Jacobin Radio: David Graeber on Bullshit Jobs

Jacobin Radio

Jacobin

Socialism, History, News, Left, Jacobin, Alternative, Socialist, Politics

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2018

⏱️ 40 minutes

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Summary

Suzi speaks with David Graeber, whose earlier Debt: the First 5000 years was an international best-seller. From Adbusters to Occupy to the history of debt, Graeber has demonstrated his creative and provocative thinking. He takes on the biggest shibboleth — our very work — in his new book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory.

A recent UK poll found that 37 percent of full-time workers were sure that their jobs made no meaningful contribution to the world. Bullshit jobs are the pointless ones that could be erased — and their absence would hardly be noticed. Graeber points to the ubiquitous administrative layer that has ballooned even as joblessness has grown in the last decade, creating an entire sector in academia, health administration, human resources, public relations, financial services, telemarketing, and the like. Graeber suggests we can move from the "bullshitization" of jobs to caring jobs and a caring society, but is it possible under capitalism?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, this is Jacobin Radio, and I'm Susie Wiseman.
0:07.0	Today we talk to David Graber, he's the International. Jacobin Radio and I'm Susie Weisman.
0:12.5	Today we talk to David Graber,
0:14.3	he's the internationally best-selling author of Death
0:16.8	the first 5,000 years about his brand new
0:19.6	and always provocative book,
0:21.6	Bull shit jobs, a theory.
0:23.4	This is Jacobin Radio and I'm Susie Wiseman and I'm very pleased to have David Graber here for the first time from
0:35.8	Adbusters to Occupy to the history of debt that's debt the first 5,000 years and the utopia
0:42.0	rules as well as books like The Democracy Project and
0:45.4	Direct Action and Ethnography.
0:47.9	David Graber, who's a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics has surprised and illuminated us with his creative
0:56.0	and provocative thinking.
0:58.3	And now he takes on the biggest shibilith of all our very work, and that means our very lives. The book is Bullshid Jobs, a theory and it's just now published by Simon and Schuster.
1:08.8	And in it, Graber points at a lot of things including something dear to my heart or something that is
1:15.2	iniquitous and that is ubiquitous, administrative layer that just keeps growing.
1:20.7	And as David will explain to us, the many jobs that are essentially pointless.
1:27.0	And the book is filled with great anecdotes.
1:29.0	You're going to want to read it.
1:30.0	It is, welcome to Jacobin Radio.
1:32.0	Thanks so much for having me.
1:34.0	So let's just get right down to it.
	...

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