Zompist Bboard Again

I know Zomp has read other work by Graeber in the past (e.g. an article on Smith's just-so story about the barter stage of economics, Debt: The First 5,000 Years, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity) and I just found out about this book which sounds interesting as a perspective on technological unemployment.

On the one hand, it sounds like a book falling squarely in Zomp's criticism that the worst parts of Graeber are the ones where he tries to roleplay as an economist. On the other hand, the counterarguments on Wikipedia are incredibly weak, since they seem to ignore "people are hopeless at evaluating how bullshit their job is" as as explanation for people working the jobs Graeber categorises as bullshit being likely to consider their jobs important while "essential" workers like janitorial staff and bin men are likely to consider their jobs useless. That said, I haven't read the book and I for sure don't have the kind of background needed for a cogent analysis, so I'm going to avoid ultracrepidarianism and ask if anyone in a more relevant field/life has read it and has any thoughts.

I haven't read anything by Graeber, but my impression is that some people who specialize in things Graeber talked about at various points seem to agree that he knew a thing or two about bullshit.

I haven't read it. FWIW, here are two random reviews that seem to give a good picture of its argument and whether it's good:

The Conversation

The Times

Graeber is always interesting to read, but in my experience (as you note) he is less so the closer he comes to the modern world.

(I guess my first question would be, what was his sampling technique? Because if it was "talk to people who hate their jobs", you're going to find plenty of good stories but no basis for evaluating how good or useful jobs are in general.)

I read it a few years ago. It's one of his best books, in my opinion and I think it escapes zompist's observation (Though I agree with you that the last pages of Debt weren't the best ones) - I found it very insightful.

I kind of wish Graeber's train of thought had been continued further. The existence of bullshit jobs is interesting precisely because, according to mainstream economics or politics, they shouldn't exist at all. Or, perhaps, more precisely, the idea of whether jobs are useful or not is rarely discussed.
(Except when it comes to government jobs, which right-wing thought consider a useless drain by definition)

His data was okay but a bit scant and he certainly exaggerated it a bit. I kind of wish his train of thought had been continued further. Again, there's no question some jobs seem to produce nothing whatsoever. I'd add that those of us fortunate enough to have relatively meaningful jobs still spend a great deal of our working hours on bullshit. It'd be really interesting to quantify that.


As I recall, Bullshit Jobs doesn't really get into economics much. It's intended for the general public and doesn't require any particular background.

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Nov 06, 2025 5:47 am I haven't read anything by Graeber, but my impression is that some people who specialize in things Graeber talked about at various points seem to agree that he knew a thing or two about bullshit.

Ah, Graeber, like all left-wing thinkers, is much reviled by right-wingers for being left-wing, and by left-wingers for being left-wing, but not in the right way

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Nov 06, 2025 6:44 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Nov 06, 2025 5:47 am I haven't read anything by Graeber, but my impression is that some people who specialize in things Graeber talked about at various points seem to agree that he knew a thing or two about bullshit.

Ah, Graeber, like all left-wing thinkers, is much reviled by right-wingers for being left-wing, and by left-wingers for being left-wing, but not in the right way

What I was thinking of was more like academics reviling him for going all Dunning-Kruger on their respective fields. For instance: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9jj9j6z7

I glanced through the paper, it's quite interesting. As it happens, I didn't find The Dawn of Everything. But it seems to read more as a response from one academic to fellow academics.