The overproduction of elites - educating our dumb little children - is part of the problem. If you take a four-year course and get a degree in grievance studies, you have to go out there and do something with that newfound knowledge. The fact that what you do fucks everything up is no consequence. In fact it is never even reviewed.
We lost our industrial jobs so we sent Junior to college for education in human resources. Now we have a bunch of losers - junior -!running things and every thing is broken.
I actually did go straight to the hustle out of high school in ‘86. I didn’t start college until ‘91 when I knew that I wasn’t going to quit working in the field of pharmacy but was as smart as or smarter than all the pharmacists I was working with at the time. I didn’t graduate until ‘97 but it’s been the best decision I could have made, both delaying college and finally going once I knew I would be better off financially with that specific degree. By the time I went I was a home owner and a mom. It was hard but not much different in the end to what I would have been doing had I not gone. Sadly, I don’t think this trajectory is even possible now as affordable homes are a thing of the past. Either way, as someone who never stopped going to work during Covid I have been fully informed as to my job’s viability in society. I have never stopped knowing that I make a difference in peoples lives, that what I do matters. It’s a strong motivation to keep pushing through, even though I’ve had to fight for it (shot exemptions, refusing to vaccinate others). But I agree wholeheartedly that we need to push our next generation to do things that matter—utilities, mechanics, engineering, and technology are all things that will never go away. And healthcare is also a viable option but needs to be fully tempered with helping people be more healthy, not more sick.
There are problems with engineering though. "Systems" engineering has devolved into a series of prescribed processes, without any design or test experience required. I've started on new jobs that were bid by non-technical experts. It's unpleasant - they let you know they are experts in writing proposals - technical expertise is not required!
What happened to "all those" is mass immigration that stomps all over the wages in the skilled and semi-skilled profession, because despite the blatantly racist view espoused by the commies, not every invader is here to pick strawberries and other jobs "Muricans won't do (at these artificially low prices)!", they all want to move up to something better paying (but likely still much cheaper than employing a native, certainly more than employing a native aboveboard.)
Then you !lso have to figure in the H1-B employees that p÷mester engineering workplaces where Cclass will fire the stellar Amrican engineer !nd replace him with two "engineers" out of India or Pakistan who are incapable of the outside the box thinking real engineers sometimes are needed to utilize to solve problems of projects they are on. You used to be able to get a demonstration of this policy with Microsoft products. Namely windows. All good variants of windows that were relatively solid were produced using mainly American engineers. Version that everyone hated buggy and slow, h1bs. They would even show photographs of the development teams who worked on the versions proudly showing who did what. It was ridiculous to say the least. Up to windows 95 almost all white and oriental faces. Windows 98 some white and oriental mostly brown faces. Win Me? Exclusively brown faces, XP all white, etc... you could see where they recognized a problem With the teams and corrected thebissuebonly to wash rinse repeat as if they never learned anything. I long ago stopped caring as windows 10 is as far as I'm willing to walk with Microsoft and have started sidesteppung into using Linux although that is is rife with its own issues. Mainly being woefully out of date with hardware and the idiots who code it being proud of the fact that, at least in what I use computers for, it is an os incapable of working in and with hardware that the music industry had abandoned over 15 years ago due to being much better and faster technology available. Yet the entire music production community in the Linux world isnproudbthatbthey are stuck having to use step trackers to produce any drum tracksbforbtheit music and it is machine like. Where I have ;÷n using products that will take a real drummer and have him play drums record that, convert to midi where I am able to manipulate what he did to where you are unable to recognize the same pattern was playsdall the while never missing anybody the nuances which make live drumming unique and human sounding. The Linux boys won't even acknowledge the issue and change the subject. Or drum you off a platform catering to their fragile autist egos (4Chan) like i was when I called them out on this. So the problem with bullshit jobs is in every industry but never more walking in rheblight as in the software industry.
As the parent of three young kids in a hardcore striver town, the holy grail of human existence seems to be playing division 3 sports at an elite east coast liberal arts college followed by a career in IB, PE, or CRE. I understand how this can be a fulfilling path for certain alpha male types but I really don't want that life for my kids unless they really want it.
I worked in a hard core bull shit job for like 4 years after law school and came to many of Graeber's conclusions on my own. I was amazed by how many people thrive in that environment and love playing the political corporate game. Despite hating my life during those years, I'm grateful for the experience because working a demanding shitty job for some period of time builds character, but can also fortify your resolve to carve your own path in life. Nowadays I see the commuters going into the city and get a pit in my stomach to work harder on my own flexible and enjoyable business. I honestly think I'd have a breakdown if I had to go back to that life in my 40s.
Although I have plenty of friends, that are, again, absolutely thriving in the corporate world and seem to have plenty of time to do the things they like.
This reminds me of my brief, soulless stint as a clerk-typist for the NLRB. it was a year of unimaginable torture typing bullshit legalese for government bureaucracy while desperately scouring jobs lists for something—anything—more worthwhile to do. My almost 9 years with the VA was made bearable by the fact that six of them were only 16 hours a week because I was in pharmacy school earning my destiny to never work for the government ever again. Ugh!
We need to get back to what our Founders intend. For all intents and purposes they were libertarians. While they didn't have specific name for the type of capitalism and free-markets they envisioned, I think they most closely would've defined it as Pareto Optimization. And if we got back to these first principles, bullshit jobs and drag they create on the economy would vanish.
The whole point of Pareto efficiency is that there are no losers. Its quite literally the entire purpose of the idea. Pareto efficiency describes the end state of a series of win-win choices, where no more win-win choices can be made anymore.
The entire purpose of pareto optimal choices is that they harm no one. a potential pareto improvement is where someone wins more than others lose, which in theory would mean that the loser could be brought back to the level they started at. So it's, in theory, a win-neutral game, or even a win-win after compensation, hence the potential for it to be a pareto improvement. Sure, not all mutually beneficial trades or choices are "just". Still, the fact that it's an interaction with no losers is certainly a point in its favor.
Also there is a notable absence of allocation here, but again, allocation isn't what Pareto improvements are about. It's more about minimizing "heat loss" of a system, ergo efficiency, not equity
Here's a recent example someone should show FEMA or Newsome:
The takeover of the economy by government-aligned corporations contributes to this accelerating phenomena of bullshit jobs, the wealth gap, bureaucratic domination, and government engineered theft (including inflation). The Wall St/Congress/Bureaucrat conspiracy has steered trillions into elite coffers. DEI and many government jobs are the epitome of "bullshit jobs," which, are just collateral damage to the Too-Big-to-Fail class.
Recent revelations that the private sector has been in recession while government has grown are symptomatic of the ongoing racket. Same for government's choosing winners and losers.
But there's a new sheriff in town. And he's deputized some gunslingers.
Lost my job of 35 years in the public sector in 2022, partly (male, pale and stale) due to a desire by the organisation to balance DEI statistics. I spent most of that 35 year period convincing myself I was happy as I was getting one over on society by only actually working about 5% of the time.
Finished there on a Tuesday and started in a private sector job on Wednesday. Now I have an amazing and fulfilling role in which I learn every day. I never once realised the importance of personal growth to my well being. It is vital to me. For all those wailing and bitching about DOGE doing a job on govt employes, losing mine was the best thing that could've happened to me. My only regret is that it didn't happen sooner.
Lost my teaching job in 2002 due to government cutbacks. Ended up working in Asia afterwards for 15 years, which was one of the best things to ever happen to me.
You're lucky, particularly that it didn't happen when thousands of former government employees are about to hit the job market. Look, I get it that losing any job precipitously is traumatic. I had it happen numerous times in my life when I thought I'd finally settled into a career. Stuff happens and there are no guarantees. It seems like a lot of these who've been let go feel they were entitled to a security that simply doesn't exist.
I first became familiar with David Graeber for his wonderful collaboration with an archeologist named David Wengrow on the book: The Dawn of Everything. No matter what your politics, it is a delight. (It's very long and comprehensive, but reasonably neutral politically.) That led me to Graeber's Debt, and the book with the same title as the above-mentioned article. The latter 2 are heavily influenced by his Marxist beliefs, but he is a talented writer and they are interesting in their way. Having performed numerous "Bullshit Jobs" in my working life I find it a fascinating topic. I'm taking a particular delight in watching Doge illuminate the BS jobs in government. One of my less popular sayings is from bitter experience: Ultimately, There Is NO Security.
My concern is who are we going to get to apply DOGE principals to the state and city governments.
We have a bunch of cities (like Austin, where I live) that spew money on stupidity and couldn't get a project done if it involved construction paper and glue stick.
That's going to rely on state government pu/ING rhw screws to municipal governments. I'm in San antonio where inefficiency rules. Where most of the people are so dim that for the children have repeatedly priced hindrednoutbof their homes by floating bonds forbsupid shit like high-school football stadiums that a= more technologically advanced than any NFL stadium. which are always tucked into property taxes here.
Good luck with that. We saw how special interests rulebstate politics when Ferris Wilkes and Tim Dunn dressed Ken Paxton's mistress up in a red dress and giga tic leather purse and had her go distribute walking money to the Texas senate while they were deliberating Ken Paxton accountability over using his office to conduct personal business and help a friend skirt an investigation on him by the fbi regarding improprieties. They have also paid off the fed gov to back off of Ken Paxton's pending federal indictment for securities fraud. (WHY DOBYOU THINK HES ALWAYS RUNNJNG AROUND THENCOUNTRY FILINF AMICUS BRIEFS,? HES RUNNING FROM FEDERAL INVESTIGSTORS). Ever wonder when Ken Paxton claims he's won a court case where the money goes? Sure isn't to his office and sure isn't into the States general fund. More than likely his wallet. Also ask yourself during his impeachment whybdidnt his wife recuse herself when itbwas shown that jisbondictment he brought down upon himself for asking for funding to pay off the whistleblowers that he signed an agreement with to settle out of court and they sued him to actually receive the money he agreed to pay(who as of my writing this still haven't received a penny of the setltement) which was a direct result of Ken Paxton illegal usenof the power of the ag of Texas to help his buddies business as mentioned above because his buddy did Kenny boy a favor by giving Paxton mistress a job where he could hide her from his wife.
Yeah see how convoluted state politics are? Now casebin punt San antonio. Ever heard of Kirby TX? Original proposed place of NASA not Houston. Why not Kirby? LULAC killed it. Said San antonio would get too large. It disntbhave anything to do with LULAC being the public front for "the family" and thebpotential loss of power they weird over San antonio city council how would it? Also why does it take Texas road crews 20 years to complete any given project? And the only two contractors who get those jobs in texas are hp Zachary or Dean word? But the one time the voters got something they wantednadnthe highway 370 or whatever that bypasses that runs from seguin up past Killeen and is a toll eoad was contracted and built by a company out of the OAE and was complete to spec 7 months early and under budget? Graft maybe? Ask yourself why the recharge zone of the Edward's aquifer we were told would never be built upon as it was detrimental to the aquifer and how we andnmany other communities got our potable water has a showing center anchored by whole foods and target aitting right over the top of it?
Doge would collectively pull a Bud Dwyer if tasked with cleaning up Texas governments
Excellent! I was an (ahem) English teacher at the community college level for almost 30 years. During that time I saw the astronomical bloat of the administrative class grow with each passing year. In Kalifornia, where I live, at both the UC and State systems, administrators OUT NUMBER the teachers--by wide margins. And these bullshit positions ain't cheap. It's a disgrace.
I don't know, but strongly suspect that education administration is a favored place for patronage jobs. Jobs given to people as a favor to them or their relatives.
In the end today it is the classic yuppie Nuremberg defense, “I don’t want to rock the boat, I have a mortgage to pay.” Americans, myself included have a morbid fear of being broke and destitute, so we go along; we check the box, agree that all whites are racist, and hope the paycheck comes in, but all it takes is a layoff or downsizing and if we can’t have our Starbucks or Taylor swift, it’s a revolution.
Paraphrasing and adjusting one of the greatest quotes from Star Trek Deep Space Nine (season 7), “let me tell you something about Americans; we are a wonderful, friendly people, as long as our bellies are full and our instagram is working. But deprive us of creature comforts, deprive us of food, sleep, hot showers, WiFi, put our anxiety into overdrive, then those same wonderful, fun, decent people, will become as nasty, and as violent, as the most bloodthirsty terrorist.”
We are all a day away from humility, and as Silvio Dante said, “you’re only as good as your last envelope,” and we know it so it is all about Huxley’s nightmare, work hard, even if your don’t, and be happy! This is why the aliens won’t talk to us……..
Layoffs don't result in lack of Starbucks and Taylor Swift. They result in loss of one's home and access to medical care.
That fear is realistic, not morbid, especially given the hiring practices of corps now days. If they can replace you with an H-1B they will, no matter how good you are at your job.
“ The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger ”
He got that right. There are different ways that free time is being eliminated, and productivity is being punished, and it unfortunately doesn’t all come from the Marxists.
We can’t even imagine what a world might look like when people are actually free.
But a lot of the hard work is being done for the ruling class by the much larger mediocre class. Most times I have been stopped in life has been by someone, or an institution who or which has felt threatened by what might become apparent if I were allowed to proceed freely….and what would become apparent is that the person/institution in charge of me is either incompetent or unnecessary or malignant. So I (and millions of others) have been shut down. We have been shut down even when what we propose to do is a 100% win-win, and would make more money for our malignant overseers. They will often sacrifice yet more profits to maintain their longer term position or even reputation.
So unfortunately I don’t share your optimism that we are about to shed the oppression of the professional managerial class, or the professional mediocre class, as I prefer to designate them.
You could say the same thing about health care / medicine. Many alternatives would drastically reduce medical costs but they are continuously poo-pood because it would upset the lucrative status quo.
As someone who works in health care/medicine, increased regulations have led to an explosion of administrative BS jobs which have grown exponentially and contribute very little to patient care and outcomes. This increase in BS jobs also correlates with increased costs.
At the turn of the last century and before, schooling ended at 8th grade and then you worked or went to university or something… not too much bullshit back then.
Young people went to university at 14…
My great grandfather decided to apply to Annapolis at 15 in 1871 and got in. Graduated at 20 and had 45+ year career in the Navy retiring as Admiral
While there is certainly some truth to the concept in general, I read this book a couple of years ago and was not impressed. For one thing, it felt like an essay stretched into a book--kind of in the way Netflix turns what might have been an OK movie into a boring 10 episode series.
The poolside PM girl was truly peak "WFH / digital nomad / fully remote" nonsense. It's so great really, such a funny self-indictment. And why are there so many pretty PM girls? I've met reincarnations of those two in every company I've worked at. It's such a woman's realm it seems, "We are better at multitasking than men" they'll tell you (as I've been told by a PM gal who grew up in SF but chose to float down a river in Zurich and barhop while checking in on Slack). Whereas us manly louts can't walk and chew gum at the same time (also been told this).
Alas, we've all heard for awhile now: "America doesn't make anything other than financial bubbles." The saying isn't entirely true of course, but in the big picture – it kind of is. Where does all this fakery come from? Why are there billions of dollars opening markets for things and services that no one needs and no one wants? My only hypothesis is that this is what accumulates when the world is pegged to a fiat currency that has been printed without accountability for the past hundred years. Perhaps if we had a commodity currency, we would have a more commodity (i.e. "Realville") focused economy and workforce.
I also imagine that certain things that are fundamentally neither produced nor consumed but inherently meaningful and thus invaluable – like musical literacy and literacy in general – would increase if fakery wasn't constantly being subsidized by the grand _fiatshed_ (i.e. watershed) called the Federal Reserve that corporate America is downstream of.
The social and psychological implications of a BS workforce is pretty lame too. Just look at Lumpedin and see the droves of striving drones build entire "careers" on nothing but _perception management._ And then, consistent with the "upside down world", people who are actually innovative and competent are sidelined because they threaten the performative managers galore. I think of that early scene in Dante's Inferno where all the throngs of go-getters are chasing wraithlike banners, grasping at the fleeting opportunity; that's Lumpedin.
I watched a microcosm of this era-wide shit show happen while at a startup in Boston: we were product focused and cashflow positive with a small team (I was one of the engineers) then a predatory VC group plopped $12M on the table (a "B round"). As part of the deal requirements, the startup then hired EXCLUSIVELY middle management who did nothing but put asses in chairs that looked good when shareholders visited. An "innovation focused product manager" was hired who had never innovated anything before (and had zero engineering skills) but she had an MBA and a lot of confidence I suppose. Of course, she got paid twice as much as any of us engineers who actually made the brand what it was – all the other Harfraud MBAs filing in regarded us as children, those silly kids who actually play with ideas and materials! Alas, that PM, and all the other B-round people got fired six-months later. I saw the writing on the wall and left before the bubble burst, but it was low-key tragic because the company could've grown organically if the founders didn't make the oldest mistake in the book: inflate their value.
Of course, that's what we're doing as a society too and when the global debt bubble bursts, I suspect AI – and "universal HIGH income!" as Elon touts – will be conveniently waiting for us just in time, as the devil collects his dues no matter what, we'll have many pounds of deferred flesh to hand over! An abstruse philosophical thesis of mine is that AI is simply the fruits of sowing fakery for over a hundred years – why didn't the Byzantine empire develop AI if they were so prosperous for over a millennia? Perhaps because they didn't finance BS jobs with fake money, and their currency was real: gold. I mean, maybe it's straight up literal and not just metaphoric: "bad money is an abomination to the Lord" (Proverbs 11:1) which is to say, if you build a whole civilization on bad money, then it's the devil's job (i.e. "the accuser") to come collecting these debts.
This articulates something I've been thinking about for a while. When I look at children's toys I'm struck by how many depict firefighters, truck drivers, construction workers. A child inherently understands the joy of tangible work. Imagine telling a child he will grow up to be master of pointless emails and zoom meetings.
Ironic that Keynes predicted a 15 hour workweek. The Keynesian paradigm is all about using government to stimulated the economy to prevent "unemployed resources." (I write paradigm as I haven't read Keynes himself. I'm referring to Keynes as translated by Paul Samuelson.)
A return to satisfying work requires massive amounts of unemployed resources. Most of a craftsman's tools sit idle. The purpose of the assembly line is to keep all the tools at full utilization.
Teaching is not a bullshit job. I have taught in extremely poor urban schools for years where my colleagues and I work extremely hard with zero respect and low pay, often in danger from violence among students, to give poor kids even a hope of a better life. Try substitute teaching in a poor urban area and see for yourself. Show some kindness to kids who rarely experience it and try to get a kid whose parent is in jail to learn to read.
I respect all teachers who work hard to educate children. However, union leaders and their cronies have stained the profession. The results speak for themselves - more money spent, lower results achieved.
The overproduction of elites - educating our dumb little children - is part of the problem. If you take a four-year course and get a degree in grievance studies, you have to go out there and do something with that newfound knowledge. The fact that what you do fucks everything up is no consequence. In fact it is never even reviewed.
We lost our industrial jobs so we sent Junior to college for education in human resources. Now we have a bunch of losers - junior -!running things and every thing is broken.
Nailed it.
A hobby of mine is calling peoples children, dumb. It’s nasty but fun.
More vocation training. What happened to all those?
People need to learn how to work with their hands again.
Its satisfying, requires critical thinking and gives purpose.
College is not for everyone.
In fact, at this point, the higher the tuition the less value. My alma maters tuition is literally 20X what it was when I graduated college in 93'.
It was an excellent school but I might just have went straight to "hustle" in the real world if it was like now, back then.
I actually did go straight to the hustle out of high school in ‘86. I didn’t start college until ‘91 when I knew that I wasn’t going to quit working in the field of pharmacy but was as smart as or smarter than all the pharmacists I was working with at the time. I didn’t graduate until ‘97 but it’s been the best decision I could have made, both delaying college and finally going once I knew I would be better off financially with that specific degree. By the time I went I was a home owner and a mom. It was hard but not much different in the end to what I would have been doing had I not gone. Sadly, I don’t think this trajectory is even possible now as affordable homes are a thing of the past. Either way, as someone who never stopped going to work during Covid I have been fully informed as to my job’s viability in society. I have never stopped knowing that I make a difference in peoples lives, that what I do matters. It’s a strong motivation to keep pushing through, even though I’ve had to fight for it (shot exemptions, refusing to vaccinate others). But I agree wholeheartedly that we need to push our next generation to do things that matter—utilities, mechanics, engineering, and technology are all things that will never go away. And healthcare is also a viable option but needs to be fully tempered with helping people be more healthy, not more sick.
There are problems with engineering though. "Systems" engineering has devolved into a series of prescribed processes, without any design or test experience required. I've started on new jobs that were bid by non-technical experts. It's unpleasant - they let you know they are experts in writing proposals - technical expertise is not required!
What happened to "all those" is mass immigration that stomps all over the wages in the skilled and semi-skilled profession, because despite the blatantly racist view espoused by the commies, not every invader is here to pick strawberries and other jobs "Muricans won't do (at these artificially low prices)!", they all want to move up to something better paying (but likely still much cheaper than employing a native, certainly more than employing a native aboveboard.)
Then you !lso have to figure in the H1-B employees that p÷mester engineering workplaces where Cclass will fire the stellar Amrican engineer !nd replace him with two "engineers" out of India or Pakistan who are incapable of the outside the box thinking real engineers sometimes are needed to utilize to solve problems of projects they are on. You used to be able to get a demonstration of this policy with Microsoft products. Namely windows. All good variants of windows that were relatively solid were produced using mainly American engineers. Version that everyone hated buggy and slow, h1bs. They would even show photographs of the development teams who worked on the versions proudly showing who did what. It was ridiculous to say the least. Up to windows 95 almost all white and oriental faces. Windows 98 some white and oriental mostly brown faces. Win Me? Exclusively brown faces, XP all white, etc... you could see where they recognized a problem With the teams and corrected thebissuebonly to wash rinse repeat as if they never learned anything. I long ago stopped caring as windows 10 is as far as I'm willing to walk with Microsoft and have started sidesteppung into using Linux although that is is rife with its own issues. Mainly being woefully out of date with hardware and the idiots who code it being proud of the fact that, at least in what I use computers for, it is an os incapable of working in and with hardware that the music industry had abandoned over 15 years ago due to being much better and faster technology available. Yet the entire music production community in the Linux world isnproudbthatbthey are stuck having to use step trackers to produce any drum tracksbforbtheit music and it is machine like. Where I have ;÷n using products that will take a real drummer and have him play drums record that, convert to midi where I am able to manipulate what he did to where you are unable to recognize the same pattern was playsdall the while never missing anybody the nuances which make live drumming unique and human sounding. The Linux boys won't even acknowledge the issue and change the subject. Or drum you off a platform catering to their fragile autist egos (4Chan) like i was when I called them out on this. So the problem with bullshit jobs is in every industry but never more walking in rheblight as in the software industry.
sums it up.
As the parent of three young kids in a hardcore striver town, the holy grail of human existence seems to be playing division 3 sports at an elite east coast liberal arts college followed by a career in IB, PE, or CRE. I understand how this can be a fulfilling path for certain alpha male types but I really don't want that life for my kids unless they really want it.
I worked in a hard core bull shit job for like 4 years after law school and came to many of Graeber's conclusions on my own. I was amazed by how many people thrive in that environment and love playing the political corporate game. Despite hating my life during those years, I'm grateful for the experience because working a demanding shitty job for some period of time builds character, but can also fortify your resolve to carve your own path in life. Nowadays I see the commuters going into the city and get a pit in my stomach to work harder on my own flexible and enjoyable business. I honestly think I'd have a breakdown if I had to go back to that life in my 40s.
Although I have plenty of friends, that are, again, absolutely thriving in the corporate world and seem to have plenty of time to do the things they like.
We’re on the same wavelength. Think you’ll enjoy sundays post about my experience working one of those coveted bs jobs.
This reminds me of my brief, soulless stint as a clerk-typist for the NLRB. it was a year of unimaginable torture typing bullshit legalese for government bureaucracy while desperately scouring jobs lists for something—anything—more worthwhile to do. My almost 9 years with the VA was made bearable by the fact that six of them were only 16 hours a week because I was in pharmacy school earning my destiny to never work for the government ever again. Ugh!
Brilliant, Yuri.
We need to get back to what our Founders intend. For all intents and purposes they were libertarians. While they didn't have specific name for the type of capitalism and free-markets they envisioned, I think they most closely would've defined it as Pareto Optimization. And if we got back to these first principles, bullshit jobs and drag they create on the economy would vanish.
The whole point of Pareto efficiency is that there are no losers. Its quite literally the entire purpose of the idea. Pareto efficiency describes the end state of a series of win-win choices, where no more win-win choices can be made anymore.
The entire purpose of pareto optimal choices is that they harm no one. a potential pareto improvement is where someone wins more than others lose, which in theory would mean that the loser could be brought back to the level they started at. So it's, in theory, a win-neutral game, or even a win-win after compensation, hence the potential for it to be a pareto improvement. Sure, not all mutually beneficial trades or choices are "just". Still, the fact that it's an interaction with no losers is certainly a point in its favor.
Also there is a notable absence of allocation here, but again, allocation isn't what Pareto improvements are about. It's more about minimizing "heat loss" of a system, ergo efficiency, not equity
Here's a recent example someone should show FEMA or Newsome:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/01/pennsylvania_amish_build_a_dozen_homes_for_hurricane_victims_in_just_two_days_outpacing_newsom_s_promise_from_almost_two_years_ago.html
We need to get back to a "can do" attitude.
In other words we need to get back to "building" things and flesh out all the cretins who got fat wallets for doing nothing.
The takeover of the economy by government-aligned corporations contributes to this accelerating phenomena of bullshit jobs, the wealth gap, bureaucratic domination, and government engineered theft (including inflation). The Wall St/Congress/Bureaucrat conspiracy has steered trillions into elite coffers. DEI and many government jobs are the epitome of "bullshit jobs," which, are just collateral damage to the Too-Big-to-Fail class.
Recent revelations that the private sector has been in recession while government has grown are symptomatic of the ongoing racket. Same for government's choosing winners and losers.
But there's a new sheriff in town. And he's deputized some gunslingers.
Well met
Lost my job of 35 years in the public sector in 2022, partly (male, pale and stale) due to a desire by the organisation to balance DEI statistics. I spent most of that 35 year period convincing myself I was happy as I was getting one over on society by only actually working about 5% of the time.
Finished there on a Tuesday and started in a private sector job on Wednesday. Now I have an amazing and fulfilling role in which I learn every day. I never once realised the importance of personal growth to my well being. It is vital to me. For all those wailing and bitching about DOGE doing a job on govt employes, losing mine was the best thing that could've happened to me. My only regret is that it didn't happen sooner.
Lost my teaching job in 2002 due to government cutbacks. Ended up working in Asia afterwards for 15 years, which was one of the best things to ever happen to me.
You were lucky to quickly move into a new position. In the tech world, age discrimination is so rampant, that if you're over 40 it's already a factor.
You're lucky, particularly that it didn't happen when thousands of former government employees are about to hit the job market. Look, I get it that losing any job precipitously is traumatic. I had it happen numerous times in my life when I thought I'd finally settled into a career. Stuff happens and there are no guarantees. It seems like a lot of these who've been let go feel they were entitled to a security that simply doesn't exist.
I first became familiar with David Graeber for his wonderful collaboration with an archeologist named David Wengrow on the book: The Dawn of Everything. No matter what your politics, it is a delight. (It's very long and comprehensive, but reasonably neutral politically.) That led me to Graeber's Debt, and the book with the same title as the above-mentioned article. The latter 2 are heavily influenced by his Marxist beliefs, but he is a talented writer and they are interesting in their way. Having performed numerous "Bullshit Jobs" in my working life I find it a fascinating topic. I'm taking a particular delight in watching Doge illuminate the BS jobs in government. One of my less popular sayings is from bitter experience: Ultimately, There Is NO Security.
We create our own security, can’t rely on corporations for it.
My concern is who are we going to get to apply DOGE principals to the state and city governments.
We have a bunch of cities (like Austin, where I live) that spew money on stupidity and couldn't get a project done if it involved construction paper and glue stick.
That's going to rely on state government pu/ING rhw screws to municipal governments. I'm in San antonio where inefficiency rules. Where most of the people are so dim that for the children have repeatedly priced hindrednoutbof their homes by floating bonds forbsupid shit like high-school football stadiums that a= more technologically advanced than any NFL stadium. which are always tucked into property taxes here.
Good luck with that. We saw how special interests rulebstate politics when Ferris Wilkes and Tim Dunn dressed Ken Paxton's mistress up in a red dress and giga tic leather purse and had her go distribute walking money to the Texas senate while they were deliberating Ken Paxton accountability over using his office to conduct personal business and help a friend skirt an investigation on him by the fbi regarding improprieties. They have also paid off the fed gov to back off of Ken Paxton's pending federal indictment for securities fraud. (WHY DOBYOU THINK HES ALWAYS RUNNJNG AROUND THENCOUNTRY FILINF AMICUS BRIEFS,? HES RUNNING FROM FEDERAL INVESTIGSTORS). Ever wonder when Ken Paxton claims he's won a court case where the money goes? Sure isn't to his office and sure isn't into the States general fund. More than likely his wallet. Also ask yourself during his impeachment whybdidnt his wife recuse herself when itbwas shown that jisbondictment he brought down upon himself for asking for funding to pay off the whistleblowers that he signed an agreement with to settle out of court and they sued him to actually receive the money he agreed to pay(who as of my writing this still haven't received a penny of the setltement) which was a direct result of Ken Paxton illegal usenof the power of the ag of Texas to help his buddies business as mentioned above because his buddy did Kenny boy a favor by giving Paxton mistress a job where he could hide her from his wife.
Yeah see how convoluted state politics are? Now casebin punt San antonio. Ever heard of Kirby TX? Original proposed place of NASA not Houston. Why not Kirby? LULAC killed it. Said San antonio would get too large. It disntbhave anything to do with LULAC being the public front for "the family" and thebpotential loss of power they weird over San antonio city council how would it? Also why does it take Texas road crews 20 years to complete any given project? And the only two contractors who get those jobs in texas are hp Zachary or Dean word? But the one time the voters got something they wantednadnthe highway 370 or whatever that bypasses that runs from seguin up past Killeen and is a toll eoad was contracted and built by a company out of the OAE and was complete to spec 7 months early and under budget? Graft maybe? Ask yourself why the recharge zone of the Edward's aquifer we were told would never be built upon as it was detrimental to the aquifer and how we andnmany other communities got our potable water has a showing center anchored by whole foods and target aitting right over the top of it?
Doge would collectively pull a Bud Dwyer if tasked with cleaning up Texas governments
I bet you'd have a lot of job security if you could monetize creating handles for authors!
Nah! I'm just an occasionally gifted amateur.
Excellent! I was an (ahem) English teacher at the community college level for almost 30 years. During that time I saw the astronomical bloat of the administrative class grow with each passing year. In Kalifornia, where I live, at both the UC and State systems, administrators OUT NUMBER the teachers--by wide margins. And these bullshit positions ain't cheap. It's a disgrace.
I don't know, but strongly suspect that education administration is a favored place for patronage jobs. Jobs given to people as a favor to them or their relatives.
Start cleaning them out and see who howls...
Absolutely- education, progressive non profits, government ….they are all the first estate.
In the end today it is the classic yuppie Nuremberg defense, “I don’t want to rock the boat, I have a mortgage to pay.” Americans, myself included have a morbid fear of being broke and destitute, so we go along; we check the box, agree that all whites are racist, and hope the paycheck comes in, but all it takes is a layoff or downsizing and if we can’t have our Starbucks or Taylor swift, it’s a revolution.
Paraphrasing and adjusting one of the greatest quotes from Star Trek Deep Space Nine (season 7), “let me tell you something about Americans; we are a wonderful, friendly people, as long as our bellies are full and our instagram is working. But deprive us of creature comforts, deprive us of food, sleep, hot showers, WiFi, put our anxiety into overdrive, then those same wonderful, fun, decent people, will become as nasty, and as violent, as the most bloodthirsty terrorist.”
We are all a day away from humility, and as Silvio Dante said, “you’re only as good as your last envelope,” and we know it so it is all about Huxley’s nightmare, work hard, even if your don’t, and be happy! This is why the aliens won’t talk to us……..
Layoffs don't result in lack of Starbucks and Taylor Swift. They result in loss of one's home and access to medical care.
That fear is realistic, not morbid, especially given the hiring practices of corps now days. If they can replace you with an H-1B they will, no matter how good you are at your job.
A home is vital; "medical care" is sometimes fatal.
Fatal to have or fatal to lack? :-)
“ The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger ”
He got that right. There are different ways that free time is being eliminated, and productivity is being punished, and it unfortunately doesn’t all come from the Marxists.
We can’t even imagine what a world might look like when people are actually free.
But a lot of the hard work is being done for the ruling class by the much larger mediocre class. Most times I have been stopped in life has been by someone, or an institution who or which has felt threatened by what might become apparent if I were allowed to proceed freely….and what would become apparent is that the person/institution in charge of me is either incompetent or unnecessary or malignant. So I (and millions of others) have been shut down. We have been shut down even when what we propose to do is a 100% win-win, and would make more money for our malignant overseers. They will often sacrifice yet more profits to maintain their longer term position or even reputation.
So unfortunately I don’t share your optimism that we are about to shed the oppression of the professional managerial class, or the professional mediocre class, as I prefer to designate them.
But I hope you are right.
You could say the same thing about health care / medicine. Many alternatives would drastically reduce medical costs but they are continuously poo-pood because it would upset the lucrative status quo.
As someone who works in health care/medicine, increased regulations have led to an explosion of administrative BS jobs which have grown exponentially and contribute very little to patient care and outcomes. This increase in BS jobs also correlates with increased costs.
I'm an x-ray tech and the number of BS examinations has sky rocketed in the past 10 years due to poor clinical skills and over servicing.
At the turn of the last century and before, schooling ended at 8th grade and then you worked or went to university or something… not too much bullshit back then.
Young people went to university at 14…
My great grandfather decided to apply to Annapolis at 15 in 1871 and got in. Graduated at 20 and had 45+ year career in the Navy retiring as Admiral
Yuri, David Graeber and Office Space in the same article. Thanks 2025.
While there is certainly some truth to the concept in general, I read this book a couple of years ago and was not impressed. For one thing, it felt like an essay stretched into a book--kind of in the way Netflix turns what might have been an OK movie into a boring 10 episode series.
Ironic that a socialist turned a great essay into a mediocre book to make more money ;)
Ah this is gold! I think about this way too much.
The poolside PM girl was truly peak "WFH / digital nomad / fully remote" nonsense. It's so great really, such a funny self-indictment. And why are there so many pretty PM girls? I've met reincarnations of those two in every company I've worked at. It's such a woman's realm it seems, "We are better at multitasking than men" they'll tell you (as I've been told by a PM gal who grew up in SF but chose to float down a river in Zurich and barhop while checking in on Slack). Whereas us manly louts can't walk and chew gum at the same time (also been told this).
Alas, we've all heard for awhile now: "America doesn't make anything other than financial bubbles." The saying isn't entirely true of course, but in the big picture – it kind of is. Where does all this fakery come from? Why are there billions of dollars opening markets for things and services that no one needs and no one wants? My only hypothesis is that this is what accumulates when the world is pegged to a fiat currency that has been printed without accountability for the past hundred years. Perhaps if we had a commodity currency, we would have a more commodity (i.e. "Realville") focused economy and workforce.
I also imagine that certain things that are fundamentally neither produced nor consumed but inherently meaningful and thus invaluable – like musical literacy and literacy in general – would increase if fakery wasn't constantly being subsidized by the grand _fiatshed_ (i.e. watershed) called the Federal Reserve that corporate America is downstream of.
The social and psychological implications of a BS workforce is pretty lame too. Just look at Lumpedin and see the droves of striving drones build entire "careers" on nothing but _perception management._ And then, consistent with the "upside down world", people who are actually innovative and competent are sidelined because they threaten the performative managers galore. I think of that early scene in Dante's Inferno where all the throngs of go-getters are chasing wraithlike banners, grasping at the fleeting opportunity; that's Lumpedin.
I watched a microcosm of this era-wide shit show happen while at a startup in Boston: we were product focused and cashflow positive with a small team (I was one of the engineers) then a predatory VC group plopped $12M on the table (a "B round"). As part of the deal requirements, the startup then hired EXCLUSIVELY middle management who did nothing but put asses in chairs that looked good when shareholders visited. An "innovation focused product manager" was hired who had never innovated anything before (and had zero engineering skills) but she had an MBA and a lot of confidence I suppose. Of course, she got paid twice as much as any of us engineers who actually made the brand what it was – all the other Harfraud MBAs filing in regarded us as children, those silly kids who actually play with ideas and materials! Alas, that PM, and all the other B-round people got fired six-months later. I saw the writing on the wall and left before the bubble burst, but it was low-key tragic because the company could've grown organically if the founders didn't make the oldest mistake in the book: inflate their value.
Of course, that's what we're doing as a society too and when the global debt bubble bursts, I suspect AI – and "universal HIGH income!" as Elon touts – will be conveniently waiting for us just in time, as the devil collects his dues no matter what, we'll have many pounds of deferred flesh to hand over! An abstruse philosophical thesis of mine is that AI is simply the fruits of sowing fakery for over a hundred years – why didn't the Byzantine empire develop AI if they were so prosperous for over a millennia? Perhaps because they didn't finance BS jobs with fake money, and their currency was real: gold. I mean, maybe it's straight up literal and not just metaphoric: "bad money is an abomination to the Lord" (Proverbs 11:1) which is to say, if you build a whole civilization on bad money, then it's the devil's job (i.e. "the accuser") to come collecting these debts.
The BS Jobs book is great, and you might also like The Management Myth by Matthew Stewart: https://mwstewart.com/books/the-management-myth/
Dante's vestibule of the Lumpedin opportunists: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1001/1001-h/1001-h.htm#CantoI.III
Proverbs 11:1 – https://www.bibleref.com/Proverbs/11/Proverbs-chapter-11.html
This articulates something I've been thinking about for a while. When I look at children's toys I'm struck by how many depict firefighters, truck drivers, construction workers. A child inherently understands the joy of tangible work. Imagine telling a child he will grow up to be master of pointless emails and zoom meetings.
"Bullshit Jobs is one of the best essays written by a leftist, but that is equivalent to winning the special olympics."
That's MEAN!!! MEAN MEAN MEAN!!!!
Ironic that Keynes predicted a 15 hour workweek. The Keynesian paradigm is all about using government to stimulated the economy to prevent "unemployed resources." (I write paradigm as I haven't read Keynes himself. I'm referring to Keynes as translated by Paul Samuelson.)
A return to satisfying work requires massive amounts of unemployed resources. Most of a craftsman's tools sit idle. The purpose of the assembly line is to keep all the tools at full utilization.
Teaching is not a bullshit job. I have taught in extremely poor urban schools for years where my colleagues and I work extremely hard with zero respect and low pay, often in danger from violence among students, to give poor kids even a hope of a better life. Try substitute teaching in a poor urban area and see for yourself. Show some kindness to kids who rarely experience it and try to get a kid whose parent is in jail to learn to read.
I respect all teachers who work hard to educate children. However, union leaders and their cronies have stained the profession. The results speak for themselves - more money spent, lower results achieved.