On Work/Bullshit Jobs

One of the most important pieces of political work I have seen in the 21st century is David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs. While I would encourage you to read the book itself, the premise is that many people (perhaps 30-45%) work in jobs that are not meaningfully productive to society. These include jobs where little or no real work is done or where work is done but could be removed without any loss to society. Examples of the second include telemarketers, doormen, corporate lobbyists, and more. The first is more of general principle, such as an office job that has 2 hours of actual work per day and then the rest of the day has nothing, or worse, purposefully assigned pointless work to keep the workers busy.

Eliminating or reducing (such as by cutting working hours) for these jobs is not bad AS LONG AS meaningful and fulfilling jobs are reasonably available. Think of jobs such as constructing nature trails, planting trees, working on a farm, teaching, building homes, and near endless socially useful tasks. The point is to use all our available time for practical purposes and to use the rest for leisure, and to find an allocating system that is both efficient and kind to workers. Don’t take this to mean slacking off or skipping would be allowed more than now, there should still be consequences for such actions of course.

There is more to Bullshit Jobs, and despite the somewhat unserious title, it is a highly informative analytical text that should be more talked about, and I highly encourage you to check it out. It’s funny as well.

We can see the effect policy initiative could easily have with the Netherlands. The Netherlands has the lowest average working hours in the EU at 32 hours, making it effectively a 4-day workweek (which they are now starting to implement in policy). The benefits of this are great, with more energy, more time to be with kids and family, and a better quality of life, which in turn leads to a more productive worker.

Additionally, as I have said before, AI also has the power to change the workforce incredibly rapidly, so we must use policy actions to both adjust accordingly and not fall behind in terms of work practices as well as protecting workers livelihoods.

When regarding salaries, a meritocratic system where some people earn more than others is not inherently bad. A hard working corner store owner who earns a decent bit more than their neighbor or a popular book writer with a solid income arises relatively naturally due to differences in work ethic/skill. It is about two groups (which are sometimes the same): upper management and capital entrepreneurs.

Upper management consists of people who worked their way up (or were handed through “connections”) through a company and now find themselves in a position where they both impact company policy while making 200x that of the lower worker. The amount of money made is unnecessary, and it is definitely not proportionate in the slightest to the amount of work being down. In fact, I would argue that your average worker has a more stressful and intense workday than their upper management and CEOs who reap the benefits of their success.

This is not to say that CEOs, CFOs, COOs, corporate lawyers, and the like have done nothing to deserve their position. Rather the positions themselves are structured to hold too much power. The incentive systems that reward ruthless advancement often elevates the wrong people, as they are the people who are most able to hurt others for their own benefit. It is no wonder that studies have found the rate for psychopathy to be much higher in business leaders (4-12%) than in the general population (1%).

A healthy alternative structure would be one where workers earn similar salaries with modest differences based on stress, responsibility, and expertise. Bonuses can act as incentives, and workers would keep control of major decisions through democratic structures. Leadership would still exist and could impact decision making, but it would be accountable and genuinely earned. It reminds me of a description by a 17th century Jesuit of Indigenous American societies: “The chiefs command nothing; they have no authority to enforce… The only power of the chief is in his eloquence.” Leaderships power ought to be from trust, persuasion and knowledge, not from coercion or force.

Capital Entrepreneur’s are often smart and innovatively, usually building tech or systems that impact the world around us (positively and negatively). Think Elon, Zuck, Gates, etc. Nothing wrong with entrepreneurialism, as new inventions solve our old problems and improve the quality of life for many. Yet here, the owner has control over a product that can actively harm its users, such as with the negative mental health effects of social media. More importantly, they gain access to wealth they can use to influence elections for their own benefit and political interests, or to simply use their money in wrong ways (wrong up to interpretation). This should not be a feature in a democratic system.

The problem is that most of their wealth is in stocks, so simple calls to “tax the rich” are basically virtue signaling. It is more ingrained in our current system, and I will work on my solution for this in section 2.