Bullshit Jobs

by David Graeber

hardcover, 333 pages

English language

Published June 3, 2018 by Allen Lane.

ISBN:: 978-0-241-26388-4

(5 reviews)

Be honest: if your job didn't exist, would anybody miss it? Have you ever wondered why not? Up to 40% of us secretly believe our jobs probably aren't necessary. In other words: they are bullshit jobs. This book shows why, and what we can do about it.

In the early twentieth century, people prophesied that technology would see us all working fifteen-hour weeks and driving flying cars. Instead, something curious happened. Not only have the flying cars not materialised, but average working hours have increased rather than decreased. And now, across the developed world, three-quarters of all jobs are in services, finance or admin: jobs that don't seem to contribute anything to society. In Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber explores how this phenomenon - one more associated with the Soviet Union, but which capitalism was supposed to eliminate - has happened. In doing so, he looks at how, rather than producing …

This book is for anyone whose heart has sunk at the sight of a whiteboard, who believes 'workshops' should only be for making things, or who just suspects that there might be a better way to run our world.

12 editions

Señó Moshuelo reviewed Trabajos de mierda : Una teoría by David Graeber

Lo que todos sabemos y decimos con la boca chica

No rating

Pues para decirlo más y con palabras más ajustadas está este libro, para dinamitar desde la comprensión y el ofrecimiento de alternativas uno de los grandes fantasmas que nos afecta de diferentes formas a todes: el trabajo, sus características y sus efectos en nuestra vida. Me ha parecido uno de esos libros que te abren la percepción, que ponen palabras a sospechas y te hacen conectar circunstancias de tu día a día, darles un sentido global. Obras que nos amplían el horizonte y ayudan a comprender algo del fondo de nuestra angustia. Despierta las ganas de hablar con quienes nos rodean para preguntar si a ellos también les pasa esto que nos corroe. También sorprende cómo desde una forma expresiva más que accesibles es capaz de plantear sus ideas y dejárnoslas ahí candentes, incitantes. Seguiré leyendo a Graeber, eso seguro.

Miguel Ocaña reviewed Trabajos de mierda : Una teoría by David Graeber

Trabajos que no deberían existir

5 stars

No sé cómo había llegado hasta aquí sin conocer esta teoría.

Como libro, en ocasiones es un tanto repetitivo, y se le puede criticar que toda su teoría y estudio no tiene mucho de científico porque es en base a un artículo y gente que le escribe... Y sabes qué, me da igual. La sensación de que este señor ha puesto por escrito algo que todos sabíamos de forma tácita.

La distinción este trabajo precario y trabajo de mierda también es importante

Bob reviewed Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

A very interesting book about work

4 stars

It took me some time to enter into the Bullshit jobs book. At first, it appears as some leftist light essay. The book started when David Graeber wrote a first opinion piece about the fact that a significant percentage of the population is doing work that is useless to society and they know it. This first essay made a lot of noise, and some media made some polls : in UK, more than 35% of people say that they are doing a useless bullshit job. Based on these numbers and lot of testimonies, David Graeber wrote this book to elaborate on this concept. The first chapters appears as quite light : some definitions, some testimonies, some categories of bullshit job. Overall, I wasn't convinced : radically leftist but also pretty light theoretically, not real analysis of what is happening, no stats, everything described in a pretty broad context. But I powered through it and found myself suddenly into pretty intense and deep writing about what is work, what is the value we put into work, how capitalism forced an evolution about these concepts, and all this starting from the question of how do we globally accepts that some works are totally useless. I am not used to read that kind of broad essays, but I really enjoyed this anthropological thinking about work and may read some more David Graebber.

Carlos Cámara reviewed Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

Fun, depressing, provocative

4 stars

Halfway between the humoristic and scientific publication, what started as a provocation ends up in building a theory that is in fact a (often humoristic, sometimes depressing) criticism to capitalistic system and the work culture that is embedded on it. A must-read.

Señó Moshuelo

rated it

Jul 18

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