/lit/ - Literature

>>20224240
Unless you are in the trades most jobs are fucking bullshit busywork. I used to work at a library and the librarians spent most of their time watching YouTube videos. It's a wonder that shit ever got done at that place.

>>20224240
Varies by profession, specialization and region (workloads can differ significantly by locale). I work in Medicine/Mental Health, nothing he says even remotely resembles my day-to-day responsibilities and workload (hence, a non-bullshit profession). If you work in the service-sector and don't have routine interactions with actual clientele, your job is almost certainly bullshit. Most jobs are bullshit, which is the point - choose bullshit if you have the education, but don't want to work.

>>20224240
i think he's basically right, but his proposed solutions- UBI and more unionization are obvious motivated reasoning.

>>20224240
I guarantee Gaybar has ever worked an honest day in his life and its likely due to nepotism

>>20224240
Having to actually do office work for 8-10 hours per day is incredibly mentally draining in a way that's hard to understand until you've done it, which is why jobs that require that much work like those in banking generally pay well into the 6 figures to start. Most of the time you have position with less than 8 hours of work per day that isn't very time sensitive, but it still has to get done eventually and get done right, so it's worth just accepting that realistically the person you hire isn't working straight through their hours. If you try to load someone up like that they're either A) going to simply quit and find any other similar job that won't load them up like that or B) demand more money. It's easier to justify paying two people $80k/yr than it is paying one person $150k/yr because you can pretend that those two people are doing twice the work of that one person. I haven't read this and I don't know what his argument is but I'd say it's not really accurate to call a job like yours (or mine currently) bullshit. Obviously you don't literally do nothing, you do something even if it is only a few hours of work. Somebody has to do that work.

I'm not making bank or anything, but I'm keeping up with my friends and family and it's amazing how little I work. Lets just say I work in social work, I spend 9 to 12 hour shifts with my thumb up my ass and the only time I'm expected to work is to ferry around clients and call the cops when shit hits the fan. 90% of my existence is figuring out ways to occupy myself on the job.

>>20224240
yeah I work a salaried office job making just shy of six figures and I never work the full 8 hours. on average it's probably about 2-4 (which includes meetings), sometimes more like 6, some days literally zero. I do solid work and meet my deadlines and everything so I get good raises and bonuses etc. but yeah it's mostly bullshit.

>>20224240
>Is there any rebuttal to pic related?
No there isn't and if there is it's just wagies coping about how they're ackshyually Defending Western Civilization(tm) by checking your receipt at walmart and making sure you're not "stealing" food even though its going to get restocked in the next day

>>20224288
UBI and unions are in the right vein. Power needs to be shifted away from the centers of capital and back towards the average citizen and worker. The most direct way of doing this is direct cash payments equaling the lowest level of sustainable living so that no person is forced into accepting work they don't actually want to do. This shifts the balance of power back towards the worker and forces employers to be more efficient in only offering jobs which NEED to be filled and then offer higher pay to be able to hire people. But, as Marx pointed out, a permanent surplus supply of labor is what capital wants in order to suppress wages. It's also likely the reason slavery was allowed to be dispensed with, because you can obtain labor for less outlay of capital and less ongoing pay if you can simply buy surplus labor. This is especially the case if workers are subsidized by food stamps and the like but not quite enough to live on which forces them to work for insultingly low wages because the government picks up some of the other costs. To be clear, the current system of welfare is designed to keep people poor and desperate to work, not to empower people which a UBI would do.

>>20224298
That's actually a pretty sensible answer and probably more accurate than whatever's in OP's book. I do a trade-type job where there's always a possibility of shit breaking and needing to be fixed ASAP, so I have big chunks of downtime during the typical shift. It's not a question of inefficiency, it's that the company is willing to pay someone to just be ready to go at a moment's notice without having to pull them away from something else important.

>>20224409
>food just magically reappears on shelves with zero impact to the bottom line

>>20224240
Honestly, not that I can think of.

Most office workers I know are quite proud of their parasitism and I think that's why I prefer blue collar work.

>>20224409
>it’s not stealing because restocking

>>20224465
No, UBI is not in the right vein. People should own their own means of support as much as possible, not rely on government dole.

>>20225112
so UBI only works when it has a Christian flavour and Catholic seal of approval? ok

>>20224465
>Marx

Opinion DISCARDED

>>20225113
Man owning a fishing rod > giving a man a fish

>>20225113
I'm not that guy, but there is a difference between distributism and UBI. Distributism proposes widespread property and business ownership. UBI proposes continuing to leave capital concentrated in corporations but putting the whole citizenry on the dole in order to make them more secure and improve their lot.

The problem I have with distributism is that it is detached from reality. How can we "distribute" industry? Each family own a single assembly line, and put out a few cars a day? The neighbors ship the cars to the dealer? But this loses economies of scale surely. What I'm saying is that even if we abolish Walmart and Amazon, and subsidize family owned retail establishments, that's still only one portion of the economy. There are still whole sectors that don't seem amenable to single family ownership at all, or even "clan" ownership.

>>20224465
UBI is only in the right vein if the population is small. I would never, EVER trust the corrupt, inept, and inefficient system known as the US govt. to handle such a thing.

I am not reading the rest.

>>20224297
Oy gevalt

>>20224240
Off topic, but does this book address how to actually get one of these cushy bullshit jobs?

>>20225218
It's not particularly hard to get something mind-numbing that pays ~$80K in a city

The hard part comes when you want to get some bullshit job that pays $200K+ and isn't completely idiotic

Open to suggestions

>>20225112
Great theory, fails in practice since this requires the total suppression of the free market, and as such, people's freedom to dispose of their property as they see fit. It'll be up to whatever authority you put in place to "distribute" the property, which will essentially devolve into full on communism. Socialism is a much better model where free citizens can use their capital in total freedom, but the gains made are heavily taxed in the spirit of offering the basic money flow to every single citizen so everyone can become successful.
>>20225119
Marx was right about a great many things, if you can't get passed your own personal bias against an ideology which claims his name you will forever remain a brainlet
>>20225130
>Giant corpo fishing the shores and rivers clean of fish
Whole lot of good a fishing rod is then
>>20225137
You are correct, distributism destroys the model of the free market in favor of authoritarian distribution (essentially communism)
>>20225140
>I am not reading
You fit right in here on /lit/ then

>>20224409
>food comes from the grocery store
Literally Sub-Saharan African thinking.

>>20225137
I'm of the opinion large corporations should simply not exist, import tariffs should be raised and everything should be sourced at the most local level possible. guilds can be an option too, but that's only something to consider, not to put into practice quite yet.

>>20224298
>Somebody has to do that work.
Until it can be automated or sent to India. The real bullshit jobs are just the inefficient tasks pending an investment by corporate in that kind of solution

>>20225137
Walmart and Amazon are like stirrups or gunpowder or flight or nuclear weapons. They don't get uninvented. This is the dominant method of waging commerce for the forseeable future.

>>20225279
I see and how might someone go about finding an 80k type job if they already live in the city?
Honestly I'm thinking I'm just going to burn all my savings and buy a franchise of somesorts as my ticket out of chronic unemployment and neetdom. But obviously a 80k job bullshit job would be safer.

>>20225358
Correct

>>20225218
Be born into a Middle Class or Upper Middle Class family and 'network'.

Sorry, but if you're born Lower-Middle Class, you're going to have to work to get those jobs.

If you're born Lower Class, you're going to have to fight like hell and get really lucky to get one.

>>20225441
Not true in the slightest
>>20225218
Get college degree (more difficult if your family is lower class, but completely doable), get office internship in college (field doesn't matter much), apply to every single office job in town after college (takes a while but you should get one eventually), get a little bit of experience on your resume, apply to entry level government positions (ideal for bullshit), or other similar jobs. Soon enough you should have a bullshit job. If you skipped steps one and two the process may be more difficult.
>t. bullshit government worker
Also my dad dropped out of high school and my mom got an art degree in her 30s so 'networking' and family connections had nothing to do with it.

This is why I unironically prefer factory work to office work. Yea yea I'm a wagie but at least my 9 to 5 involves helping to make something. I don't come from money and I have to work to pay my bills so why not do something I at least somewhat enjoy? Office work, and this includes WFH office work, fucking sucks in my opinion. Totally soul draining, anti-social, increased atomization, further death-of-the-soul type stuff. Have fun WFH on your Zoom calls and isolating yourself further from other human beings.

t. schizo electrical engineer

>>20224240
>Is it really possible that such a large number of professional workers are basically just economic parasites, or is there more to the story than this?
Nah genuinely think about your day:
>8 hours there
>1 hour for useless meeting and talking to people
>.5 for lunch
>.5 for random breaks
you're already down to 6, assume you're waiting on feedback for an hour total and boom 5. A true bullshit job (having had one) will have 30 minutes of work a day tops. I currently work 10-30 hrs a week (remote), and this is a real job. The best way to describe it is that before you came along your manager wasn't doing 80 hours of work, probably 50-55, and now they'll do 40-45. This translates into 10 hours for someone competent and 25-40 for someone mediocre.

>>20224347
>>20224240
The really experienced management consultants I've worked with estimate 3 hours of true work a day

>>20225279
FAANGM SWE

>>20224465
>let's fix this problem caused by buracracy with buracracy

>>20225404
Look for anything with the word analyst in the title. Companies are desperate for rational thinkers who can analyse problems using structured reasoning and data. Data Analyst, Analyst, and anything of the sort and you'll be golden. Try to learn SQL and Excel and you'll be fine.

>>20224465
UBI sounds like a great step forward if our collective goal is to attempt to build a functioning humane economy. The number of people who would be permanently satisfied with a basic income would be proportionally small and manageable by taxing the wealthy/corporations while removing the fearful grind for survival that has created the working poor, and aside from the mentally ill end homelessness.

Everyone would be able to quit a job they don't find fulfilling or purposeful knowing that they wouldn't need to fear for shelter or sustenance until they found something new. It makes so much sense corporate industry employers and the government representatives they own would fight it with all their power. Imagine a world where an employer like amazon actually had to give a fuck about your needs rather than knowing you have no choice so they can give you the bare minimum in wages/respect because it's take it or be unemployed. The power shift would be transformative.

>>20225595
I have experience with Excel but jobs simply won't hire due to lack of college credentials and/or not "knowing someone in the company"

>>20225064
Exactly this, and its a well explored insight all the way back to Coase and the theory of the firm. The alternative to having people sitting around twiddling their thumbs is trying to contract out work when you need it, which does not work for critical work or work that needs deep insight.

>>20225595
Thanks for the tip
How do I get over the qualifications barrier? I have a masters degree, but it's got nothing to do with analysis.
I'm good enough at Excel. must learn SQL but it seems rather straight forward once you understand the 'theory' of databases.

I had a job for two years where I had so little to do that I spent most of my work day doing freelance editing work so I was making double pay. No one noticed or questioned what I did.

>>20224465
>>20225643

reads like something an undergrad soc major would write (no offense I have an econ degree myself although I'll always look down on the other liberal arts in true douchebag econ fashion). Too much theory, A LOT of assumptions about people. My advice is get out and experience the real world in all it's beauty and ugliness. This story you paint where wow, we could get rid of homelessness and hunger and everyone would be doing work they enjoy for great pay and great hours if only we could do something about those evil __________ (take your pick whether it is the wealthy, corporations, government, capitalism, jews, etc.) is extremely reductionist and implies a lack of engagement with these issues outside of a classroom setting

>>20224298
you're leaving out the part where managers and owners are willing to waste money just to feel important. the real logic behind hiring two people instead of one for the same price to do the same amount of work is so that their manager can show off how important he is because he has more workers under him. assuming business decisions are always made with efficiency in mind is hilariously naive

>>20225073
there's 8 billion humans and rising on this planet and 4.5 billion of them appeared in the last 50 years. food is not in short supply

Define "real work." Don't even bother totting out the LTV

>>20225342
"freedom to dispose of your property as you see feet" = "go into perpetual debt slavery after a patch of bad luck"

>>20225778
>Too much theory, A LOT of assumptions about people
also
>no reasonable plan to move toward ideals
>no mention if anybody even wants this crap except academics
>no consideration of outside factors
>no historical precedents
if a frog had wings he wouldnt bump his ass when he hopped.

were they correct?

>>20225778
>Too much theory, A LOT of assumptions about people.
>econ major
well you would know

>>20225594
>The problems of modern society are caused by bureaucracy, not the anti-social allocation of private capital
Wrong

>>20225796
a job you can describe in three words or less

>>20225806
and why should i believe that?

>>20225806
Easy: "I send emails." Problem?

>>20225806
Sending emails
Done, only needed two

>>20225813
>>20225815
sounds like you fellers have bullshit jobs

>>20224240
>ivy league jew professor wants to tell me about "real work"

>>20225810
what do you do for a living, anon?

>>20225824
Better than being an academic communist desu

>>20225824

>>20225778
> is extremely reductionist and implies a lack of engagement with these issues outside of a classroom setting.

This is why nothing ever moves forward. Everything's too complicated, everything's too hard, everything sucks because it does don't be so naive as to look for solutions. It's much easier to condescend and pontificate than actually take action.

>>20225826
i sell artwork. there did i pass your fake test?

>>20225836
How much for a furry commission?

>>20225844
youre funny

>>20225803

haha, exactly man takes one to know one

>>20225836
uh oh! bullshit job alert!

>>20224240
In my experience very little work happens after lunch. People in my area are talking about 4 day work weeks which I know would be more productive, but boomer management dislikes the idea and working from home because they can't see you in the office. I did WAY more working from home than I ever did at work (and had more free time as well) but I can't do that anymore because it's not allowed, so I'm looking for a new job.
A lot of my colleagues and friends have similar experiences where they don't get all that much "real" work done but just dick around in the office for ages instead. It's a giant waste of everyone's time.

>>20225883
See, stuff like this makes me wonder about the more unanticipated forces (boomer managers) that will naturally fade away, possibly enabling different work styles.

My boss is a total boomer. No concept of positive reinforcement. They treat their employees like school children. Any employee showing consideration for their own personal time is considered "unprofessional". This bitch would have us "pick up a broom" in our down time if she could.

Then again (to further complain about my boss), plenty of people who get into management positions are dickhead busibodies that don't have lives.

>>20225907
>Then again (to further complain about my boss), plenty of people who get into management positions are dickhead busibodies that don't have lives.
I'll never understand these people. How do they go their whole lives living like this? The npc meme is real.

>>20225931
Well, in my experience with these types (and seeing one of my older friends BECOME this type) it's usually workaholics who want management positions. They love to manage people, and come to look at people as objects whose "productivity" is a means of personal advancement. In theory, that's not the worst, but like I said, it's the TYPES OF PEOPLE who fuck it up. It's "strictly business", but it's not really, because they're whole life is business. They make it their self-worth. It becomes their means of drama. Without exception, these people think they're clever and that might be the worst part. And they think that because of their authority.

Another big problem is that they feel they need to micromanage to justify their time. "Hm, what did I do today besides be a fat boomer? Better send a couple "friendly reminder" emails that tell my employees they shouldn't be watching YouTube at work!"

My older buddy is getting fasttracked in these positions, and he spends his whole life working, and when he's not working, he's bragging about how successful his company is, and whining about how they need to "cut the fat". You can see him glow when he talks about fantasy scenarios of firing people.

So I'm just riffing, but what I see is at best boomers being out of touch because most of the time they never do any real work and justify their positions with busywork and clever bullying, and at work psychopaths who know exactly what they're doing and love wasting people's time and watching them squirm because they don't want to get fired.

Also my boss is a Jewish pig who's 65 and unmarried, so maybe that's it.

>>20225796
>>20224240
Rate my economic system.
What defines real work: Calories burned.

>>20225836
more like fartwork; BRAAAAAAAPPPPPPP (Bataille)

captcha: 4 4 4 4m

>>20225966
Also (because I can't shut up), I've seen another woman I went to school with work her way up pretty quickly. Shame is, because she's playing with the big dogs now, she's learning her management style from these same blood-sucking decrepit boomers. She thinks THAT'S just what managing people is like. Backstabbing and frivolous "come into my office" dressings down are basically like gang initiations, like how they make you kill a random rival gangster when you join a gang. It's a rite of passage to show your ruthlessness. And don't give me some bullshit about how it's "strictly business". They love it because it brings a modicum of passion to their otherwise empty lives.

Yes, I'm THAT bitter.

>>20225992
I remember when I used to work construction and the office offered me a management position. They wanted me to pick five dudes on my crew to fire. Told those office lames to go fuck themselves.

My only real agreements with communism is that I hate landlords, and think people work better when they are self managed. Probably not very socialist

>>20226011
Amen, brother.

>>20226034
>people work better when they are self managed
Meet more people. But yet, fuck landlords. But not Bert, my landlord. He's like 70, he's Mexican, and he's very racist and nabbed a white lady.

>>20225551
The average production line worker is so far removed from the final product of their labour they might as well not even know what is being produced in their factory. Spending 8 hours a day tigthening screws is probably the most effective way to completely annihilate the soul of a human being. Only artisan work could be truly fulfilling.

>>20226215
>tfw when bureaucrat wagie and also artisan on the side

>>20226046
Uhhhh...

>>20226251
What do you do anon?
One of my dreams is to open a small workshop in a garage or small warehouse and produce well curated pieces, like the og cabinetmakers.

What does he say about tech work? If you develop GPS systems for cars, is that still a bullshit job? How far does he take it?

>>20226289
i make and sell oil paintings also work with my brotha who does framing

>>20224298
> It's easier to justify paying two people $80k/yr than it is paying one person $150k/yr because you can pretend that those two people are doing twice the work of that one person.
This is why I hate the modern working conditions.

>>20226312
Incredibly comfy. God bless.

>>20226323
cheers. family shit. mother paints religious stuff and pops makes sculpture.

>>20224298
>somebody has to do that work
No, because 7/10 companies are also bullshit that sell bullshit products that no one needs

>>20226363
Like, why are there even 10 coke rip offs that taste exactly the same. We don't need 10 companies selling the exact same products, and this is the case for a lot of different products. All toothpastes are also the same, except those without flour (based)

>>20226339
Damn anon, that's truly great. Treasure what you have. All my family and quite literally 99% of my friends and acquitances are the perfect representation of the NPC memes. I still love them but at times it's hard to connect. If I were to be completely honest about what I want from life they would look at me as if they were seeing an alien. Once I told a friend from school that went on to become a lawyer in a semi prestigious firm that I would like to learn Sanskrit and he didn't even know what the word meant. Feels bad man.

>>20226372
toothpaste is general is bullshit, just use some baking powder nigga

>>20224240
Bullshit jobs are an accurate (albeit obvious) observation, but the guy is too stupid to connect the dots and conclude that all unproductive occupations are a result of leftards' creating "regulations" and interfering with normal business profit accounting. No private firm, left to its own devices, would tolerate any "diversity hires", or sustain an ever-growing state bureaucratic sector.

>>20226426
Did you read the book? He says that, but also expands it and points out how any sufficiently-sized system naturally becomes about wealth extraction and not value generation.

>>20225825
He got mad once when someone in crowd (at the panel/talk) asked him if being professor is a bullshit job

>>20225519
>apply to every single office job in town after college (takes a while but you should get one eventually), get a little bit of experience on your resume, apply to entry level government positions
>networking' and family connections had nothing to do with it.
That's networking though? You acquired connections by applying for office jobs relevant to your ideal job. This gave you a bunch of references probably.

t. Did the same

>>20226437
Well, Henry Hazlitt was saying more than that already in the 1960s - in his Failure of the 'New Economics' he's written that the whole, huge (private) sector of financial services just funnels resources and brain-power from the productive sectors of the economy and is just the result of state monopolization and regulations of the money system.
I haven't seen this champion of anti-capitalism to point his fingers at actual culprits - but I only skimmed through (all?) his books in search for coherent thoughts.

>>20225802
To execute nazis at Nuremberg? Yes and the same should be done to /pol/shitposters for being as annoying as they are.

>>20226500
You're either lying or a mutt if you deny wanting to live in that image.

>>20226505
Seethe harder brainlet, you're wrong on both accounts and about my desire to live in a collectivist dystopia just because it looks nice on a postcard.

>>20226492
correction: actually it was in the "From Bretton Woods to World Inflation: A Study of Causes and Consequences", but all Hazlitt's books are an enlightening read.

>>20224240
Yup. And get this, if you're good with the boss, you don't even have to pretend anymore.
Economic parasites are a fact in almost every job.

>>20224240
Prior to writing that book, Graeber wrote an essay on the same topic. No point in reading the book if one reads the essay.
Anyways, the man is quite right, unfortunately.

>>20225519
>Get college degree
Done. Was first in my family. five years later, now what?
> get office internship in college (field doesn't matter much),
Whoops...
>>20226471
I suck at networking.
It's weird though, I'm a freelancer and after not working all year, I've gotten two gigs in one week. They sought me out. So much for "so good they can't ignore you". Apparently they can.

>>20224240
I work for a government owned company that's basically the same thing. We watch TV most of the "work" day and even when somebody calls with an issue, we usually go to fix it in an hour or two.

>>20224465
>UBI and unions are in the right vein.
lol no

UBI is such an obvious scam. Didn't get your 5th booster (that's not including the first 2 non-booster shots) then your UBI is cancelled.

Graeber was just another ivory tower champagne socialist.

>>20225667
Unfortunately HR departments all have college degrees and so they think it matters. Look into Systems Admin, learning python and trying to become a back-end developer, or IT security. Google around for guides for someone without a college degree. Additionally, feel free to cold contact people on linkedin if you have it. If your IQ is 120+ they're desperate lol

>>20225712
Basically quantify your resume. Analyse your masters experience: How many papers and pages did you write? Books? How many citations? What percentile are you in undergrad and grad? Standardized test scores in the top 10 percentile? Put them in their. Scholarships and awards that were for more than 25% of sticker price? List their award amounts - if less don't. Then, find a recruiting / head hunter agency and say you want to make a career pivot and have good reasons why:
e.g., I liked critical reasoning but disliked lack of quantification.

If your masters or undergrad is ivy league or top 20, apply to tech firms for these positions and they'll interview you. Look for publicly traded ones or VC-backed private. The latter is better chances. Also, if you have bad qualifications apply for bad companies and do well and then job hop. Finally, management and policy consultants live and breath on high verbal intelligence people with work ethic and prestigious degrees.

>>20224240
Off topic but I've been in corporate America for over a decade now and I'm thinking of writing a 'survival guide'. This book is mostly accurate but it doesn't really give any advice for navigating the landscape. Honestly, once you crack the code white collar jobs are lucrative and easy.

>>20227054
Just to add to the discussion, all of the boomer tropes are real. The only major conflicts I had in my career were with dumb fat faggot boomers. They embody the NPC meme. Once you understand how to handle their grade-school bully tactics they're embarrassingly easy to out maneuver. Also, they can't sit still and don't shut the fuck up.

>>20226291
No, that is not what he considered a bullshit job. He mostly describes white collar jobs where your job is to help someone do their job who is helping someone else do someone else's job.

>>20226526
not sure I trust a pass user's judgement on what constitutes as "useless"

>>20227091
>He mostly describes white collar jobs where your job is to help someone do their job who is helping someone else do someone else's job.
In a massive globalized extensive economy, why is this considered unusual?

>>20225978
The majority of your calories are burned simply heating your body.

if this is your life there may come a point when you could consider maybe sharing some of your wealth with the bangladeshis and such

>>20227110
it's not framed as unusual but irrelevant to society as a non-producer and ultimately unhealthy to the individual.

>>20227110
It's to the point of absurdity though.

I know very little about the constructs of GPS but it might go something like this
>engineer designs GPS system (real job)
>engineers build GPS system (real job)
>management hires internal 'consultant' to interact with other departments to allow engineers to focus on their jobs (quasi-job)
>management hires 3 people to help this consultant with paperwork (bullshit job)
>management hires another person to help manage the consultant and his subordinates (bullshit job)
>Now bullshit jobs outnumber the real jobs

>>20227142
yeah?

>>20224252
What was your job in the library?

>>20227434
Fucking all the pretty female patrons and pretending I was a clerk.

>noo employers can't just hire people to do the things they want
if there weren't any "bullshit jobs" then you wouldn't be getting paid at all you ungrateful zoomer

I currently have a peak bullshit job that pays me over 3k euros a month and provides zero value to anyone. I have no intention to stay on this job for long though. This stuff is not meant for healthy human beings.

>>20224465
not reading your leftist wall of text

>>20227171

The entire tertiary sector of the economy is, by nature, non-productive and administrative. It should also be clear that administration can produce and increase value. The question is whether it currently does so, and I would argue it does, even if the wagie gets the short end of the stick.

In that sense, there are very clear advantages to having a low-level clerical class of bureaucratic instruments, namely adaptability and interchangeability. Having an office of modular drones you can train in two weeks is a much less fragile system than having an office a quarter of the size where training might take months and losing people means a significant short- and long-term setback.
The people who complain about this office drudge-work absolutely could not make it in professional programs on the level of accounting or law degrees. Offloading the work onto accountant-level dedicated bureaucrats, while the rest of the population is supported by UBI, would require exactly that transition to occur in broader society. I'm personally pessimistic that you could even find a competent portion of the general workforce large enough to train into this new bureaucrat niche, let alone that the other required changes could take place.

If people actually have such a problem with bullshit jobs they'd agitate for social collapse and embrace luddite sub-industrial lifestyles, which nobody does. They like the shit the giant machine spits out but hate the fact that it requires them to be a part of the machine. They will bitch and moan endlessly about how there is some talent of theirs being wasted and how UBI / reorganization and redistribution would bring benefits in professional and personal life, which was always dubiously optimistic at best. But now we've had a mass pandemic, and in all countries the vast majority of furloughed workers just consoomed more superficial material pleasures, and their cope was exposed. Where the fuck is that throng of artists and intellectuals I was promised?

Technological societies only really work in one way. A consumerized person is mindbroken and must be coerced to do anything beyond consumption. They can't even socialize outside consumptive contexts. They don't reproduce and have no cultural expression; culture is a glossy product they consume. The lastman underserf deserves a bullet in the head or death in a workcamp, he should be content for some drudgery to break up his ceaseless hedonism

>>20224240
there's no rebuttal to the idea that those jobs are barely substantial
where I am people straight up go home at 2PM on fridays sometimes, spending maybe five hours at work

>>20225806
That's retarded. Any work that is meaningful and useful requires a description longer than 3 words
I think a good example of a bullshit job is : if I wasn't there, and my job wasn't being done by someone else, then the company wouldn't see any single difference in profit and efficiency.

That's a bullshit job right there.
I know a lass that just plans meaningless teamworking meetings, I guarantee you that she wouldn't be missed if she wasn't there. In fact we would have more time.

Now, if we take the software engineers, most companies would simply not run without them, same if true for the accounting, the logistics, the manufacturing, etc.

>>20225113
Loaded questions receive loaded answers:

Yes.

>>20224465
>>20225643
You guys are based

>>20227526
This is such a depressing view of mankind

>>20226875
>Universal
>Putting conditions on it
Pick one you stupid faggot

>>20227482
>not reading
You'll fit in great here on /lit/

>>20226468
link?

>>20226372
You don't NEED to leave your house, you could exist in a pod eating bugs that get delivered to you by Amazon drones everyday, but life isn't about bare essentials. Some people prefer the different soda flavors so they buy them personally, and often those companies offer deals to venues that are better than the deal they could get from Coke or whoever their competitor is.

>>20224240
>repackage things people have been saying for over 100 years
>call it something provocative
he's right but something something pot kettle

>>20224465
>>20225643
You guys are retards. Marxist thought is archaic given recent advances and to think otherwise is incredibly naive. I won't even go into unions because that's obvious bait.
UBI will fail because redistributionist policies through excessive taxation on the actual producers of wealth rely on the coercive power of the state. Such a thing is no longer possible. The amount of fixed capital that can actually be seized is shrinking every year. Excepting real estate, what the fuck can you seize? Machinery? This isn't the 19th century - fixed assets have moved online (see: algorithms as assets). You looters can no longer effectively seize the means of production and implement capital controls. It's just not feasible.
Let us also drop all this talk about employee bargaining power. You shirkers have been paid a premium for centuries now. The best part is that we don't even really need you to compete with the global poor for wage negotiation for long - we can soon replace you with robots.
Yes, indeed people will be empowered... struggle will separate the wheat from the chaff and allow those who are able to rise to the top without being held back by looters like you.

>>20229232
struggle (read, the menial processes of increasing civilizational complexity) is putting runtish computer-nerds into power and let them enact their highschool revenge fantasies on the masses, who haven't been the vital extroverts they resent for a decade-plus and are now all atomized coomers
more power to you my larping friend

>>20229268
>fixates on one word
>autistically strawmans
It is you who wishes to have power over the masses, not I. You are the one who would seize the wealth of those who produce and redistribute it to those who consume. You are the one who would use violence to take what does not belong to you. Looter. Thief. Shirker.

>>20229232
>Marxist thought is archaic
>Proceeds to outline that the class war is real, but that the ownership class will win
You have literally imbibed so much Marx it informs your world view even while you repudiate him. It's actually comical! Also access to markets is where government can clamp down on fixed capital. Every owner of capital wants to make profit on that capital, and for that to happen it requires market activity, which can be totally controlled by the state (just look at the amount of power the Chinese government has over even the largest corporations. Access is power, and governments willing to use this power can force the largest capital centers to their knees).

>>20224297

Who better to talk about not having to do fuck all?

going to become a pilot because I'm sick of bullshit office jobs and I can read while the plane's on autopilot. How retarded am I?

>>20229334
>It is you who wishes to have power over the masses, not I
then it's a good thing I'm an epidemiologist huh you fucking faggot
I said it once and I'll say it again, keep larping. I don't have to steal anything because the masses will pay rent and taxes and the government will spend the surplus on me, like a toxoplasmosis-infected cat who subconsciously serves and loves the parasites
Back to the cuck shed for another lockdown big boy

>>20229481
Are you intentionally misinterpreting what I have written? Note how I wrote that marxist thought is archaic, i.e. that it is out of date. Am I to understand that you think marx was the end of thought? Are you one of those leninist types that believe in progress only up until a certain point? We have moved beyond Marx.
You raise a good point on market activity - indeed states have some power to regulate and thus control market activity. This power was most prevalent before the invention of the internet and globalization. Mercantilism was the embodiment of this, yet you give modern China as an example. Strange, considering how woefully corrupt and economically backwards China is beneath the surface.
Recent technological developments and coming cultural changes will free the individual from the tyranny of the state.
>>20230615
You misunderstand how the economy actually works. The 'masses' paying rent only helps you indirectly, and taxes are a small share of what goes towards wealth distribution. Every OECD nation is in huge amounts of debt and funds its liabilities through issuing debt. In theory, and on paper, the government spends a large amount of its 'surplus' (see: debt) on transfer payments (wealth redistribution); in practice much of this money is wasted on bureaucratic bloat and random bullshit before it even gets to you.

>>20231086
It's all so tiring

>>20228437
That's how it will be and if you don't think so YOU are the idiot.

>>20224465
The average person is retarded and would destroy civilization in less than three days if given the reigns.

Power to the people is power to the retards.

>>20227074
want to effortpost and elaborate? I'd appreciate it, fren

>>20224465
>The most direct way of doing this is direct cash payments equaling the lowest level of sustainable living so that no person is forced into accepting work they don't actually want to do. This shifts the balance of power back towards the worker and forces employers to be more efficient in only offering jobs which NEED to be filled and then offer higher pay to be able to hire people.
The thing is the real value of any direct cash payment is going to end up being variable and whatever the "lowest level of sustainable living" is will also be contestable. Even if politically it wouldn't always be a hot issue all UBI proponents have a naive liberal faith in self-adjusting market magic solving everything and the central issue with capitalism boils down to insufficient demand support.


>>20229232
>UBI will fail because redistributionist policies through excessive taxation on the actual producers of wealth rely on the coercive power of the state. Such a thing is no longer possible
You could do it in different manners obviously. The states ability to tax ain't weakening if you believe that. If you mean domestic workers would work less that's kind of the point, someone working less doesn't necessarily result in a big disaster as long as the labour market is flexible. Most wealth today in the west being consumed is being imported and the only tax on that would be tariffs which could be removed.

>This isn't the 19th century - fixed assets have moved online (see: algorithms as assets). You looters can no longer effectively seize the means of production and implement capital controls. It's just not feasible.
The marginal cost of algorithms is nill and can only have a price because of courts and intellectual property laws. "Means of production" would mean physical things and can't "move online", it's the opposite since the internet depends on physical infrastructure.
But I suppose you're talking about cryptocurrencies here? Obviously that can make capital controls more difficult but black markets always existed to get around them everywhere capital controls are tried... I don't see why policing it would be particularly harder since the only reason people want wealth is to use it and spending income you can't account for is all that needs to be done. And if you want to be totally nuts and think crypto could become a real global payment system there's no reason any government can't tax in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and pay their police in it.

>>20225112
distributism is unscientific utopian cope
what we prescribe needs be constrained by what is possible, and distributists have no argument for why their view would be a stable state, when history suggests the opposite. When a society has bourgeois property relations, Capital accumulates, capital purchases social control, capital captures state power, and capital wages war on labor. Cathcucks are retarded for thinking it could ever be otherwise.
>bro, I think an ideal world would be if we were all like pirate captains with our own ships
>dude yeah, let's make that our normative political philosophy

>>20233543
>>bro, I think an ideal world would be if we were all like pirate captains with our own ships
nice description of feudalism dude

>>20224240
A lot of office-based jobs aren't exactly bullshit, but sitting at a desk in an air-conditioned office with artificial lighting for eight hours (plus lunchtime) and commuting an hour on each end absolutely is. Most higher-level intellectual work is only sustainable for 2-4 hours per day. If you do 2-3 hours of real creative or intellectual work daily, the type you need a high IQ and training for, you deserve good money. Add on top of that a couple of hours of necessary admin and lower-level work, and that's a solid day. You can do it all in a 4-5 hour session before noon, at home. And that's what we should be doing, for this type of job.

>>20225806
and still sound useful i.e. >>20225836 this guy described his job in 3 words, but there is nothing useful about his job

>>20224288

>UBI and more unionization

these would hurt business

ubi implies tax increase and unionization implies higher wage

leftists are dumb

>>20234150
None of that logically connects per se. There's no reason you couldn't use debt to make a basic income work, using moronic supply side woo woo logic you could even argue lowering taxes will make it more affordable. Also America had one of the highest real wage rates in the world and that was pretty key to its modernization process, if the average wage rate in America was at the global level in the 19th century no consumer markets would of developed.

>>20234150
Workers owning the business would not hurt businesses. It would actually make them, and over life in general, better in many ways. New Deal unionization is a half measure.
I don’t support a UBI for more than an emergency period either, but the whole wage system is trash.
But Graeber is always about opening up dialogue and getting ideas from everyone else.

>>20234150
kpop retard nigger with the absolute most braindead surface level takes ONCE AGAIN

>>20234275

>I don’t support a UBI for more than an emergency period either, but the whole wage system is trash.


i don't think a low wage is the problem. i think everything is too expensive

if rent weren't so expensive you could live on a minimum wage

if you already own a home a low wage is not a problem
my mother makes under 10k a year and survives
rent or the cost of a home is too high which makes surviving on a low wage impossible

>>20234288
Yeah sure, if only we could set the prices for everything ourselves instead of letting the sociopathic elite pedophiles of the world do it for/to us.
Oh wait, we could. If we nullified the value in monies and fought back against their goon squads. Ah, the dream of breaking out of the prison planet.

>>20224465
16 years old

UBI concentrates power in capital by making the world more reliant on money and access thereto

>>20225802
god it looks so beautiful. why wasn't I born there?

>>20224298
>Having to actually do office work for 8-10 hours per day is incredibly mentally draining in a way that's hard to understand until you've done it,
You little bitch, don't lie to yourself

>>20226492
Based Austrian School chad

>>20233675
idiotically reductive, but even if that were the case, one would have to be articulate how feudalism is possible to transition to, given the world we inhabit

>>20225831
best post here

>>20224240
Haven't read the book, but to some extent being at a job all day can be more about availability than necessarily working consistently.
Interestingly, this can extend even to jobs involving manual labor unless management is obsessed with efficiency metrics.

>>20234796
>t. retard who's not smart enough to get hired into an office job where you actually do something

>>20235134
lol. You're making yourself tired by telling yourself that your job is hard just to soothe your ego, and I'm the dumb one? Nothing is easy or hard in this world, but thinking makes it so anon

>>20235196
>BRO YOU CAN BE SUPERMAN JUST PICK UP A CAR ITS ALL IN YOUR HEAD YOU CAN DO ANYTHING
truly a post only a brain-rotted american could make

>>20235209
I'm essentially preaching buddhism and you assume I'm a 90 IQ american? Jesus christ anon your mind is full of ghosts

>>20235217
>make retarded off-topic post
>JEE GOLLY WILICKERS JEEE ANON GHOSTS ARE HERE DONT YA KNOW
cringe.jpg

>>20235217
>You little bitch, don't lie to yourself
I recall the words of Gautama when he said, "You little bitch, don't lie to yourself" and was then an egotistical smug nigger on an anonymous webforum

>>20235400
Can you really be sure there isn't a koan or whatever they're called involving belittling someone for whining like a child?

How do I pivot into a white collar salaried job?
I currently work in health care, and I have to do actual physical work for 8 hours every day. I have a bachelors degree but it is a stupid degree that is only relevant to my current job.

>>20227434
Cleaning the library showers.

>>20235463
MA in health economics

>>20233323
You hit on all the right points straight away. I do believe that the states ability to tax is weakening, and I was hinting at cryptocurrencies.

The states ability to tax has been weakening since the end of the 20th century. That's partly why America introduced an exit tax. One doesn't have to go far for a litany of examples. Apple moving its HQ to Ireland. The Panama papers. The UK's spider-web of tax havens funneling capital to London. French meddling in Africa. Delaware tax laws. I could go on and on. My point being that globalization has opened the doors to the free flow of capital across borders and through jurisdictions where tax is least. This being despite the protestations of those who lose out.
Naturally, this argument leads one to cryptocurrencies. The thread runs like so: government expenditure (redistributionist policies to placate the disenfranchised) increases even as revenues fall. The gap is filled by debt, which just kicks the can down the road, so to speak. MMT cucks will say that this is sustainable - ceteris paribus, this may be so, but with every bill printed the faith backing it is reduced until such point that the whole populace is entirely apathetic and looks upon the system with scorn and contempt.
We already see this happening within defi and cryptocurrencies. A whole new system is being built that runs parallel to the traditional economy. These new markets are, despite what critics may claim, already deep and sophisticated even in this primitive form.
You argue that black markets have always existed, and I agree with you. A modern example is the murky cash economy in Germany and how long they've been trying to eliminate it and move everyone towards a cashless society. My answer to this is that these new markets aren't confined to rotten landlords, criminals, dodgy market sellers and tradesmen. They are full of enterprising individuals with in-demand skills, many of which already resent paying tax.
This parallel economy will continue sucking up talent and capital until such time that the nation-state, weighed down by debt and fanatically intent on self-immolation will no longer be able to function.
I may have diverged form the main argument about UBI, but I trust that you will understand how it all ties in: UBI may actually accelerate the collapse instead of delaying it.

>>20227526
based

>>20224465
>Marx
opinion discarded

nevermind "cash money" as a measure of surplus value in a society that inflates its fiat currency at a whim means literally nothing. we're headed for a collapse and there's nothing you can do. fed is going to try to thread the needle here but we're either going to get stagflation or hyperinflation. there is no other option. an alternate gold currency currently being set up in china india africa and now russia is going to be a reality within six months. saudis are big mad with biden. the dollar is over.

>>20236161
yeah but if we got infinite energy and perfect AI managing every level of society? then we only need to worry about if there's enough resources for everyone (there is, just not at an individually extravagant level). and we wouldn't even need to worry about that anyways, the computers would do it for us. so I'll just wait for that to happen

>>20236207

>>20236213
shut up its going to happen

>>20236207
https://youtu.be/U-AMec7yr7c

President Joe once had a dream
The world held his hand, gave their pledge
So he told them his scheme for a Saviour Machine
They called it the Prayer, its answer was law
Its logic stopped war, gave them food
How they adored till it cried in its boredom
Please don't believe in me, please disagree with me
Life is too easy, a plague seems quite feasible now
Or maybe a war, or I may kill you all
Don't let me stay, don't let me stay
My logic says burn so send me away
Your minds are too green, I despise all I've seen
You can't stake your lives on a Saviour Machine

>>20236224
thats just some song by a pedophile lol

>>20236227
keep coping

>>20236238
my idea is the perfect solution and no amount of pop culture references will prevent me from thinking so

>>20236240
its not a pop culture reference it is a prophecy you dumb zoomer

>>20236253
>same guy sang about it, he must be a prophet
get your head checked.

>>20224465
>surely this time communism won't lead to wild inequality, mass starvation, soul-crushing misery and nightmarishly dystopian oppression
Please read history, economics and psychology books instead of the proven drastically false in multiple real world applications unemployed shut in jew Marx.

>>20236577
We are currently under a nightmarish dystopia.
No, for the millionth time, we have not seen communism. These are self styled Communist parties practicing their brand of socialism.

Please read history, economics, and psychology, instead of things that agree with your Chicago or Austrian school theories shut-in, dude, Marx.

>>20235897
>mfw the library pool still hasn't been cleaned

>>20237393
pool's closed

I'm thinking about taking a part time job cleaning horse stables. It's only 3 hours of work every day, I don't think it'll get any better than that for me. I'm /fitlit/ so I don't give a shit of it's physically demanding.

>>20226468
>He got mad once when someone in crowd (at the panel/talk) asked him if being professor is a bullshit job
Sounds like bullshit.

>>20237503
I believe it. A lot of academics are thin-skinned and act like a bitch if you criticize their profession. They're sheltered; much life experience is theoretical to them and they don't recognize their own poverty of empathy due to intellectual arrogance, Pointing out that they don't actually have the moral standing to lecture anyone triggers them. Basically, it undresses them by disarming their condescension, which they think they've earned, and they have an emotional reaction.

Some profs are great people, don't get me wrong.

>>20224465
>not to empower people which a UBI would do.

I fail to see how UBI empowers anyone. The lazy will not work anyway, the undisciplined will still waste their money, the stupid will still fall to scams. If anything, UBI exacerbates all these problems as it also removes a lot of shame that goes along with those who live off 'benefits' (here in the UK at least) and would probably breed even more 'claimants' than we currently see. How on earth can a society subsidise such a practice whilst still maintaining and even driving forward productivity and/or progress? UBI is the lefts way of throwing money at a social problem with no thought of consequences or even considering that human behaviours needs to fundamentally changes as well as financial activities (off-shore banking, shell companies, various citizenship loopholes) which make the economic system so shitty in the first place and prevents wealth from really being invested back into society or distributed more fairly.

>>20229232
>You looters can no longer effectively seize the means of production

You mean human activity? A factory grinds to a halt if people stop working you know. Why do you think strikes are so effective?

>>20237599
Teaching is a cornerstone profession.
We’re talking about jobs that don’t need to be there. He probably explains this and some empty head goes to a lecture on this and forgets what he’s just been told to ask his idiot boy zinger, I’d get a little impatient too.
>poverty of empathy
This is the problem the partisans have. They have no empathy. Anarchists, Graeber specifically, are some of the most empathetic people. He teaches to try and improve the world. It’s not a cash grab or even tenure seeking elitism.

>>20227526
It's not over yet. I guarantee you most people know something is wrong, they just can't figure out what, exception being those engaged inside their own local communities(though I see that as more a goal than anything).

>>20237640
die sophist

>>20237599
Negro, do you know anything about the guy? Not only would he not get upset about something like this, he would probably agree that a large part of his job as a prof is in fact utter bullshit.

>>20237659
Fakest butterfly post ever. She loves Graeber.

>>20224240
Luke Smith did a good video on it.

The TL;DW is that what happens is that currency that is inflationary by design means that the rise of productivity doesn't actually affect anything. Because everything you earn will lose its value very quickly, you can't just work 10 years and retire on savings - that's suicide. Since however the rise of productivity means that there isn't that much work to be done in the first place, it means that you get a need for bs jobs. Now this is not entirely muh gubbamit doing stuff - of course, measures like increasing the average age of education through various methods or all sorts of disparate impact laws do create demands for various jobs(teachers/DI consultants), of course various regulations can keep some effectively useless jobs around for ages(AI driving trucks, kept in place because building AI-Truck only roads is haram and the safety/morality concerns are at least partially valid), but some of this is driven by companies themselves - Graeber is right when he describes that.

What the problem of his is, is like a typical lefty anarchist-like figure, Graeber's prescription is completely missed. He wants to fix it via UBI, which is poorly suited to it, but most of all doesn't fix the source of the problem. Had the USD not been losing its value quickly and it would be perfectly conceivable for an average person to be an "employee" for 10, 15 years, then retire to a homestead and live off savings, maybe picking up odd jobs along the way whenever he wants something extra from life. Obviously the irony of it is, is that Graeber will make people more reliant on the state and thus less able to resist it, but that's a typical feature of policies leftist anarchists actually end up supporting.

Also on a sidenote - there's an interview with him somewhere where he gets really upset when asked if his job isn't a kind of bs job(which it is), it's hilarious.

>>20224240
this is what the twitter kids call "laptop class" nowadays. Covid really showed how much of a disconnect there is between them and the "working class" people

>>20224240
I've worked many jobs and over half I've sat on my ass. Normally I would read books but I got so board I would play shitty flash games on the PC. I've held 5 jobs: 3 were complete doss jobs where I was paid to be social, the other 2 allowed me to wear head phones so while they required me to move myself I was still allowed to block it out.

If you work hard at you wagie job just quit; the market (at least in England) is very depleted so finding a new job is easy, and until you have witnessed it for yourself you have no idea how different the workload is between employers.

>>20226372
They exist so people can make a living, there’s your reasoning.
This process hasn’t been streamlined yet hence bullshit jobs but these sorts of things don’t get fixed overnight. Until then people are hired for them to fulfill an ultimate useless purpose but they still get their check at the end of the day

>>20226516
enjoy your niggers fattie

>>20237627
lmao do you really think strikes are a viable strategy in the modern era?
union busters have completely ripped apart the cobweb of power between basic workers which is overkill considering moral standards among leadership are so low that 99% of the time they are bribed into submission
The myth of labor exploitation in the west is comically moronic. Factory line workers were paid huge premiums simply because demand was so high and the threat to hold machinery hostage or otherwise sabotage the operation was so apparent.
The only reason modern strikes have any relevance is because of state interference. Coincidentally, most modern strikes are by public workers. One example is the recent strikes in the UK by train drivers - in line with what I wrote above, they are paid huge premiums (up to $90,000 not counting benefits) for a job that can be quickly and easily automated. Yet this did not come to pass. Thankfully, many other sectors of the economy full of privileged boomers with no real sense of their true worth are being swept away by the tide of progress as their complaints are drowned out.

Unions are cringe but UBI is not a bad idea. Also, get rid of a bunch of regulations and subsidies and lots of jobs disappear because they are completely pointless.

>>20234150
Unions are cringe but UBI is not a bad idea. Also, get rid of a bunch of regulations and subsidies and lots of jobs disappear because they are completely pointless.

>>20238430
The inverse is true. Free money is cring, true unions are base

why do people care whether or not their job is bullshit. if the money is good, who cares?

>>20238490
It points to a trend. So does the growing homeless crisis, the growing opioid epidemic and the growing incarceration rate.

>>20238459
>true unions
e.g. unions that act the way you think they should, but it's never fucking like that.
Also, forcing someone to pay to be apart of something they're not when it's not a government is cringe.

>>20238516
*i.e.

>>20238516
>Also, forcing someone to pay to be apart of something they're not when it's not a government is cringe.
What? Are you talking about inion dues? That isn’t something you’re paying to the union. That’s what the company is paying the union. It doesn’t belong on your paycheck, but they get to trick you with that.
New Deal unionism is weak and byzantine on purpose.

>>20232782
Sorry I closed out the tab and forgot about this thread. I assume you mean elaborate on the book idea.

It would be a collection and analysis of events that I have experience personally or heard through close acquaintances. It's essentially advice I wish I had when I first started my career. In many ways I'm anti-job (not anti-work) so it would include some underhanded tactics that the veterans don't really talk about.

>>20238256
So basically people are pussies and corporations figured out how to play into that perfectly. RIP Murica
Like you said, look at back then and you weren’t promised shit, now people are just put into debt but they don’t face that sort of suffering

>>20224252
>muh trades
show me a tradesman that doesn’t have a chip on his shoulder about not going to school and isn't an anti intellectual

>>20238875
Unironically this.

>>20236161
>One doesn't have to go far for a litany of examples. Apple moving its HQ to Ireland. The Panama papers. The UK's spider-web of tax havens funneling capital to London. French meddling in Africa. Delaware tax laws. I could go on and on. My point being that globalization has opened the doors to the free flow of capital across borders and through jurisdictions where tax is least. This being despite the protestations of those who lose out.
The America/British governments have been facilitating tax havens for decades now for a variety of their own interests. Globalization and removing capital controls was an active policy promoted by governments on other governments and isn't possible without them.

>This parallel economy will continue sucking up talent and capital until such time that the nation-state, weighed down by debt and fanatically intent on self-immolation will no longer be able to function.
Except there is no "parallel economy" in the sense you think, cryptocurrency is just a subset of finance and its been growing and sucking up talent from other fields like engineering and such since the 1980s. Finance as a growing portion of GDP threatens governments but not in the way you think, finance is one of the most dependent sectors on government and there's no way crypto could work without piggybacking on corporations like VISA and the Fed.

>>20224240
IIRC there was a study done that puts serious doubt on his claims that 40% of all Jobs are bullshit. Then again Capitalist Society does not run on the office clerks, or art museum security personell that are used as example in the book. Capitalist society is grounded on the monopoly industries that produce commodoties for a market, domestic or international.
The workers who produces these products are paid for a fraction of the value that the commodity is worth. The surplus goes to the owners of the company. Its basic capitalism, not a "semi-feudal" mode of production Graeber tries to argue in his book.

Also his proposal of a UBI is laughable. This UBI, so he says, would sove the problem of bullshit jobs, since with financial stability no worker would be inclined to keep a bullshit job, since he does not need the salary of the bullshit job to live. Then again in a capitalist society, why would any capitalist allow for the working class to have financial stability that relieves them from economic pressure of employment and concurrence with other workers that drives wages down?
The solution is not a UBI inside a capitalist system with private ownership of the means of production that guarantees financial stability (as if that would be even possible) but rather the collective organization of production, which compensates workers for the value they produce and not in order to allow them to live.

>>20238875
You called?

>>20224298
Pareto principle

I had some bs job as an “engineer”. I just had to find some bugs in an app by doing tests. Obviously there were hundreds of repetitive tests that I didnt do. I just found a couple bugs before every meeting in around one hour and that was it. The rest I spent it doing something else.

>>20234796
I do some research writing and spending 3-4 hours using all your focus to dig through sources and revise your work is absolutely draining. The best method seems to do all the good work in the early hours and then spend all afternoon fucking around and taking it easy, because once your brain is fried then hacking away at a chapter is basically counter-productive.
Corporate "office work" is totally different, I'm sure. It's likely hours of choosing email headers while engineers try to implement some system that makes things shittier.

>>20226505
If I wanted to live with a bunch of hippie freaks, I'd go join a commune.

>>20225140
Then change the government.

>>20232209
Then change the government.

>>20224298
You haven't read the book, you're just an indoctrinated little capitalist shill.

It's actually funny, we're told the free market fosters competition. It seems most of the competition is for the wagie jobs that suck, because people need work. Jobs like OP's and jobs that are discussed in the book are usually the result of nepotism. This is the real reason they don't have one person on 150k a year, because they are just providing a dole service for the wealthy children of the owning class. He actually mentions in the book how one person wrote a script to automate the job, and was told to not release it or discuss it.

>>20234150
It's actually very funny how you take it as an axiom that business is more important than livelihood. If you read the book, you'd realise that there are currently people who are already paid a dole for doing literally nothing apart from showing up. He collects data and finds many accounts of such people. I fail to see how "redistributing a set amount money to everyone equally" would hurt business any more than "paying hundreds of employees 70k a year to do next to nothing". But hey, maybe I'm just incapable of seeing why it's necessary to pay someone for 8 hours of work when they only do 3...

>leftists
I cringe at the level of political discourse we must endure nowadays. Mass literacy was a mistake.

>>20224297
He's dead. His main field was in anthropological research. I can't believe /lit/ has so many shills these days, just a bunch of retards commenting about something they haven't read, on a board about reading.

>>20240520
It's a shitty pop social science book by a contemporary academic, nobody should read it in the first place.

>>20240610
It’s a little book, but it’s rather important. Like it should have been in a famous socialist quarterly that just doesn’t exist because we’re not allowed to revolt against our gerontocracy.
It’s an important little book.

>>20240625
21st century socialism is merely the boot of the gerontocracy.

>>20238809
Can you share some examples?

>>20240510
>But hey, maybe I'm just incapable of seeing why it's necessary to pay someone for 8 hours of work when they only do 3...
This has been discussed at length in the thread above

>>20224297
what are you doing on lit when you can barely string a coherent sentence together

>>20224240
idk im in stem and I'm working my ass off, staying overtime almost every day

>>20240610
>nobody should read it in the first place.
Obvious paid shill is obvious. You should actually read a book some time

>>20240701
No it hasn't, faggot. If it were,you'd be able to copy paste points that refute what I'm saying. You can't, because I'm correct. If not, show me how I'm incorrect, o mighty Socrates.

>>20240943
socrates despised writing as a medium of communication
he would have crushed your gay alien skull like a walnut

>>20240701

>>20224298
>>20225064
>>20225678
>>20227091
>>20227110
>>20227171
>>20227526 among others.

I just realized you also replied to one of those, in order to broadly label these jobs the result of nepotism and cite an anecdote of automation which has no basis in that context, or in the context of workplace flexibility, or in any context besides... automation. Also, it's a fucking anecdote and means nothing.
The meme nepotism point holds no water, there are way more positions like that than layabout heirs to wealth; maybe one could call it a dole service for the middle class, but you definitely wouldn't.
The only way you could possibly make this claim is conflating pleb-tier bullshit jobs with the sort of sinecures that exist for heirs to wealth at charities and other institutions, or symbolic positions in big companies, but the pleb-tier jobs exponentially outnumber the latter positions, and lumping them together is obviously nonsensical. Unless you were a pleb trying to get out of work, of course.

>le epic snark
grow up you dumb cunt, this isn't r*ddit

>>20240943

>>20224298
>>20225064
>>20225678
>>20227091
>>20227110
>>20227171
>>20227526 among others.

I just realized you also replied to one of those, in order to broadly label these jobs the result of nepotism and cite an anecdote of automation which has no basis in that context, or in the context of workplace flexibility, or in any context besides... automation. Also, it's a fucking anecdote and means nothing.
The meme nepotism point holds no water, there are way more positions like that than layabout heirs to wealth; maybe one could call it a dole service for the middle class, but you definitely wouldn't.
The only way you could possibly make this claim is conflating pleb-tier bullshit jobs with the sort of sinecures that exist for heirs to wealth at charities and other institutions, or symbolic positions in big companies, but the pleb-tier jobs exponentially outnumber the latter positions, and lumping them together is obviously nonsensical. Unless you were a pleb trying to get out of work, of course.

>le epic snark
>probable troll >>20240940
grow up you dumb cunt, this isn't r*ddit

>>20224240
I'm a tech focused attorney that bills by the hour and I still spend 90% of my working life doing nothing. Nobody cares because the clients pay.

>>20225137
The problem with dustiributism is that why would any of the people capable of innovating stick around and not move to a competing country with an alternative economic system if they don't get to see the fruits of their labour?

>>20238516
>but it's never fucking like that.
Except it is

>>20241109
It isn't. Ever. They'd still have closed shops wer wit not for Thatcher.

>>20240636
>Socialism is when the government does stuff
This is Buffalo Bill socialism. The name draped over liberal capitalism

The substance of a job must align with a societal need for it's existence and must also satisfy your disposition. More nuanced jobs that create a break from repetition and offer a constructive way of generating meaning are tailored for intellectuals, whereas most average people who don't have any moral or ontological ambiguity, who simply exist for hedonistic pleasure, are more than comfortable to work just for wealth, albiet a form or structure of production. Life works quite well if you have a good grasp of your own qualities and predilections. There's not much more to say.

>>20225112
Don’t get me wrong, I like distributism, but why are Distributist book covers so fugly?

>>20225112
UBI might be beneficial under a distributist economy. The productive will tolerate the almost-productive getting a check to prop themselves up. They already tolerate it now through corporate welfare. Alaskans tolerate welfare for homesteaders because they are almost self-sufficient and aid tourism. But, under a capitalist economy, people will not tolerate welfare leeches larping as pioneers in the woods when they can’t compete with industrial farms or bring food to market. It would only advance the servile state. UBI just enhances and exaggerates the current economic system it doesn’t revolutionize it.

>>20242467
That's nice but those nuanced jobs require college diplomas and I don't have one. I also live in the states and college isn't free at all here

>>20224409
If you’re going to steal from the grocery store, just take the food they throw out at the end of the day. It’s mostly as fresh and clean as it was in the store.

>>20229232
So the post-scarcity society creates the servile state. Belloc was right again.

>>20242238
I don't know who you're quoting but it's not me

>>20240940
>he thinks that everyone who disagrees with him is paid to shill against some random book by a Harvard activist professor who's dead
/pol/schizo-tier thinking

>>20242657
Your post makes no sense

>>20242667
No, you're just a leftist who doesn't want to deal with the fact that the vast majority of Western leftists take marching orders from oligarch-funded NGOs and support policies that align with the goals of those NGOs. Leftism in the 21st century West is a neutered, toothless dog that gets let off the leash every so often by its masters to be used as a cudgel against the actual working class.

>>20242681
>who doesn't want to deal with
Neutralized idealism isn’t practiced idealism.
Don’t respond to me with anymore of your turd-posts, please.

>>20242700
>still can't deal with it
pathetic.jpg

>>20236207
>if we got infinite energy and perfect AI managing every level of society
Stopped reading there. You're a brainlet and you should already know why.

>>20240670

Definitely.

Example:
I had a coworker who was notoriously difficult to manage. He was very intelligent and worked hard but just couldn't overcome your typical 'office culture'. He would literally come into the office for 1-2 hours and then go work from home (this was pre-COVID). My theory is he had poor social skills and being surrounded by people caused him immense stress. Personally, me and him got along fine. He would often go way over line and insult management during meetings. Constantly complained about basically everything. Petty squabbles on almost any topic he didn't agree on. If you called your code a 'program' he made sure that you knew it was a 'script' and not a program. Stuff like that, constantly. One day I remember he came back to his desk and said, "I think I really pissed off Sara (our manager). She literally just walked out on our one-on-one meeting". At this point our department head would always make rounds every day and make offhand remarks about his constant absence. Nearby departments, who were in-office fulltime, would always give him the stinkeye as he gathered his things and strutted out of the office by 11AM everyday. You could just feel the tension between him and all of the managers.

Then performance reviews came. It was a small department so if they cut him loose it basically meant double work for me and I was already overloaded. I did my review, everything was fine, blah blah. Went back to my desk and it was his turn. I said something to him like, "Good luck, just try not to be too abrasive". I could tell even he was nervous. I just remember sitting there glancing over occasionally to see if I could read the situation through the room window. After about 30 minutes, he exits the room with almost no discernible expression. I said something like, "Please tell me they didn't fire you". He just responds, "Nope, they actually just promoted me".

It was a HUGE 'what the fuck!' moment for me.

(1/2)

>>20242753

Analysis:

Supposedly, he made veiled threats of wiping out the database if he was fired. I assume he posited that since he essentially had complete control over major data infrastructure he could get away with anything....and he was right. It also made me re-evaluate my personal career strategy. I was obvious to me that agreeableness and 'hard work' don't entitle you to promotions. There is also a saying, 'companies never delivery on threats or promises' which I find to be more often true than not. Also there is a saying, 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease' which applies here as well.

Key Lessons:
1) Identify key infrastructure and obtain as much control as possible
2) Management wants to appear omnipotent but often they are very restricted in their ability to terminate employees.
3) Complaining brings to light the dissatisfaction of a worker to management. Maintaining the appearance of the 'diligent worker' will not gain you a promotion or pay raise

Just kind of spit balling here at the end. Feedback welcome.

>>20227526
>But now we've had a mass pandemic, and in all countries the vast majority of furloughed workers just consoomed more superficial material pleasures, and their cope was exposed. Where the fuck is that throng of artists and intellectuals I was promised?
For us living in the real world, the pandemic didn't actually meany anything aside from having to wear a mask in public. We just kept working. But yeah, I guess an entire generation of artists and intellectuals didn't sprout from the ground within the 12 months of covid means you're right, so I guess it's the rat race from here until eternity, no point trying to make things better.

>>20225931
There is a tendency for those types to have traits that correspond with narcissistic personality disorder and other cluster B personality disorders. Hence, you get these mini corporate fiefdoms establishing.

>>20243856
>the Great Resignation isn't real because... it just isn't, okay?!

>>20244079
The recipe is Cluster B + intellectual mediocrity + lack of culture
without the latter two they wouldn't be middle managers and would be fucking up something else instead

>>20225992
Cluster B personalitys mate. They fuck up the whole culture, and their underlings start displaying the same sort of behaviour. Like Boris Johnson, in Britian.

>>20244100
Not sure about 2, but I suppouse it would anchor them going up the food chain. However, you got a lot of cluster B types who get high up into senior management positions based on being very cunning. Then that causes other problems.

>9-5
>tired when you get up
>tired at work
>tired when you get home
>literally don't exist
And yet you have 99% of the population telling you to just suck it up. The other 1% tells you to "just quit your job bro".

>>20244142
Have you tried amplifying your stimulant abuse?

>>20244155
Yeah, I smoke a fat pipe once or twice a week.

>>20244142
why dont you just quit
whats holding you back
who are you beholden to

>>20244084
unemployment's at record low. keep living in fantasyland

>>20224240
I haven't read this but I watched a video summary he did and his solution is for everyone to become nurses or the people who wipe the shit off senile old people's asses or something. I will stick with a boring 6 figure office job thanks.

>>20234150
Higher wages and wealth distribution means that there is more domestic market activity since a dollar in the hands of a worker will almost definitely be spent in his local community while a dollar in the hands of a business owner is way more likely to be spent or straight up invested in foreign countries. A strong middle class is the basis of a thriving economy, since businesses require customers with disposable income in order to establish themselves and prosper. The idea that you can suppress wages indefinitely and increase profits is a naive, zero-sum-game thinking. In reality, higher wages and more diffuse money flow is beneficial to the entire market.

>>20234385
>making the world more reliant on money
As opposed to now when people aren't reliant on money? What are you even trying to say? People require money to pay for the basics of life. This is true whether UBI is in place or not, the difference is with UBI these costs are automatically taken care of because every person is guaranteed to have money flow to the minimum level of need.

>>20236190
>Can't engage with certain influential thinkers
If anyone's opinion should be discarded, you just demonstrated that it's yours

>>20236577
>Any attempt to shift power away from financial elites means communism
You are wrong in your assumptions here. UBI can co-exist with a free and open market. In fact, in every capitalist setting, there needs to be a government which facilitates fair competition, at the very minimum to discourage the use of force directly against one's competition. It's not communism to extend this value of competition to mean every single individual should have the opportunity to succeed and prosper within the market by taxing successful business models and using that money to provide a minimum level for citizens to compete from.

>>20237614
You make several enormous errors in your post. The most glaring being your assumption that UBI is "the lefts way of throwing money at a social problem". One of the most prominent program along the lines of a UBI is Alaska (a republican, right wing) state's oil dividend program where in every citizen living within Alaska is given a check for over $1,000 per year simply for living in Alaska. The Republican who implemented the program stated simply that the money is better placed in the hands of citizens rather than to expand already high profits for oil companies. Second, is the idea that people will simply cease working as soon as their base needs are met. There is ample evidence that this is not the case. The vast majority of people will not be happy at this base level, and will strive to work in order to secure luxuries and be able to afford nights out or expensive vacations. Third, removing shame as a component of receiving the payments is not a drawback, it's a desired feature. Shame is not a very good motivator for a person to better themselves, in fact, it is a depressant more than anything and leads people to become resentful towards the system as a whole as not worth the effort. If people received UBI because everyone does, it removes this animosity towards the wider system and also encourages participation in the economy because it does not risk the person losing the UBI payments if they start earning money, which is huge problem with current welfare programs which function to keep people in poverty because any attempt to better one's condition almost immediately removes the welfare payments, leaving a lot of people WORSE off after taking a job instead of sitting at home on welfare. This is a catastrophic failure of the system which needs to be fixed ASAP and UBI does fix this.

>>20224240
I have worked manual labor too and it felt useless. I spend 8 hours a day doing tasks that a robot night as well do.

>>20237722
>Luke Smith
>good video
Nice one /g/troon

>>20227526
this isn't about offloading all the work on to an accountant or any other such thing. the main thing with ubi is removing the glut of useless time within office and bureaucratic setting. the fluidity of an office is valuable nobody is doubting that, the issue lies with the useless wasted time and captured people. ubi wouldn't remove this function it would reduce the necessary hours the bureaucrats would need to labor. this time would be replaced with other economic activity and work time would be made more efficent . if anything ubi would create greater fluidity into this system as it allows for greater economic activity even if it doesn't perform whatever sublime function you think it would (art or culture or whatever. and like yeah fucking obviously. everyone knows that if you give people slightly more money they won't just become high artists or whatever)

you are right at the end though, cultureless empty life untermensch hollow. the sad part is i know you are in the same boat, everyone is if they are online posting. you are just as souless and of the last man as anyone else. when the camps come you'll say the same thing though, that you are different.

>>20237722
>just buy a homestead
literally an impossibility as a solution for the majority of the economy. if more than 10% of the population did this it wouldn't work.

>>20244142
it's almost like you are a fucking worthless retard nigger and get what you deserve. it's almost like you have nothing of value and letting you loose does more harm than good to everyone so they keep you on a wheel so you can die before you are dead for everyone's good. if you had anything of any monetary value or were actually engaged in your labor this wouldn't happen, you are worthless, this is your life, if you had something the world valued they'd give you surplus and you could escape or you would actually enjoy your time working and not hate what you do but you can't cause you are worthless. live with it forever, marry, reproduce, knowing you are worthless, making more misery, hoping one of them breaks free, look at them watch you die, stare at them in horror as they go nowhere too. live with it or end it.

>>20246011

>>20246069
close your eyes. dream of a better place that will never be, you lost the material game. dream of a better you you failed to make, you lost the game of time. close your eyes, time isn't your enemy it beat you, it's your master now. when it's late and the hours pass close your eyes and dream whatever tiny dream you have. don't think about how even what you want most is so small and empty, that the you and world you want is not only out of reach it's so out of reach you can't even imagine it. just imagine a meadow or an island or some shit.

>>20246079

>>20238875
hi

>>20224240
no, not really. Tremendous drain on our economy. Shame!

>>20224240
Obligatory:
>Graeber's parents, who were in their forties when Graeber was born, were self-taught working-class intellectuals in New York.[6] Graeber's mother, Ruth Rubinstein, had been a garment worker, and played the lead role in the 1930s musical comedy revue Pins & Needles, staged by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.[6][7] Graeber's father Kenneth, who was affiliated with the Youth Communist League in college, participated in the Spanish Revolution in Barcelona and fought in the Spanish Civil War.[8] He later worked as a plate stripper on offset printers.[6] Both his parents were Jewish.[9] Graeber grew up in Penn South, a union-sponsored housing cooperative in Chelsea, Manhattan,[10] described by Business Week magazine as "suffused with radical politics."

I work in engineering and i just wanna say that its really hard to maximize efficiency when doing project shit. Project work is what you call a wicked learning environment. Its hard, and when youre racking your brain and still cant be sure that your efforts are spent well, youre bound to lose motivation and take a break. If you dont, youll end up on a sick leave with a stress diagnosis and look like a super amateur. So ample break time is bound to occur, especially within the workers who last a long time in the business.
I wager engineering isnt unique in being a wicked learning environment.
I just wanna add that as a more positive note to graebers otherwise excellent work.

>>20243020
LARP. He'd just get fired anyway and if anything happened to the database they'd take him to court immediately.

>>20225437
5 seconds effort

https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/fbchecks/satire-south-african-education-minister-didnt-say-food-came-supermarkets-not

>>20246011
>it's almost like
it's almost like you're fresh from reddit

>>20250996
redditors wouldn't use the N-word

I would rather just have yeoman farmer economy with national tariffs.

>>20251002
and build up from there, like eventually guilds and such.

You're also being paid to be available they can't put 40 strait hours of work each week on a workforce b/c it is impossible to run a system that way. but things need to be finished

>>20249606
That explains why he's an anarchist. But anarchism seems so quaint now. It is unfortunate he could not see the macro situation beyond the Manhattan garment industry that influenced him and what the garment indusy is today and why Marxist-Leninism is needed