Bullshit Jobs Explained

In this article*, the late David Graeber did an admirable job of explaining how well Bullshit Jobs fit into neoliberal society, but less so in explaining how they come about, or how they actually justify themselves to Capitalists, who are always trying to cut labor costs.

The answer is quite simple: as useless as they may seem to a rational or even just human being, bullshit jobs are part of the strategy-developing, monopoly-protecting, profit-seeking, cost-minimizing, tax-sheltering, regulatory-satisfying, legal interfacing, public relating, and contracting parts of organizations.  The ultimate neoliberal corporation would be in which no other labor costs exist, indeed many of the above categories could be contracted out well (though they still have to be done somewhere) and indeed many organizations are just like this, with perhaps nothing left in house except ultimate executive authority.

All the neoliberal approaches increase the need for these kinds of work.  One egregious example is health insurance (vs national healthcare).  Doctors need large staffs to collect from insurance companies and patients as much as possible, and insurance companies have large staffs to keep payments for services low.  Quite often the complexity of operating a payment for services collection agency motivates doctors to form corporations with other doctors, adding the need for even more bullshit jobs.  None of these kinds of work actually provide or improve healthcare.  Adversarial relationships, competitive relationships, profit seeking, and particularly patent and copyright oriented economies maximize the needs for these kinds of jobs, as do economies with large financial operations--wherever finance is a large part of the economy, as it requires intermediaries, traders, speculators and all their required ancillaries.  Vast ranges of downtown buildings are devoted to holding merely the more centrally required staff.

In most respects, the need for these kinds of work diminishes by 80% or more under socialism.  There still may be competitive local and central interests that require adjudication, but the web of complex and most often adversarial relationships is not required.

Perfect communism would mean no bullshit jobs.

(*David Graeber also wrote a Book Bullshit Jobs which probably spells out better how they come into being.)