Is Your Job Bullshit?

In this episode of American Socrates, we break down David Graeber’s groundbreaking book Bullshit Jobs and explore why so many modern jobs feel pointless, frustrating, or downright meaningless. From flunkies and goons to box-tickers and taskmasters, we explain each type of “bullshit job” in a way U.S. listeners can relate to. We also dive into the structural forces of capitalism that create these roles, showing why efficiency often produces more work that serves appearances rather than real social value. Along the way, we reflect on alienation, wasted labor, and the paradoxical way meaningless jobs can command high salaries while essential work often goes undervalued. Finally, we offer practical strategies for reclaiming purpose at work, finding meaningful labor, and thinking critically about the systems that shape our jobs. Perfect for anyone who’s ever felt frustrated by their work, this episode combines analysis, humor, and reflection to make sense of the modern workplace and inspire listeners to ask: How can my labor truly matter?

Transcript

[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.]

You show up for work on a Monday morning? Sit down at your desk and spend the first hour filling out a report that no one is ever going to read. Then it's off to a meeting about that report you just filed. Except this time, you're only there to justify why you even made it in the first place. By Friday, you've spent 40 hours doing tasks that if they all vanished tomorrow, the world probably wouldn't even notice. And neither would your bosses. Does that sound familiar to you?

This is the world of the Bullshit job, a term David Graeber coined to describe work that feels completely pointless, not just tedious or stressful, but genuinely unnecessary. Capitalism, which is supposed to reward productivity and efficiency, is actually creating more and more of these jobs as we speak. The more technology and automation reduce the amount of labor needed to produce real goods, the more society invents work that exists only to keep the economy from collapsing but keeping everyone employed. Even stranger, the less meaningful your work, the more money it often seems to command.

Welcome back to American Socrates. I'm your host, Charles M. Rupert.

Fluff roles, managerial oversight, corporate bureaucracy. These can pay far more than jobs that genuinely serve the community, like teaching nursing skilled trades. It's a paradox that feels both absurd and infuriating. So what's going on here? Why does our economy seem to reward nonsense? And why do so many of us spend our lives trapped in tasks that barely matter to anyone?

Today we're going to break down Graeber's arguments. I want to walk through different types of bullshit jobs and ask the big question why are these jobs multiplying and what can we do about it? By the end of the episode, you might look at your own work a little differently, maybe even laugh, maybe even feel outraged. But most importantly, you'll start to see how capitalism itself shapes the work we do and the meaning we find in our lives through our labor, which for many of us is our best and only real value input to our community and our society.

I've mentioned David Graber a few times on this show. He was a writer, a scholar and activist who explained how debt, work and money really shapes our lives. And he identifies five broad categories of bullshit jobs, each distinct but united by one common trait they feel pointless to the person who is doing them.

I'd like to start with this category. Flunkies. Flunkies are positions created purely to make someone else look or feel important. Think of a receptionist whose sole job is to stand by the boss's office door, or an administrative assistant constantly making coffee runs for executives who don't actually need anything to drink. The flunkies labor exists not to produce value for society, but to maintain appearances, a frustration you can probably recognize in offices the world over. Imagine a culture coordinator at a retail store whose main task seems to be putting up cheesy posters in the breakroom, reminding people to smile. While the real work tends to pile up because there's just not enough actual stalkers or something.

Another category that Graber identifies is goons. These are roles that exist primarily to harass or manipulate or compete, often externally, but sometimes internal to a corporation. Corporate lawyers who send aggressive cease and desist letters. Telemarketers, critics, lobbyists, and sometimes even police fall into this category. They often spend their days creating problems that wouldn't exist without their interference in the first place. It's a strange and frustrating paradox, where the work itself generates the demand for more of that type of work. Imagine the brand protection lawyer who spends his entire day suing small Etsy shops for using fonts that vaguely resemble the company logo, or a security guard who's been hired to patrol a parking lot that's always empty, making sure that no one parks in a space that literally never gets used.

The third category that Graber identifies is what he calls duct tapers. These are the ones that constantly are fixing problems that really shouldn't exist in the first place. They patch broken processes. They reconcile mismatched systems. They manage crises caused by inefficient bureaucratic poor planning. A payroll clerk correcting repeated software errors. Or an IT specialist who juggles multiple patchwork solutions fits the mold of a duct taper. Their labor is often necessary only because the system is flawed and in desperate need of revamping. Yet their work feels endless and unrewarding. Imagine a logistics scheduler at a delivery company who spends their shift fixing the routes that were already overly complicated by some sort of computer algorithm that the company they work for didn't design and yet still pays to use. This job could obviously be eliminated if the company just switched software.

Next, there are box tickers who produce reports, metrics, paperwork that exists almost entirely or mainly to satisfy rules or regulatory requirements set down from above, either inside the company or outside of it. This is often appeasing appearances rather than having any kind of real impact. This could be a compliance officer filling out forms that no one reads, or a middle manager somewhere who produces slides that are never going to reach the C-suite because no one really cares. The irony here is clear work that looks important may be utterly meaningless, in effect creating the illusion of productivity or care. Imagine an HR compliance clerk who submits weekly reports to prove that other people are filling out their reports correctly so the company can look compliant to auditors. Again, that job could be eliminated by simply looking at the reports that the people themselves submitted.

Finally, there are what Graber calls task masters, whose main function is to manage others unnecessarily. These are middle managers, project overseers and bureaucrats, and endless chains of command that fall into this kind of group. Their labor is not to contribute directly to the production, but to coordinate or supervise, or even micromanage people who might otherwise manage themselves. Often, the higher they rise, the less meaningful their work tends to become. Imagine a project manager who emails reminders to the team leads to remind staff about tasks that the staff already knows about this while tracking everyone's reminders in a spreadsheet that no one but themselves is going to read. This person could be replaced by a reminder bot or app on your workers phone.

In each case, these roles share a common feature. The worker can often have a sense of futility in their labor. They might be well paid, given prestigious status. Or even be treated as indispensable in the company. They are sometimes whisked off to corporate retreats, or they go to give back days where they volunteer for others in a duct taped attempt to instill meaning into their jobs. Yet the work itself produces little of real value. When taken together, flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers and taskmasters illustrate a striking pattern in modern capitalist economies. As systems become more and more complex and hierarchical.

The work is created not just to satisfy human needs, but to maintain the structures of power themselves. These categories, then, can help us understand not only the absurdity of certain kinds of jobs, but also the broader logic that capitalism uses in order to sustain itself. So let's get down to brass tacks here. Why does all of this pointless work exist? Graber argues that it's not simply laziness or just bad managerial style. It's structural. This isn't a bug in the system. It's necessary to keep the system working as it is currently designed. Modern capitalism produces more than just goods and services. It produces a hierarchy of jobs to keep itself running. The more efficient technology becomes, the less labor we actually need to create things of value. And yet economies can't easily shrink the workforce without causing massive social instability.

Think about it. What would happen if we just laid off, say, a couple of million high-paid jobs in this country? That would have a terrible effect on the amount people could consume. And so it would drive sales down, bucking the whole system, reducing even further jobs and ultimately shrinking the economy. So new positions, often unnecessary ones, are created to soak up some of that surplus labor. Meaning if we eliminate all the positions all at once, we would simply set off one of the greatest economic depressions the world has ever seen. We could eliminate vast storehouses of accumulated wealth and create a social crisis, the length and breadth of which would panic even the greatest of world leaders.

Take Financialisation as an example. Banks, investment firms and corporate offices are packed with roles that primarily exist to shuffle money around rather than produce anything of tangible value. Middle managers, auditors, compliance officers and analysts often spend hours creating reports for or supervising work that doesn't increase any actual output. These jobs may seem important, but their purpose is largely to justify existing structures, to maintain appearances, to protect profits, not to produce social value.

Graber points out that this logic runs so deep it even shapes our politics. President Obama's decision not to push for single-payer health care in the U.S. wasn't just a political compromise with Republicans. It was in part because doing so would have eliminated tens of thousands of high-paid administrative jobs in health insurance companies, roles that added little to no real value, but whose elimination would have disrupted the labor market so dramatically that it would have spawned an immediate political backlash. These positions at these health insurance companies exist purely to support the current health care system, and ultimately do little other than inflate the costs via redundancy. Demonstrating how deeply capitalism intertwines economic necessity with social appearance. 

Other features of capitalist economies further exacerbate this problem. Hierarchy produces layers of oversight. The task masters, whose work is to manage people who could probably better manage themselves if they were only motivated to do so. Bureaucracy demands box tickers to fill endless forms and metrics. Trust me, as a member of a faculty at a university, I deal with these all the time. Little reports that some box ticker somewhere wants to fill out so that they can justify their $60,000 a year salary. Corporate culture elevates flunkies and goons to protect the system and status quo, and to protect people's egos, to maintain appearances, to compete with their rivals. Each of these roles is less about producing value and more about stabilizing a system, a system of status, a system of power and prestige. It's a process Graber calls symbolic labor work that exists to show the organization is functioning, even if it isn't producing the tangible outcomes that it was meant to produce.

The paradox is that the less useful a job is, the more money and resources it often soaks up, and the better it tends to pay. White collar desk jobs usually pay more than teaching nursing or the skilled trades, even though the latter clearly adds real value to society. This isn't an accident, it's the system rewarding growth of bureaucracy. Administration make work because those roles stabilize the economy. Whether or not they make life any better. Once you see this, it reframes the frustration so many workers feel. The absurdity of meaningless jobs isn't actually your fault. It's structural. Pointless jobs are not mistakes.

They're baked right into how capitalism sustains itself, how people can maintain vast hoards of wealth without completely derailing the economy. And this sort of realization can shift what we're thinking so that instead of blaming ourselves for not finding meaning in our work, we can start to ask questions about the system. Why is work organized this way? How could it be organized differently? One of the sharpest stories that Graber tells hits pretty close to home to this idea.

Back in 1970, bank workers in Ireland went on strike. There were no tellers, no clerks, no one clearing deposits for six months. Most of the country didn't even notice. Instead of civilization collapsing without banks, people just kept writing checks to each other. Neighbors, shopkeepers, even the local pub. The system just kept right on rolling. Based on mutual trust and local knowhow. Contrast that with New York City in 1968, when the sanitation workers there went on strike. The garbage piled up fast in the streets. City streets quickly turned into this piles of stinking mess. Rats showed up in even upscale neighborhoods, and the city declared a quick state of emergency in just under two weeks. That strike ended quickly and with the workers getting exactly what they demanded. The difference is clear. One job, you won't really notice if it's gone. You can get along just fine without it. The other one everyone notices very quickly. It is incredibly important and incredibly necessary. But I bet you can guess who makes more money. Bankers or garbagemen?

Graber uses this to explain how capitalism values this sort of fake work over the real stuff. The punchline, then, is that bankers who shuffle money around can disappear and nothing changes. Trash pickers with real hands on people disappear and the whole system begins to smell. That's the meaning behind the term bullshit job. Work that fills no real need and disappears without even a ripple. Let's sum up where we've been so far. We've explored five types of bullshit jobs and the structural forces that create them. 

But it's worth noting that Graeber's argument isn't without its critiques. Some economists and sociologists argue he's kind of overstated the prevalence of meaningless work, or misclassify, as roles that may appear pointless but actually serve some hidden functions. And yes, not every middle manager or auditor is a flunky or a box ticker. Some work genuinely does add value. It helps coordinate large teams of people, making sure that they're all still guided by the same task and the same goals. 

Still, the broader point holds capitalism does produce at least some jobs that often feel unnecessary. And many of the frustrations that workers feel daily are systemic rather than personal failures. Why doesn't capitalism get rid of all these useless jobs? You would think a system built on efficiency would prune all of this dead weight, right? I mean, that's what we're being told about government inefficiency, that if it was just run like a corporation, we wouldn't be inefficient. But that doesn't seem to be true. Corporations seem to be bloated and heavily inefficient. Even when they cut millions of people, they just can't seem to operate without these sorts of jobs.

The key point is that capitalism isn't purely about making things or producing value. It's also about keeping up social and economic systems that keep the rich rich that keep people stable. They keep business continuing the more efficiently. Technology produces goods and services. The fewer people you actually need to create anything of real value. And if we just let all those extra workers go. Society would hit a crisis, right? Mass unemployment. There'd be social unrest. There'd be political chaos. So the system creates positions that may or may not be necessary, but that also absorb surplus labor. It keeps the economy running. Every politician, at least every politician before Trump made creating jobs a priority. I mean, Trump says that he's going to create jobs, but he seems to be really in the business of eliminating jobs.

That's the whole point of Doge. We're going to create more jobs, which should be the tagline for both parties. The idea of eliminating good-paying jobs, whether they were necessary or not, seems like career suicide for politicians. Trump again doesn't seem to care, and we'll see how that all plays out over the next couple of years. But in the meantime, in offices, banks, corporate headquarters and bureaucracies, layers of managers, analysts, auditors, and compliance officers exist less to produce real value and more to justify the structure that exists above them.

Their insurance policies for capitalism. They help maintain appearances. They help grease the wheels, making it look like everyone and everything is busy and important and working that there's just plenty of jobs to be had. Even if the work doesn't change anything on the ground, doesn't create anything of value. One way to think about how to fix this is to step outside the system that Graber critiques.

Enter Rutger Bregman, Dutch historian and author who's written extensively on inequality and labor. He points out that much of the work that people do in offices, corporate bureaucracies and other middle management roles exists not because it's necessary, but because the economy requires people to appear productive. If we could decouple somehow survival from meaningless labor, or really just from labor at all, many of these positions wouldn't need to exist. Period. And that's where an idea like a universal basic income comes in. 

The UBI is simple in its principle. Everyone gets a guaranteed income. Enough to cover at least the basic costs of living, regardless of whether you're employed or not. If survival doesn't depend, then on you punching a clock and some kind of meaningless role, then you are freed up to pursue work that actually matters to you and to your community and your world, to society at large.

Think of nurses, teachers, electricians, tradespeople being empowered to focus on essential work without having to worry about having a side hustle or some sort of administrative busywork, just to make sure that they can afford to pay the rent. Or a young person exploring creative work. Technical innovation or even volunteering their time. Without the constant fear of falling behind economically.

The UBI would also change the power balance at work. If people aren't forced to accept pointless jobs in order to survive. Then companies have to compete in order to attract talent for the meaningful work that they do. They would need to offer fair pay and reasonable work conditions. In other words, it forces the economy to recognize value in real contributions rather than this symbolic labor. When you combine this with other reforms like shorter workweeks or co-ops, or stronger labor protections, this could dramatically reduce the need for bullshit jobs that Graeber has identified, while giving workers the dignity and agency that our current system too often denies them.

But what can you actually do if you feel that your job is pointless? Well, I would recommend that you start small. Take control where you can focus on tasks that actually matter. Help a team mate. Learn something new or fix a process that's actually broken. This may seem kind of minor, but they do reconnect your effort to real results and give you a sense of ownership in a system that usually strips that away. You can ask yourself which parts of my work actually help people and even help me. Which parts instead are just filling out forms or going to endless meetings or keeping up appearances? There's that running joke that this meeting could have been an email. Maybe it's time people started saying that out loud. Seeing the difference is the first step towards taking back some measure of control. You're going to be up against other people who are above you, and who also have bullshit jobs that still need to justify their salary by having things like pointless meetings, filling out surveys that don't matter, and things like that.

So they will push back on you. But it is an idea to get started. You could also try side projects, do some freelance work, or volunteer work where your effort actually produces something of value. Spending your energy on something that matters, even outside your day job, kind of gives you a least a little bit of a restored sense of purpose. Ask yourself if I could build my work from scratch. What would it look like? How could my skills make a real difference to other people? Thinking this way can help spark new ideas and open doors. You didn't know were there. Talk to your coworkers, your friends, your neighbors about the pointless tasks that you see yourself doing. Chances are, they see the things that they're doing as pointless to, and they're frustrated about it. When people notice these patterns together, you start to see the system as a system. You can ask questions like how much of our work exists just to keep up appearances, protect hierarchies, feed someone's ego? Which jobs feel unnecessary and why do they feel unnecessary?These questions help you to see the bigger picture. Instead of blaming yourself for this nonsense and don't stop there,

Graber points out that capitalism creates pointless jobs not because people are lazy, but because the system rewards appearances and hierarchy. So ask yourself, why do we have to tolerate this? How could work be organized to create real value for real people and real communities? What would it take to make meaningful labor the standard, not the exception. Even in a world full of bullshit jobs, your work can still matter. But questioning the system, finding ways to make an impact, taking ownership of your time and your skills. You push back against a system that values nonsense over necessity.

Remember, your frustration isn't a weakness. It's proof that you're awake, that you're paying attention and ready to think for yourself. That's the first step towards work that actually matters, whether in your current job, a new role, or in a future system that puts people before appearances.

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