from a provocative piece in Strike magazine five years ago, the concept has spawned not just the book, but spin-off articles about the ‘bullshitization of academic life’, alongside similar efforts from others.

As American anthropologist David Graeber explains in the introduction to his book, the pendulum of the white-collar-corporate economy has drastically swung rightward, resulting in the widespread global phenomenon of “Bullshit Jobs.”

"David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs is a cathartic book, in equal parts funny and depressing, of the sort of the material where you’re not sure if you should be laughing or crying."

"If ever there was a title to get me through the door, then this was it. How could I resist? The thing I didn’t know when I began Bullshit Jobs, though, was that Graeber’s position wasn’t that work as a whole was bullshit."

"Graeber’s book offers a remarkably eclectic mix of everyday anecdotes and testimonies, historical insights, literary and pop-culture references as well as wide-ranging theoretical frameworks. Bullshit Jobs – a Theory is intellectually engaging, provocative and a hilarious, great read."

Anthropologist David Graeber has written a thought provoking, stimulating book on the nature of work in the modern world. Despite its vulgar title, the book is the product of erudition, insight and real bravery to question current nostrums of work.

"In all his books Prof Graeber manages to hit a nerve in the tense muscles of public opinion. Was it the arbitrariness and political power play of who owns what to whom in international debt crises exposed in ‘Debt – Its First Five Thousand Years’, or the mindless and at times cruel hoops the rise of bureaucracy makes citizens jump through in ‘Utopia of Rules’, David Graeber always finds original ways in exposing some structural pathology in the politics of modern life. ‘Bullshit Jobs’ is no exception to this."

Do you often have the feeling that your job is absolutely pointless? Or even causes damage? Then you might have a bullshit job! At least that’s what David Graeber assumes in his book “Bullshit Jobs”.

A semi-serious attempt to understand a serious problem

"David Graeber makes an historical, sociological and anthropological critique on late-stage capitalism."

David Graeber’s ‘bullshit jobs theory’ has generated a great deal of academic and public interest. This theory holds that a large and rapidly increasing number of workers are undertaking jobs that they themselves recognise as being useless and of no social value.

David Graeber’s theory isn’t borne out by the evidence

Graeber’s book shows the misery, waste and lost potential of these jobs, then applies his understanding of anthropology to looking at how this situation came to be, and why no-one does anything about it.

What would happen if you woke up one day and all the jobs of the carpenters, nurses, teachers, plumbers, cleaners, and drivers were to disappear? Your life will become more difficult and challenging that you already find it to be.

Work is Complicated: Thoughts on David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs

Graeber’s working definition perfectly sums up my initial interest in the anthropologist’s thinking.

Are You A ‘Duct Taper’?

In Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber describes the types and characteristics of pointless jobs and why they’ve become so widespread. He further explores the psychological impact of working a pointless job and suggests a possible solution to eliminate the need for meaningless work.

Through Bullshit Jobs (2018), he provides views related to the world of work. In his book, Graeber divides the discussion into seven sections which are entitled in the form of questions, as if targeting his readers to reflect on what debate Graeber wants to convey.

"In this insightful and provocative study, David Graeber highlights a phenomenon that seems all too pervasive in the modern world: that more and more of us feel that we are engaged in bullshit. Despite this widespread feeling, while the concept of bullshit has been discussed within political theory (e.g. Blackledge, 2015), it remains fairly marginal across management and organization studies."

The rise of pointless work and what we can do about it by David Graeber

The depressing truth about the modern workplace

"The anarchist anthropologist David Graeber achieved international notoriety in 2013 when he published an article titled “On the Phenomenon of Bulls--- Jobs: A Work Rant.” Following a hunch, he hypothesized that huge numbers of professionals did next to nothing at work. Sure enough, hundreds of readers wrote to tell him that he was right."

"David Graeber’s important new book, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, begins with “a paradigmatic example” of a bullshit job as it was reported to him by the man who holds it, who works for a subcontractor for the German military. It is so extreme and absurd that it may not be fair to call it paradigmatic, but it is wonderfully revelatory."

"Bullshit jobs by David Graeber is a well written book with provocative arguments. As the subtitle states, it is a a theory about the utterly useless jobs in (Western) societies. Unlike the main title suggest, it does not remain on the level of accusations but develops a rich and justified narrative how and, most importantly, why some jobs are making our societies worse beyond their immediate impact."

"With such a provocative title, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber is destined to either for boom or bust. Much like my former coach’s book, the title tells the reader pretty much everything they need to know about the book."

"In Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, anthropologist David Graeber proposes that there is a vast swath of jobs (anywhere from 30–60%) that should not exist and, should these all suddenly disappear, no one would care. In fact, the world would probably be a better place."

Where does remuneration come into the definition of a bullshit job?

"In his new book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, David Graeber suggests that, “Automation did, in fact, lead to mass unemployment. We have simply stopped the gap by adding dummy jobs that are effectively made up.”