David Graeber – ‘Bullshit Jobs’. In this book, David Graeber argues that there are millions of people across the world — clerical workers, administrators, consultants, telemarketers, corporate lawyers, service personnel, and many others — who are toiling away in meaningless, unnecessary jobs, and they know it. Capitalism is supposed to bring efficiency, but instead of freeing ourselves from the suffocating 40-hour workweek, we’ve invented a whole universe of futile occupations that are professionally unsatisfying and spiritually empty. Graeber argues that unions and a universal basic income can provide a potential solution to the phenomenon of bullshit jobs.

Reading/Discussion Schedule:

Preface, Chapters 1 & 2 - Sunday 21st November

Chapters 3 & 4 - Sunday 28th November

Chapters 5 & 6 - Sunday 5th December

Chapter 7 - Sunday 12th December

PDF

PDF of the original essay that led to the book

Audio version of the essay

How to join the Perusall group

bullshit jobs torrent at audiobookbay.nl

    • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      It was a university professor, and generally when stuff breaks in a university office they send the maintenance crew to fix it instead of having a professor do it (there's likely rules against it, especially if it's one of those big shelves that takes up a whole wall).

      The maddening part was that it took weeks to fix due to lack of carpenters, but the uni paid somebody to make him feel "heard and seen" as a politician might say, and apologize about the delay rather than hire an extra person to actually fix the shelf.