Bullshit job explained

A bullshit job or pseudowork^[1] is meaningless or unnecessary wage labour which the worker is obliged to pretend to have a purpose.^[2] Polling in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands indicates that around 40% of workers consider their job to fit this description.

The concept was coined by anthropologist David Graeber in a 2013 essay in Strike Magazine, On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, and elaborated upon in his 2018 book Bullshit Jobs.^[3]

Graeber also formulated the concept of bullshitization, where previously meaningful work turns into a bullshit job through corporatization, marketization or managerialism.^[4] This has been applied to academia, which Graeber and others contend has been bullshitized by the expansion of managerial roles and administrative work caused by neoliberal educational reforms,^{[5] [6] [7]} contributing to the erosion of academic freedom.^[8]

See also

• Americans with No Abilities Act
• Boondoggle
• Busywork
• Critique of work
• Dilbert principle
• Emotional labour
• Front organization
• Interpassivity
• Make-work job
• McJob
• On Bullshit
• Parkinson's law
• Presenteeism
• Quaternary sector of the economy
• Refusal of work
• Sinecure
• Underemployment
• Vacuum activity
• Workhouse

Further reading

• Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit by Laura Penny

External links

• On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, Strike Magazine (August 2013)
• Graeber, David (2018). Bullshit Jobs, via The Anarchist Library.

Notes and References

1. Book: Fogh Jensen . Anders . Nørmark . Dennis . Pseudowork: How we ended up being busy doing nothing . 2021 . Gyldendal . Copenhagen.
2. Book: Graeber . David . Bullshit Jobs . 2018 . . 10 . 978-1-5011-4331-1.
3. Heller . Nathan . The Bullshit-Job Boom . . 2018-07-06.
4. News: Graeber . David . Are You in a BS Job? In Academe, You're Hardly Alone . . 2018-05-06.
5. Book: Kezar . Adrianna . DePaola . Tom . Scott . Daniel T. . The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University . 2019 . . 978-1-4214-3271-7 . 69–70 . en . Google Books.
6. Book: Maiese . Michelle . Hanna . Robert . The Mind-Body Politic . 2019 . Springer . 978-3-030-19546-5 . 146 . en . Google Books.
7. Delucchi . Michael . Dadzie . Richard B. . Dean . Erik . Pham . Xuan . 2021-06-17 . What's that smell? Bullshit jobs in higher education . Review of Social Economy . 1–22 . 10.1080/00346764.2021.1940255 . 237792077 . 0034-6764. free .
8. Book: Reichman . Henry . The Future of Academic Freedom . 2019 . . 5 . 978-1-4214-2859-8 . en . Google Books.