David Graeber, anthropologist at LSE, recently provided insight into the phenomenon of 'BS jobs' and why we are still not able to work just 3 days a week.
"In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has facilitated ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it..."
Given the choice of more hours of work or leisure time, a rational person would choose the latter right? Yet we have seen a creation of new jobs and industries since the 60's that have relatively little to do with actually producing ice-cream, iPhones, video games, etc. Instead professional, managerial, clerical, sales and service workers have grown from a quarter to three-quarters of total employment. Productive jobs have been mostly automated away, even factoring in the masses in Chinese and Indian factories.
But rather than reducing working hours to free us to pursue pleasurable activities and our own projects, we have seen a ballooning of administrative jobs and industries such as corporate law, human resources, public relations, telemarketing, which keep employees working up to and sometimes over 12 hours a day. Moreover, these in turn spawn ancillary jobs, e.g. late night pizza delivery, dog-walkers, etc) to cater for the needs of all those working so hard at the other ones.
But rather than reducing working hours to free us to pursue pleasurable activities and our own projects, we have seen a ballooning of administrative jobs and industries such as corporate law, human resources, public relations, telemarketing, which keep employees working up to and sometimes over 12 hours a day. Moreover, these in turn spawn ancillary jobs, e.g. late night pizza delivery, dog-walkers, etc) to cater for the needs of all those working so hard at the other ones.
Although basic rent, food and bills feature in the equation, it seems that for a great deal of people, almost any work will do so long as it keeps up an image of being in meaningful employment, therefore not creating any significant gaps in their CV's that they'll face embarrassment in explaining about to future employers. For others, it's about keeping 'in the game' and returning to chosen professions as quickly as possible to avoid the depletion of sector-specific skills and knowledge.
In our society, the more obviously one's work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. Some really productive workers of undeniable social value seem to be relentlessly squeezed and exploited, while a whole lot more are paid a lot to do very little, in positions that identify with the perspectives of the ruling classes (managers, administrators, chief executives). The system we live in has definite merits, having emerged from a century of trial and error, however, it may not have been consciously designed.
It does seem to be an explanation of why, despite technological capabilities, we are not all working 3 to 4 days a week.
