That's the crux, isn't it? What kind of "value" are we talking about? The argument doesn't hold unless we start defining this in concrete terms. That's where you'll find that there are many different ways to attribute value. Inevitably, value attributing is inherently human and therefor subjective. "value", such as it is, is a social construct.
Sure, many of the "bullshit jobs" "provide value to employers", but that doesn't invalidate the argument to grant them the moniker "bullshit job".
So, what makes a job a "bullshit job"? Well, the defining criteria would be that they only exist to the benefit of their employer. They don't generate any value as far as the stakeholders of an employer is concerned: clients, customers, members, patrons, patients, visitors, other employees, etc.
Dedicating staff to calm passengers whose bags do not arrive is a clear cost/benefit trade-off as far as the airline is concerned. Clearly, it's cheaper / easier to have staff comfort passengers, then fix the issue in a structural fashion. The example of a "bullshit job" is apt, because the customers of the airline can clearly push through the illusion that the airline would actually care about their luggage.
Context matters as far as public perception is concerned, though. Things are not always that clear cut.
For instance, corporations aren't necessarily "evil" or "good" in binary terms. Their impact on the world tends to be judged in a morally ambivalent fashion. A corporate lawyer may defend not just their employer, but also squarely aligns their convictions / principles with the ambiguous impact their employer may or may not have on the world, for better or worse. Arguably, the tobacco industry has enabled the social mobility of millions of people, and at the same time, their product has caused the death of millions as well. Depending on what moral stance you'd take, it's valid to perceive a corporate lawyer both as a "goon" defending a reprehensible view on the world, as well as a honest employee defending the livelihoods of many. (note: I'm not taking sides here, it's just an example!)
In a complex and ambiguous world, "bullshit jobs" are labelled as such because they are perceived as such through the lens of current morals, values, socio-economic, political, cultural zeitgeist. A corporate lawyer is seen as a "bullshit job" because society accepts the ambivalence in what they do, and why their role is a thing, even though it's role most people feel the world wouldn't have to need in the first place.
> So, what makes a job a "bullshit job"? Well, the defining criteria would be that they only exist to the benefit of their employer.
That makes the definition pretty useless though.
To use an example from the comments, the charcoal maker takes wood and turns it to charcoal, and a blacksmith takes charcoal and turns it into iron.
Okay so two friends organize a charcoal making scheme both doing the same thing making charcoal. They sell to blacksmiths so they are providing them with value so their jobs are not bullshit.
One day a blacksmith asks if one of the friends would make charcoal for him, and he'll pay for what they work, and that friend agrees. The other continues on her own. So now one friend suddenly has a bullshit job despite not doing anything much different, and the other friend's job is not bullshit despite doing almost exactly the same thing as the bullshit job.
I haven't read Bullshit Jobs, but if that really is his definition then it sounds like it's just some unhinged anti-employer rant that fails to understand what value is or how organizations work.
> So, what makes a job a "bullshit job"? Well, the defining criteria would be that they only exist to the benefit of their employer. They don't generate any value as far as the stakeholders of an employer is concerned: clients, customers, members, patrons, patients, visitors, other employees, etc.
Lets not forget the most significant stakeholder from many business's perspectives, investors.
Many of these "bullshit jobs" enable businesses to operate at the scale required for continual economic growth.
Except for very tiny businesses, execs are generally going to be too busy to answer the company phone line or greet guests.
Graeber sees these as inefficiencies, leaning on his experience as an academic lifer, but academia is a very different, if adjacent, market to the capital-driven industrial world.
He seems to miss his own point that so many of these jobs are in the service of ever-increasing economic expectations.
That's the crux, isn't it? What kind of "value" are we talking about? The argument doesn't hold unless we start defining this in concrete terms. That's where you'll find that there are many different ways to attribute value. Inevitably, value attributing is inherently human and therefor subjective. "value", such as it is, is a social construct.
Sure, many of the "bullshit jobs" "provide value to employers", but that doesn't invalidate the argument to grant them the moniker "bullshit job".
So, what makes a job a "bullshit job"? Well, the defining criteria would be that they only exist to the benefit of their employer. They don't generate any value as far as the stakeholders of an employer is concerned: clients, customers, members, patrons, patients, visitors, other employees, etc.
Dedicating staff to calm passengers whose bags do not arrive is a clear cost/benefit trade-off as far as the airline is concerned. Clearly, it's cheaper / easier to have staff comfort passengers, then fix the issue in a structural fashion. The example of a "bullshit job" is apt, because the customers of the airline can clearly push through the illusion that the airline would actually care about their luggage.
Context matters as far as public perception is concerned, though. Things are not always that clear cut.
For instance, corporations aren't necessarily "evil" or "good" in binary terms. Their impact on the world tends to be judged in a morally ambivalent fashion. A corporate lawyer may defend not just their employer, but also squarely aligns their convictions / principles with the ambiguous impact their employer may or may not have on the world, for better or worse. Arguably, the tobacco industry has enabled the social mobility of millions of people, and at the same time, their product has caused the death of millions as well. Depending on what moral stance you'd take, it's valid to perceive a corporate lawyer both as a "goon" defending a reprehensible view on the world, as well as a honest employee defending the livelihoods of many. (note: I'm not taking sides here, it's just an example!)
In a complex and ambiguous world, "bullshit jobs" are labelled as such because they are perceived as such through the lens of current morals, values, socio-economic, political, cultural zeitgeist. A corporate lawyer is seen as a "bullshit job" because society accepts the ambivalence in what they do, and why their role is a thing, even though it's role most people feel the world wouldn't have to need in the first place.