This text gathers some particular personal opinions and reflections about the book and parts that I liked, some information and thoughts I could extract from it.
The book opened my eyes for the problem. The data and testimonials that he presents is not very representative, but we can't ignore the existence and importance of the problem. I got lost in one or two chapters where the author was repeating himself too much, but I recommend the reading of the whole book.
David Graeber constantly states that he's only talking about a problem and not advocating a specific solution or proposing a new one. He deeply defines what is a bullshit job and explains further in the book, but a simple definition he gives early in the book is
A bullshit job is one that even the person doing it secretly believes need not, or should not, exist. That if the job, or even the whole industry, were to vanish, either it would make no difference to anyone, or the world might even be a slightly better place.
Here's a discussion I initiate about an excerpt from the book talking about Open Source Software. I agree with some points of the author about the software industry, but the discussion in the forum seems to go against Graeber's arguments in this specific subject.
We must stop to constantly test what's the acceptable minimum we need to do in our job. We should have a purpose to work and understand that we need to contribute to live in society, that we always have a goal to porsue.
The video "De quem os heróis nos protegem? | Nerdologia" reference the book with a lot of humor talking about artificial demand. Would the whole advertising industry be a bullshit industry?
Here's an extract that makes a lot of sense to me and made me want to read Crack Capitalism by John Holloway (2010), mainly because I don't believe in the word Socialism or Capitalism, we need something better:
Most economists nowadays see the labor theory of value as a curiosity from the formative days of the discipline; and it’s probably true that, if one’s primary interest is to understand patterns of price formation, there are better tools available. But for the worker’s movement—and arguably, for revolutionaries like Karl Marx—that was never the real point. The real point is philosophical. It is a recognition that the world we inhabit is something we made, collectively, as a society, and therefore, that we could also have made differently. This is true of almost any physical object likely to be within reach of us at any given moment. Every one was grown or manufactured by someone on the basis of what someone imagined we might be like, and what they thought we might want or need. It’s even more true of abstractions like “capitalism,” “society,” or “the government.” They only exist because we produce them every day. John Holloway, perhaps the most poetic of contemporary Marxists, once proposed to write a book entitled Stop Making Capitalism. After all, he noted, even though we all act as if capitalism is some kind of behemoth towering over us, it’s really just something we produce. Every morning we wake up and re-create capitalism. If one morning we woke up and all decided to create something else, then there wouldn’t be capitalism anymore. There would be something else.
One of my favorite parts is when David Graeber quotes a story from the science-fiction writer, Stanislaw Lem, the following is a brief description from Graeber and the story from Lem:
Ijon Tichy is a voyager who describes a visit to a planet inhabited by a species to which the author gives the rather unsubtle name of Phools. At the time of his arrival the Phools were experiencing a classic Marxian overproduction crisis. Traditionally, they had been divided into Spiritors (Priests), Eminents (Aristocrats), and Drudgelings (Workers). As one helpful native explained:
"Through the ages inventors built machines that simplified work, and where in ancient times a hundred Drudgelings had bent their sweating backs, centuries later a few stood by a machine. Our scientists improved the machines, and the people rejoiced at this, but subsequent events show how cruelly premature was that rejoicing."
The factories, ultimately, became a little too efficient, and one day an engineer created machines that could operate with no supervision at all:
"When the New Machines appeared in the factories, hordes of Drudgelings lost their jobs; and, receiving no salary, they faced starvation."
"Excuse me, Phool," I asked, "but what became of the profits the factories made?"
"The profits," he replied, "went to the rightful owners, of course. Now, then, as I was saying, the threat of annihilation hung—"
"But what are you saying, worthy Phool!" I cried. "All that had to be done was to make the factories common property, and the New Machines would have become a blessing to you!"
The minute I say this the Phool trembled, blinked his ten eyes nervously, and cupped his ears to ascertain whether any of his companions milling about the stairs had overheard my remark.
"By the Ten Noses of the Phoo, I implore you, O stranger, do not utter such vile heresy, which attacks the very foundations of our freedom! Our supreme law, the principle of Civic Initiative, states that no one can be compelled, constrained, or even coaxed to do what he does not wish. Who, then, would dare expropriate the Eminents’ factories, it being their will to enjoy possession of same? That would be the most horrible violation of liberty imaginable. Now, then, to continue, the New Machines produced an abundance of extremely cheap goods and excellent food, but the Drudgelings bought nothing, for they had not the wherewithal.
This story makes me think in a question: How to live in a society where the problems are solved definitely? Where your job doesn't exist after you do it. Imagine a simple scenario where only a fixed number of houses need to be built, what the house builders do after all the needed houses are built? They work on something else they are not good or they don't like to earn less money?
The book also brings good points of view to the Basic Income and made me add the Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen by Guy Standing (2017) to my reading list.