
Why Capitalism Creates Pointless Jobs - monsieurpng
http://evonomics.com/why-capitalism-creates-pointless-jobs-david-graeber/
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objectivistbrit
'Capitalism' doesn't create jobs. Companies create jobs. Many companies are
badly managed, and employ staff they don't need. This is true. (And only has
one solution - people not taking jobs they think are pointless, and companies
not hiring for those positions).

However, the OP is calling jobs "pointless" based on reference to his ideal
planned economy where everyone works on a factory or farm for 15 hours a week.
In this imaginary utopia, jobs which grease the wheels of capitalism - sales,
marketing, finance - are superfluous.

Thing is, planned economies fail disastorously badly in practice. I assume HN
knows why. The deeper issue is that many capitalistic service businesses do
serve a vital purpose - finance is a hyper-efficient resource allocation
engine, for example, marketing ensures customers find the best products for
their needs, and so on. The managers and administrators the OP reviles are
highly paid precisely because making large organisations efficient (e.g., not
hiring for unneccessary jobs) is hard.

Instead of asking why someone chooses to pay for jobs in these areas, the OP
simply assumes that they need to be abolished, by fiat, and like every
intellectual since Plato starts planning how everyone should live their lives
in his ideal republic.

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gozur88
What nonsense.

Yes, compared to 1910 there are more people in administrative positions, and
this has _nothing to do with capitalism_. It's government. It's because there
are more rules, more laws, more restrictions. Rules, laws, and restrictions,
by the way, that are very popular with voters.

You can do away with all these "bullshit jobs" if you're prepared to do
without environmental restrictions, a nontrivial tax code, employment
regulations, etc. Do we really want to live in the non-rose-tinted world of
1910, where you can legally pipe your toxic wasted into the nearest river,
where you can fire your secretary if she won't sleep with you, where you can
chop down the tree with the last spotted owl?

There's a cost to economic organization. One that you can't just wave away.
The idea a job is a "bullshit job" if the person holding that job isn't
swinging a hammer is just childish.

~~~
scotty79
I could do without nontrivial tax code.

~~~
gozur88
People _say_ that, but most of the complexity in the tax code (that average
people deal with, anyway) is there in an effort to make it more "fair" or to
encourage socially beneficial behavior.

~~~
scotty79
Which fails horribly and instead benefits many antisocial economical
behavioirs. Encouraging "right" activities through convoluted taxation has all
the same qualities as planned economy. Although it's not as harmful because it
affects smaller percentage of economy.

~~~
gozur88
Nonetheless, this is what voters want.

~~~
scotty79
Not really. It's what the representatives think voters won't strongly oppose
to.

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dilemma
Enterprise organizations are like machines: They need to be serviced and
maintained. That is what these "pointless jobs" are for, but they're not
pointless. They're vital for the function of the organization and therefore
essential to the economy. They just aren't fun or well paid, like factory
jobs.

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hammock
(2013). And blogspam. Original: [http://strikemag.org/bullshit-
jobs/](http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/)

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HillaryBriss
A lot of programming jobs turn out to be pointless. Is that what this article
is about? I didn't read it.

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squozzer
I liked the article better when it had the chimp in a suit for its lead
illustration.

